O. J. Simpson

O.J. Simpson, who ran to fame on the football field, made fortunes as an all-American in movies, television and advertising, and was acquitted of killing his former wife and her friend in a 1995 trial in Los Angeles that mesmerized the nation, died of cancer on Wednesday at his home in Las Vegas. He was 76. Simpson and his wife Nicole divorced in 1992. On June 12, 1994, Ms. Simpson, 35, and Ron Goldman, 25, were attacked outside her condominium in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, not far from Mr. Simpson’s estate. She was nearly decapitated, and Mr. Goldman was slashed to death. The ensuing trial lasted nine months. Simpson's defense team included the “dream team” of Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., F. Lee Bailey, Alan M. Dershowitz, Barry Scheck and Robert L. Shapiro. In the end, it was the defense that had the overwhelming case, with many grounds for reasonable doubt. was released after 474 days in custody, but his ordeal was hardly over. Much of the case was resurrected for the civil suit by the Goldman and Brown families. Simpson was found culpable in a civil case and awarded the families $33.5 million in damages. Simpson had spent large sums for his criminal defense. Records submitted in the murder trial showed his net worth at about $11 million, and people with knowledge of the case said he had only $3.5 million afterward. He regained custody of the children he had with Ms. Simpson, and in 2000 he moved to Florida. His pensions from the N.F.L., the Screen Actors Guild and other sources, totaled about $400,000 a year. Florida laws protect a home and pension income from seizure to satisfy court judgments. Debt to the murder victims’ families grew with interest to $38 million by 2006. Simpson was accused of raiding a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007 with five other men, most of them convicted criminals and two armed with guns, to steal a trove of sports memorabilia from a pair of collectible dealers. A jury found him guilty of armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, conspiracy, coercion and other charges. and Simpson was sentenced to a minimum of nine years in prison. He remained in custody until Oct. 1, 2017, when the parole board unanimously granted him parole when he became eligible. Simpson moved into the Las Vegas country club home of a wealthy friend, James Barnett, and remained in the area. . Questions about his guilt or innocence in the murders of his former wife and Ron Goldman never went away. In 1967, Simpson married his high school sweetheart, Marguerite Whitley. The couple had three children, Arnelle, Jason and Aaren. Shortly after their divorce in 1979, Aaren, 23 months old, fell into a swimming pool at home and died a week later. Simpson married Nicole Brown in 1985; the couple had a daughter, Sydney, and a son, Justin. He is survived by Arnelle, Jason, Sydney and Justin Simpson and three grandchildren