One of the main arguments that Simpson's defense team made to show that their client was innocent was to suggest that the socks found in Simpson's room, which had his and Nicole's blood on them, were planted by the police. But is it true? Absolutely not, and I will demonstrate why. First, we have to look at what Cochran and Scheck argued. They made several big claims that they believed supported the theory, but each of them has major problems.
1) The black socks were not seen in Willie Ford’s video of OJ’s room. The defense believed that because the socks were not on the video, that the police must have planted them later. This, however, was fully discredited when Fung and Ford acknowledged during the trial that Ford had taped the room AFTER Dennis Fung had collected the sock evidence. The confusion had started as a result of the timer on the video camera being off and rough estimates of their relative times of being in the room, but when both men acknowledged the order that they were in the room, it eroded the defense team’s argument. Not only that, but a defense team witness, Det. Bert Luper, acknowledged that he in fact saw the socks in the room that very morning!
2) Nobody saw the blood on the socks for weeks, and then suddenly there is blood on there, therefore it must have been planted later. Sounds somewhat reasonable, except that when you break down the circumstances of who saw the socks and in what conditions, it just doesn’t hold up. The people who looked at the socks initially weren’t looking carefully at the items, and have testified as to such. Remember, we are talking about dark red blood on a pair of black socks, which might be difficult to see. Even members of OJ’s defense acknowledged this – both Henry Lee and Herbert MacDonell explained that it would have been hard to see under normal lighting (July and August 1995 testimonies). Defense team member Michael Baden wasn’t even allowed to touch or move the socks when they were initially shown to him. On June 29, Yamauchi was with Greg Matheson and Michelle Keslter and they had looked briefly at the socks without noticing any blood. They made a note to inspect them more closely later on, which is exactly what happened on August 4when Yamauchi examined them closely for the first time and found the presence of blood. The socks were then tested by Matheson, and eventually the DOJ. Both Nicole and OJ’s blood were found on them.
3) There was EDTA on the sock. No, there wasn’t. It is a theory that has been debunked for a variety of reasons, but primarily for two. First, the amount of EDTA “found” was in the parts per million or less, and this does not match police vial levels. I stress the word “found” because the liquid chromatography/mass spec testing used could not detect limits in the ppm, which is why the FBI said that the amounts were in “the parts per million or less” - they had to hedge their numbers as to not completely eliminate the possibility. Furthermore, in order to identify the EDTA compound, three ions and a particular ratio have to be found, and the FBI could find only two of these in their test. While the defense team claimed to have found this third ion (132), there are very large problems with their claim (more on this later). Just remember, when Fredic Rieders, the defense team’s forensic specialist, was asked about the EDTA, he actually acknowledged that it was in the parts per million or less. That right there should have effectively ended the debate.
4) The blood soaked through the sock from surface two to surface three, so that means the only way it could have been there is for it to have been placed there. The defense team tried to argue that there was only one way for the blood to get on the third side of the sock, but this just doesn't make sense. The blood could have been transferred by either Nicole's own hand at the crime scene, or by Simpson's own hand when he pinched surface 2 next to surface 3 when he took the sock off. Or maybe when the socks were dropped on the floor, surface 2 was left in contact with surface 3. Or another explanation could be that in the course of the phenolphthalein test, the blood on the sock was rewetted with a swab and the manipulation of the swab over the sock caused the transfer of small amounts of blood. The list goes on, and the defense team never effectively excluded these possibilities. I would recommend Rod Englert's book "Blood Secrets". He was a part of the DOJ who personally analyzed the socks. He was very clear that the stains were medium-velocity impact stains and it would be incredibly difficult to plant those stains the way the defense team suggested. The stains were also consistent with the splash marks on Ron Goldman's pant cuffs (meaning they occurred when OJ was stepping through the puddles of blood and it was splashing on the socks). When a blood spatter expert analyzes the evidence and is adamant that the stains did not appear planted, I think we should listen.
5) But Detective Vannatter had carried the vial blood to Rockingham that day instead of booking it at the Parker Center! He did so to not disrupt Fung’s Divisional Record (DR) inventorying system, and Fung has confirmed this. But there is a bigger problem with this scenario. The defense team argued that there was no blood on the sock for weeks after it was collected...so why would it be relevant that Vannatter brought the vial to Rockingham? According to the defense, there was no blood on the sock at that point anyway!
6) Nicole's blood must have been degraded on the sock, right? Nope! Nicole's blood on OJ's sock was fresher than her blood in her reference vial. Dr. Robin Cotton found that the autopsy vial contained the more degraded blood, and it is obviously impossible for degraded blood to become fresh again. So where did the blood on the sock come from? Obviously it came from the crime scene.
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