Convicted Felon Dies of Cancer

O.J. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76.   The family announced on Simpson's official X account — formerly Twitter — that Simpson died Wednesday after battling cancer. Simpson's attorney confirmed to TMZ he died in Las Vegas.

Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.  Live TV coverage of his arrest after a famous slow-speed chase marked a stunning fall from grace for the sports hero.

The public was mesmerized by his “trial of the century” on live TV. His case sparked debates on race, gender, domestic abuse, celebrity justice and police misconduct.  A criminal court jury found him not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to family members of Brown and Goldman.

Twelve years later, following an outpouring of public outrage, Rupert Murdoch cancelled a planned book by the News Corp-owned HarperCollins in which Simpson offered his hypothetical account of the killings. It was to be titled, “If I Did It.”   Goldman’s family, still doggedly pursuing the multimillion-dollar wrongful death judgment, won control of the manuscript. They retitled the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.”

Shortly after he lost his book deal, Simpson led five men he barely knew into a confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room. Two men with Simpson had guns. A jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery and other felonies.  Imprisoned at age 61, he served nine years in a remote northern Nevada prison, including a stint as a gym janitor. He was not contrite when he was released on parole in October 2017. The parole board heard him insist yet again that he was only trying to retrieve sports memorabilia and family heirlooms stolen from him after his criminal trial in Los Angeles.

The Heisman Trophy Trust, who made Reggie Bush return his trophy for receiving "improper benefits", decided to post a tribute to Simpson on its X account.  The move was widely condemned on social media.  An attorney for the Goldman family said that Simpson still owed the Goldmans more than $114 million at the time of  his death.