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Chapter
27: THE SCIENCE OF REASON
"SYLLOGISM? THAT DON’T EVEN SOUND RIGHT!" —Anonymous 12th grade logic
student, Detroit, Michigan, 1964
What passes for logic in almost any group discussion is as likely as
not to be an unreasonable facsimile thereof. That’s because most people who see
themselves as being outstanding logicians wouldn’t know a red herring from a guppy.
It would be helpful to keep that in mind when considering how popular opinion was shaped
in the O.J. Simpson case.
The closest thing to what happened there is what happens during a
Presidential election campaign. In a neat little book called, The People’s Choice,
published in 1946, researchers Lazzersfield, Barrelson and Gaudit showed that voters make
up their minds largely according to the ethnic, economic, religious and regional groups
they identify with, and the positions of opinion leaders drawn from those groups.
Regardless of the issues, it was possible for the researchers to create an Index of
Political Predispositions (IPP) comprised of group affiliations and little else to help
them predict within an 8 % margin of error how people would choose their next President.
What the campaign did was arouse their IPP and supply them with arguments to justify the
decision they had already made.
An OJG will tell you that O.J. must be guilty because of all the
evidence that says he is. Put in a form which can be diagrammed and studied systematically
for flaws in reasoning, it will look something like this: All of the evidence of guilt
points to one man. O.J. Simpson is that man. Therefore he must be guilty. They think
that’s logical. It isn’t.
Remember the big "Dewey Wins," newspaper headline of 1948,
displayed for the camera by a grinning Harry S. Truman? Remember why the pollsters and the
publisher got it wrong? They extrapolated from insufficient data. Counting only the
projected votes for Dewey, they reached their conclusion without considering the potential
votes for Truman.
I learned in an experimental high school English class that the Greek
philosopher Aristotle invented the modern rules of logic to systematize the process of
rational thinking. He figured that the innate capacity of humans to reason wisely and the
equal capacity to reason foolishly could be reduced to three distinct, but unbroken
components, like the straight lines of a triangle and the points of contact that glue them
together.
If you call the first side of the proposition your major premise and
the second side your minor premise, the side you have to infer from the other two at their
points of contact is your conclusion. That’s a syllogism, a three-sided tool by which
you can study any logical proposition and see whether your conclusion holds water. If your
major and minor premise is correct, your conclusion will be, too. If either is incorrect
there is no rational way you can judge the soundness of your conclusion.
The syllogism tells you where you may have gone wrong by allowing you
to see all the things that could go wrong—the "fallacies" we are all
subject to if we’re not careful. You can find the circular argument, false
identification, false analogy, and false premise. You can also find the extrapolation from
insufficient data, the ad hoc quoque, the ad hominem, the
overgeneralization, the non sequitur and the ever-popular red herring.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that all of these detours, convolutions or
trap doors in the reasoning process have one thing in common, a premature decision about
the significance of available information. You can say, "All golf balls are hard,
dimpled and fit in the palm of your hand (major premise)." Then you can add,
"This hard ball in my palm has dimples (minor premise)." If you stop there, you
might conclude that a peach pit is a golf ball.
It may be hard and small and have roughly the same shape as a certain
kind of ball that isn’t shaped like a ball, but that’s not enough. A golf ball
is an artificial sphere designed to function within the rules of a game called golf. If
the object in hand doesn’t have that much in common with a golf ball, dimples or no
dimples, it cannot be one.
So much in the Simpson case is like the peach pit some folks have
decided must be a golf ball. Are you blind? they demand. Don’t you see the
dimples? Don’t you know that all golf balls have dimples? Don’t you know
this object was seen in the hands of 16 pro golfers? Count’em, 16 pros! Are you
saying they were all a part of some conspiracy? And what about all the photographs of this
small, hard object being struck by a 5 iron? Explain that one! When are you people going
to look at the evidence?
Either O.J. was framed or he wasn’t. There
are constants that go with the truth and constants that go with the mere appearance of
truth that can tell us, absolutely, which it was. Here’s a variation of a famous
truth-teller/liar conundrum, which illustrates the principle:
A man steps off a train in Supposition Indiana, a bizarre little town
where every man looks like every other man and every woman looks like every other woman.
As strange as that is, the people of Supposition have another characteristic that sets
them apart. Half of them always tell the truth and the other half always lie.
The traveler, seeking to learn more about the town, asks the first
citizen he sees, "Are you a truth-teller or a liar?"
The stranger doesn’t hear the reply, so he asks another citizen,
"What did she say?"
The second citizen answers, "She said she was a truth-teller. By
the way, so am I."
A male citizen interjects, "They’re both liars. I’m a
truth-teller."
Who was lying and who was telling the truth?
....Actually, this is not much different from the peach pit and the
golf ball. Take all the known elements and put them together in a way that they all fit
snugly, the way you would a jigsaw puzzle, and you’ve got your answer. You know that
truth-tellers always tell the truth and liars always lie. From these two
pieces of information you get something new: That is, you know what the first woman said
regardless of who may have heard it because a truth-teller and a liar would have given the
same answer. Now you have two more pieces of information that tell you something new: The
first person must have said she was a truth-teller whether she was or not. Since the
second woman confirmed it, both women must be truth-tellers and the man must be a liar.
Our traveler, an ordinary businessman, rides on to Chicago and checks
into the Hyatt Regency hotel late at night for an informal, two-day seminar starting early
the next morning. He unpacks his bags. Then he curses. He does all the things he can think
of to be ready for the seminar. The next morning, before he hurries to the meeting room in
his wrinkled shirt and pants, he irons his socks.
Why did he iron his socks?
If you haven’t tackled many problems like this, let me warn you
that the first step is a doozy. Don’t assume that the man cursed without good cause
or that an iron has only the use it was made for. Intelligence won’t help if you
plant your lead foot in wet cement. That’s what most people do and where they stay,
stretching only for the conclusions that can be reached from that point. Even this
super-easy problem was insoluble to the first 7 super-bright people I tried it on who did
just that. To solve a complex logic problem you have to keep moving, trying out new
scenarios, asking yourself, If this is true, then what must follow? You have to
appreciate the fact that making suppositions that don’t pan out and understanding
where you went wrong are part of the truth-seeking process.
Logic problems all have a constant, like a jigsaw puzzle’s perfect
fit, against which various suppositions can be tested. If it don’t fit, it ain’t
it. Jigsaw puzzles, by the way, are logic problems, and a perfect analogy for how any
complex logic problem is solved:
The goal is to assemble the pieces (the clues) in such a way that they
match the picture on the box (the truth). To do that the boundaries of each piece have to
mesh both physically and artistically with perfect continuity. Where one piece has a
protrusion (O.J.’s Bronco) the matching piece must have a socket (Fuhrman’s
Scout). Sometimes a box with a picture of a clown on a tightrope has all the pieces of a
sailboat off the shore of a woodland. Sometimes a few thick pieces from one puzzle will
find their way into a box of thin pieces, or some pieces will fall off the table and get
lost. You work on different sections simultaneously, starting with the four borders which
you know have one straight edge (a standard clock, an accurate map, known relationships,
the laws of physics, the state of technology, etc). You won’t know what you can make
of the pieces you have until you have turned them face up (looked at all the evidence) and
put all the pieces you can wherever you can put them (tested various scenarios until you
find matching patterns).
Normally, you can infer the solution to a mystery and know that your
answer is correct by the irrefutable logic that supports it. Things don’t just
happen; they happen for reasons that conform to the laws of nature or the special nature
of a given environment.
The reason you know what any citizen of Supposition Indiana would
have said if asked whether he or she was a truth-teller or a liar is because
the hypothetical question you ask enables you to use a fact which always applies.
That is, neither truth-tellers nor liars are capable of saying they are liars. By the same
token, you know that the traveler who unpacked his bags in the Chicago hotel cursed for a
reason. What reason is consistent with everything else you know about his reason for being
in that hotel? Could it have something to do with his clothes? Could it have something to
do with clothes he forgot to pack? Could he have forgotten to bring clean socks? How do
you get clean socks to wear in the morning when the only ones you have are dirty? Would
you wash them? What would you do if you miscalculated how long they would take to air dry?
Simple, right? But how simple would it have been if the problems had
been framed in such a way that scores of false clues were planted up front and you had to
dig through a hundred pages of text to figure out what was relevant? What if the problem
of the ironed socks leaned on one or two red herrings pretty heavily, such as the
businessman’s documented belief in magical elves? What if it left out a relevant fact
or two like how old he was when he held that belief? What if I had added a few extra
layers to the story of Supposition and framed it so that 4 or 5 men could be positively
identified as liars; who would figure that 75% of Supposition’s liars were women?
Planting false clues in a logic problem works against most people because false clues are
designed to arouse predispositions and to be easy for most people to find quickly.
Separating false clues from true ones in a murder case is no different.
You have to do it indirectly and reserve judgment until all the relevant information is
in. Truth is like a 3-D object, with depth, substance and weight. It may be difficult to
see, hear, smell, taste or feel at any given time or from any given perspective, but
it’s all there. Given enough facts, you can find it. A planted clue might appear to
be the real thing at first sight, but it is, by definition, supposed to. However, it is
without substance. When you compare it to the constants of physics, biology and
mathematics, the way you can with the blood evidence at Bundy and Rockingham, the weight
of truth comes down decisively on the side of a frame.
Here is a conundrum for you from real life—and real death. Once
again, you will have to reserve judgment until all the facts are in and test all
possibilities until you find one that fits all of the facts:
Police find the body of a man and a woman in the small, confined front
yard of a condominium. The gate is wide open. The man sits on the dirt with his back
propped against a tree trunk and his feet facing the walk. The woman lies on the walk on
her left side at the base of the stairs facing the gate line less than two feet away. The
walk is only four and a half feet wide. Blood covers most of the area between the woman's
neck and the gate line. Both victims have suffered multiple cut and stab wounds. They have
also suffered one blunt force injury each to the upper part of the head behind the ear.
His is on the left. Hers is on the right.
Experts agree that more than one kind of knife could have caused the
sharp force injuries, but only one assailant could have inflicted all of them. So much
blood covers the walk that the killer could not have avoided stepping in it. Well-defined,
bloody, size 12 shoeprints lead west to the back gate. Other bloody imprints near the body
can be identified only as the "possible" shoeprints of someone with smaller
feet. These imprints are so hard to detect that some experts doubt that they are
shoeprints. A preponderance of evidence says they are. A dog's bloody pawprints lead south
down the street.
Earlier that night a witness heard a dog near the gate beginning to
bark hysterically. It continued to bark hysterically for five minutes, paused briefly and
another dog who could see the gate began to bark. Immediately thereafter, the witness
heard a man call out in a clear voice, "Hey! Hey! Hey!" The next thing he heard
was a man with an older, deeper-sounding voice reply in an angry tone, then 15-20 seconds
of arguing back and fourth with both men speaking very quickly. He couldn't tell what they
were saying because the dogs were barking too loud. He didn't recognize either voice.
An 8-year-old girl who heard the men arguing did not recognize their
voices, either. She was thoroughly familiar with the voice of the dead man and the
celebrity, her father, who was accused of killing him.
Four questions: 1) Can you logically infer from this information that
the killer might have been someone who wanted to leave the clear, bloody shoeprints
behind? 2) What caused the second dog to bark? 3)Who said, "Hey! Hey! Hey!," the
male victim, the killer or someone else? 4) Why did he say it?
Two hints: 1) A silent double kill that begins with a sharp blow to the
head of each victim leaves them unable to say anything in a clear voice. 2) Five minutes
of waiting in a car on the street for a big, strong, knife-wielding, ex-marine to make a
kill, is four and a half minutes too long.
These are facts.
When you don’t have enough facts to reach a definitive conclusion,
you have to play the odds. But, if they’re high enough, like the odds of an honest,
high-stakes poker player dealing his opponents four of a kind and himself a royal flush 5
times in a row, you know that something other than chance is at work. The cards never
fall that way by accident. There is no such thing as luck like that.
Subj: Re: Lucky accidents
Date: 97-03-31 21:05:50 EST
From: Maggie
To: Trooper
Trooper— ...As for the raccoon, you have never heard a raccoon (which my
California friend says they do have them in CA) fall onto a garbage box. Sounds like
someone breaking into the house. (I sure didn’t sleep that night.)
So...a raccoon or a big house cat falling off the roof—Thump one—the back
paws hit the air conditioner
Thump two - the front paws hit the air conditioner
Thump three - the animal scrambles to stay on the air conditioner, which
isn’t big enough and so, falls off.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Talk later!!!! —Maggie
P.S. Thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s always nice to hear good news.
—Maggie
Trooper wrote:
Hi Maggie— ...By the quality of your work, I wouldn’t have thought that you
would ever feel the need for a vote of confidence. I guess we all do from time to time.
I live in Detroit, a short tunnel ride from Windsor (which explains why I am so fluent
in Canadian and Tiger isn’t), but my fiancee lives in Ontario, California, which
isn’t that far from Brentwood. We have big city raccoons just like you do. I imagine
Linda does, too. I’ll ask her for you. But given the height of the fence and the
direction of the sound, I don’t see how any animal of the two or four-legged variety
could have accidentally banged into the wall or the air conditioner once, let alone three
times. Such an accident on the night of the murders in the improbable area were the bloody
matching glove was "found," by an improbable cop, makes it much more unlikely to
me. It’s a matter of compounding improbabilities.
One set of coinciding improbabilities is a run-of-the-mill coincidence. Things like
that happen rarely, but they do happen. Two sets, is a hell of a coincidence. Things like
that happen very, very rarely. A coincidence flowing from a coincidence which flows from
another coincidence is a plan. Things like that don’t happen without a hell of a
planner. I have wondered about those thumps from the beginning and couldn’t make them
work with any OJG or OJI scenario without a highly intelligent killer who knew exactly
what he was doing...
What would you say the random chances are that the thumps would happen where they
happened accidentally, regardless of who or what caused it? When things like that happen,
they’re called luck—good or bad, depending on your point of view. A detective
could have gotten lucky at OJ’s place on the 12th of June, 1994.
Now, what are the odds that a virulent racist who wanted to be at the center of the
case but wasn’t on call that night, would have the good luck to get the call and be
the detective who got lucky?
Remember what you said about the evidence at OJ’s Rockingham estate having no
necessary connection to OJ’s guilt when it was "found" without a search
warrant? Was it lucky that the lab results turned out the way they did? I don’t think
that luck had anything to do with it. —Trooper1
Getting an OJI to see the thumps as a contrived event is like
getting an OJG to see the same thing about "O.J.’s" blood-drops at Bundy.
Pat McKinna was sure that Fuhrman would have left the glove in the Bronco had it not been
for that noise. He didn’t know the story of the stick at the time. Therefore, he
couldn’t have known how the stick outside of the gate and the glove inside would have
given Fuhrman stepping stones to the murder weapon if he and Roberts hadn’t come up
empty on the Stiletto and the Swiss Army knife. Only the thumps could have done all of the
things required to tie that story together.
Christine— I agree with you that the noise could have been golf balls for all the
reasons you say [Editor’s note: No, it couldn’t have been; the chipping was
done on the front lawn]. I also agree that they could have been a raccoon or another
large animal for all the reasons Maggie says [Editor’s note: No, it couldn’t
have been; Rosa Lopez and Rachel Ferrara would have heard it]. Another scenario I
heard was that it could have been the air conditioner itself throwing a tantrum as they
sometimes do [Editor’s note: Not likely on that cool night. The air conditioner
had to have been on, shut itself off and started up again]. The point is, they could
have been a number of other things, and you can make a reasonable case for all of them
which lets Fuhrman off the hook for murder.
That was the point I was trying to make about lucky accidents. IF the thumping noise
was a coincidental event unassociated with a man making direct physical contact in the
area described, it was a lucky accident for Fuhrman. It gave him not only the excuse he
needed to go where he could claim to have found the glove, but to confuse the issue of
when the glove might have been planted. It gave him his alibi with the OJI’s. If
they’re looking at that, they’re not looking at him as the killer...
By arranging to be alone out of sight for as long as he was, he gave the OJI’s
everything they needed to be convinced that he planted the glove at that time [Editor’s
note: It was Roberts]. It would have been smart and safe. There is no way the defense
could prove it, but if they believed it, they would also have to believe that the killer
was someone else. Fuhrman had to be awfully lucky to be able to put himself in that
position.
How lucky can a man get? —Jasper
Subj: Re: Lucky accidents
Date: 97-04-01 10:07:15 EST
From: Kim
To: Trooper
Trooper— If someone were thumping their head on an air conditioner in the dark,
would they not have a knot on their head? Or at least a scratch? May the forces of evil
become confused on the way to your house. —Kim
Hi Guys— Well after watching Court TV yesterday, I have another question. The
blood-drops led directly from the Bronco and in the front door at Rockingham. That was
said by none other than Phillip Vannatter. What did that dumb OJ do? He must have gone
around back first—jumped over the fence, hit that stupid air conditioner once, then
hit it again and again. Then dropped the glove. He would then have to go back to the
Bronco, drive around to the front and drip blood from the car into the front door. It
makes absolutely no sense. I knew all these things at the time but it’s good to have
my memory refreshed. The only problem is, it makes me have more and more questions and
there are no answers. Well enough for now —Pat (Crowe)
Pat— There are quite a few things that don’t jive...do they... if we go one
way and say okay...then there is something that makes us back up and go another
direction...
I think the thing to do is "jump." —Chameleon
Subj: Re: That’s why I’ve been saying...
Date: 97-04-04 12:43:22 EST
From: Trille (Christine Armas)
To: Pat
CC: Maggie, Trooper, Hhhana, Peggy, Dable, Chameleon , Kim, Connie, Rabne, Ted
Hi guys— First, those questions are more or less the same ones I have and all
clear-thinking people SHOULD HAVE! How can people say the case against OJ is so strong
without answering those questions? A case can’t be solved if there are so many
unsolved questions, especially ones that are so baffling and demonstrate a total lack of
proper police investigation.
It is very apparent that there was no real investigation of the murders after the cops
went to Rockingham and left other cops at Bundy with no power or authority to do an
investigation or gather evidence. Ergo, the police had decided long before going to
Rockingham that OJ was guilty and everything done after that was to further that belief.
No other evidence, no matter how strong or strange was investigated. It seems that the
ice cream, bath water, candles, etc. doesn’t prove anything for or against OJ, but
should still have been investigated. If nothing else to find out when the killings
occurred.
It seems the cops were afraid to do anything that could find out truths. I wonder,
though, if there was an investigation and we just haven’t been told? Were the ice
cream and candles tested or ignored? The cops acted like those items were nonsense, that
they meant nothing and we were fools for even asking.... —Trille
Subj: That’s why I’ve been saying...
Date: Thursday, April 03, 1997
From: Patricia Whetham
To: Maggie
CC: Trille, Trooper, Hhhana, Peggy, Dianne, Chameleon, Kim, Connie, Rabne, Ted
Maggie— I have a whole list of questions and I haven’t finished yet. Some of
the others are:
Why did Kato Kaelin plead the Fifth amendment when he first went before the Grand Jury [Editor’s
note: His lawyer’s advice]?
Why did the blood-drops at Rockingham go from the Bronco right to the front door
[Editor’s note: They didn’t. See Chapter 30, "Blood Trails"]?
How then did the glove get into the alley? [Editor’s note: Roberts brought it
around from the back—where Fuhrman said the cobwebs were]?
Why did Lange and Vannatter make Arnelle enter the house first if the police were
worried about there being victims etc. at Rockingham [Editor’s note: self-evident;
they lied]?
Why did they not search the upstairs of the house [Answer: Fuhrman and Roberts did
search upstairs. They were the ones who "found" the "bloody" socks and
empty Swiss Army knife box]?
Why did no one come forward who sold OJ Bruno Magli shoes [Answer: Sam Poser, the
Bloomingdale’s supervisor in New York City who did not sell them to O.J.
because he thought they would be inappropriate for his upcoming trip to Buffalo, did come
forward. The question is, why would he even think of selling O.J. those shoes? ...Because
he knew O.J. wore semi-dress shoes that looked similar to them]?
Why was the melting ice cream that Officer Riske saw not investigated [Answer:
Unknown]?
How long does ice cream take to melt [Answer: Unknown]?
Who was Nicole expecting [Answer: Ron Goldman]?
Was the bath water still warm [Answer: It had drained away]?
How far down were the candles burned [Answer: Unknown]?
Who called Nicole (her best friend as the kids said) and made her cry [Answer: Faye
Resnick] just before she was murdered?
Where was Mark Fuhrman the night of the murders? [Answer: When he wasn’t at 875
South Bundy, he was home in Redound Beach, within 20 minutes striking distance of 875
South Bundy].
The prosecution knew about Fuhrman’s background—why did they not use Brad
Roberts, his partner, instead, on the witness stand [Answer: Because they were afraid
Robert Heidstra would recognize his voice]?
Were Fuhrman or Roberts on the Christopher Commission’s list of bad cops [Answer:
Fuhrman was one complaint short. Not all complaints were kept on file]?
How did Faye Resnick get the money she spent on drugs [Answer: Unknown]? She
told Geraldo she had a $20 a day habit. They don’t put you in rehab for a $20 a day
habit.
If OJ was guilty, why did he talk to the police without a lawyer present? And why did
his lawyer let him [Answer: Lange and Vannatter gave both O.J. and his attorney the
impression that O.J. was not a suspect because he was in Chicago at the time of the
killing. They thought his questioning was a mere formality because of his relationship to
one of the victims]?
Nicole was apparently hit on the head hard enough to cause a brain injury. What with [Answer:
The bruise on her scalp matched the butt end of a German Stiletto]? Why was nothing
found [Answer: No one searched where the killer might have left it in Redondo Beach]?
These are only some of the questions.
I’ll think of more. —Pat (Crowe)
Kim— In a message dated 97-04-01 10:07:15 EST, you write:
"Jasper—If someone were thumping their head on an air conditioner in the
dark, would they not have a knot on their head? Or at least a scratch?"
Maybe OJ had a spare knit cap with a football helmet underneath. Maybe he did it three
times because he couldn’t believe how stupid it was to do it once. No? Just a
thought. It’s hard to think like an OJG, isn’t it? —Jasper
Jasper— Hearing it put that way...it is very hard thinking that way, he, he, he.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. —Kim
Subj: Re: Lucky accidents
Date: 97-04-01 23:13:36 EST
From: Trooper173
To: Maggie
CC: Jaguar, Hhhana, Pat, Peggy, Trille, Dable (Dianne), Chameleon, Kim, Connie, Rabne,
Ted, Trooper173
Hi Maggie— If you scroll down you’ll see that I numbered the items I’m
responding to. Let me take them in reverse order:
5) As I said in my letter to you and Trille, the thumps could have been golf balls, as
Trille hypothesized, or a falling animal as you suggested. But I have reasons for thinking
they were neither. The first reason has to do with pure chance. The rules governing
probability say it isn’t likely that the SERIES OF EVENTS leading to Fuhrman’s
"finding" of the glove happened by accident. The thumps were the last element in
the series that began with the call from Fuhrman’s "good friend" Ron
Phillips. Also, in the case of the golf balls, the interval between thumps was too short
(even if three balls had been teed-up in a row) and Kato said that the impact was so hard
it "shook the room." Shortly after he heard the noise he went to see what it was
and met OJ who had no idea what it was.
(4) In the case of the raccoon, yes, I know what kind of racket they can make. The
pacing of the thumps was too spread out. It wasn’t Thump! Thump! Thump! It was Thump!
...Thump! ...Thump! There is no leaping, throwing or falling flight path that could make
that heavy a sound and that hard an impact without being perceived as a jumble of sounds
or one big one. Furthermore, when Marcia Clark asked Kato to reproduce the pacing of the
sounds as closely as he could, the raps he made were fairly rhythmic and evenly spaced.
Allowing for normal distortions in memory, all things combined add up to an intentional,
man-made event.
Sure, there are circumstances you can imagine if you put your mind to it that would
make the golf balls or the falling raccoon or the stumbling OJ more plausible. But
whatever you came up with would be highly improbable and therefore much luckier for
Fuhrman.
3) The purple-top test tubes are coated with EDTA. That’s how they come.
"Clean" blood might be extracted from the center of the sample if it hasn’t
been agitated. But I would think that a trained nurse would shake the tube as a matter of
course to allow the preservative to work. There is room for hanky-panky here, but it
isn’t necessary in order to explain why the drops next to the Bruno Maglis were
falsely identified as OJ’s.
2) As you pointed out, the spots might have been as much as six months old, and the
shoe prints could have been carefully placed in such a way that they appeared on the left
side. If the killer knew Nicole, he could have learned that the blood was OJ’s and
used that knowledge to his advantage when he (or a friend, or a surveillance camera) saw
that he’d cut himself. If not, he could have dripped his victims’ blood next to
the shoe print and switched blood samples in the lab. The Bundy drops next to the left
shoe prints were not tested for EDTA.
1) There was no evidence that anyone got any farther along the path between the fence
and the house than where the glove was found [Editor’s note: This is an example of
where Fuhrman’s planted ideas worked on me. By discounting the back rout to and from
the south path where Rosa Lopez heard two men talking, I missed the rout that one or both
of the men could have taken to meet there. It also left me open to the false
impression left by the Goldman’s attorney, John Kelly, of O.J.’s secret entrance
route over a fence and across his tennis court. You have to see where the tennis court is
to disconnect it from the image of O.J. jumping the south fence and banging into Kato's
wall near the air conditioner. The problems I ran into could not be resolved without an
accurate diagram of the Rockingham estate and a clearer picture of the timeline. What I
thought would take a few hours to get straight took nine months.]...
Hope
this gives you some idea of where I’m coming from with Fuhrman as my number one
suspect. Believe me, I didn’t pull his name out of a hat or choose him because I
don’t like him. The fact that I don’t like him may be the single biggest reason
it took me so long to see him as a possible suspect. He was like the nasty guy in every
murder mystery I’d ever seen who couldn’t have done it because he was too
obvious. For some reason, it is incredibly difficult to get anyone to look at him as a
suspect. But the closer you look, the harder it is to see how it could have been anyone
else [Editor’s note: The closer I looked at Fuhrman’s drawing of the
Rockingham estate, the more I could see that it sucked. I had been so taken by the details
he put in it that I never thought they would be as wildly inaccurate as they were. The
son-of-a-bitch was still planting evidence against O.J. and getting paid for it].
—Trooper1
Subj: Re: Lucky accidents
Date: 97-04-02 11:30:13 EST
From: Kim
To: Trooper
Jasper— I never thought MF to be a suspect either until I just read this. But, the
question I have is where did MF park [Editor’s note: In Nicole’s garage]?
How would he have known OJ wasn’t out of town [Editor’s note: Cell phone
monitoring of Nicole, O.J., Faye or Denise]? Where are his shoeprints [Editor’s
note: The Bruno Maglis were his shoeprints], and fingerprints [Editor’s note:
never removed latex gloves]? —Kim
Subj: Re: Lucky accidents
Date: 97-04-05 03:19:06 EST
From: Kim
To: Trooper
Trooper— ...somewhere along the way...a lot of questions still can’t be
answered. A scenario I read before was that Simpson came to the scene AFTER the murder. He
realized that his name was at stake and ran. His flaw was that he didn’t speak up!
What do you think? —Kim
Subj: Re: Lucky accidents
Date: 97-04-05
From: Trooper
To: Kim
Kim—I heard the same thing. But the evidence for it is exactly the same as the
evidence for OJ’s guilt—evidence that could have been planted by the killer or
misrepresented in the LAPD lab. It was pure OJI speculation to explain away the
shoeprints, the Bronco carpet fibers and the blood on the murder scene that appeared at
the time to point irrefutably to OJ. It was one of the scenarios Kardashian and AC
considered before they learned about Fuhrman.
Based on the condition of the bodies and their knowledge of Faye Resnick, their first
thought was that it was a Colombian drug hit aimed at Resnick. They didn’t believe
that OJ was involved. The silent witness theory was the best thing some OJI’s could
come up with that was consonant with their drug hit theory. Other OJI’s have used it
to say OJ’s son, Jason, was the killer and OJ saw him do it.
The only facts behind these scenarios are the ones that were left by the killer or
planted by one of the cops on the scene. I say the killer and the cop are one. I think
it’s Mark Fuhrman. All I’ve asked is that he be investigated as a suspect. As
near as I can tell, he has only been investigated for the things he said on the McKinny
tapes.
I have found that the resistance to considering Fuhrman as a murder suspect is so great
that it rarely gets past the point where people assume you are saying it only because he
used the n-word. That labels you. After that, you can’t say anything bad about him
without looking like an irrational clown. It’s an amazing phenomenon but one I
understand because of my own reluctance to see him as a murder suspect. But once you do, a
lot of questions that couldn’t be answered fall right into place.
I am putting together a book where I want to include exchanges like this. Do you mind
if I let Petlady, Crowe, Trille and Hhhana in on this? You won’t believe how slow a
writer I am. Between the many hours (I won’t tell you how many) it took me to write
private letters to you and Maggie, I have not been able to write to the others the way I
would like to. As far as I can tell, this is all material that they would be interested
in. Some of them have the same questions you and Maggie do and they may have better
answers than I do. —Jasper
Subj: Re: More on the Shoes
Date: 97-04-06 13:46:32 EDT
From: Trooper173
To: Maggie
CC: Hhhana, Pat, Peggy, Trille, Kim, Connie
Maggie—I am taking the liberty of passing this on to my e-mail friends. You
don’t know us well enough to know who you can trust and who you can’t. These
people are all thoughtful and very, very intelligent. They will appreciate your comments
as much as I do and we could all benefit from the exchange of ideas. If you want to smack
me for being so presumptuous, I won’t have a leg to stand on. I can only assure you
that I won’t do it again. —Jasper
Subj: Re: More on the Shoes
Date: 97-04-06 00:17:35 EST
From: Maggie
To: Trooper
Interesting comment about the shoes—who would know about the treads and being able
to link them to OJ. OJ donated his clothes to family (one of his cousins was interviewed
on TV wearing one of OJ’s old suits) and charities. Since OJ wore shoes ranging from
size 10 to 13 I think it’s impossible that someone could have bought the shoes
without OJ trying them on in a store to see if they fit.
Remember we still don’t know if OJ could even wear size 12 Bruno’s. He might
take 13 in Bruno’s or 11’s depending on how the sizing goes.
That’s what OJG’s keep missing about the shoes. Did they fit OJ?
From what I hear about stalkers they know the craziest things about their victims.
Things like where they shop, what they did for the last three days. Mark Fuhrman seemed
pretty up on OJ’s life for a guy who had only seen him years back. So who’s to
say he wasn’t in the store when OJ tried on a pair of Bruno’s. OJ doesn’t
like to hurt the public’s feelings so instead of saying he doesn’t like the
shoes he says "I’ll be back later" and smiles and leaves. Maybe MF in his
own crazy way wanted the same shoes as his "hero" and maybe he does take the
same size. Who knows? Just something to think about though... —Maggie
Subj: I tried out scenarios with OJ as the culprit BUT...
Date: 97-04-06 21:22:45 EDT
From: Maggie
To: Trooper
Trooper— ...I could never get him to be guilty. Maybe you can use some of this:
Picture if you will, OJ coming to Nicole’s door with a hat and gloves and a knife.
She opens the door and says, "Sure OJ, let’s talk outside." You see if he
had gone there to kill her then there should have been blood in the house even just a drop
or two because OJ would have advanced into the house to pull her out (if that’s what
he intended). Nicole, on the other hand, would have been trying to push the door shut. I
mean someone dressed like that is not coming for Sunday dinner. Now suppose she got
outside. How did Ron get in a locked front gate? That one I can’t figure out. Or did
Ron say, "Open this gate, you fiend, I want to defend the lady!" I don’t
think so. But if OJ were supposed to have struck them both at the same time Nicole still
has to have opened the gate before OJ came and Ron has the open gate advantage (the gate
would have been to his back). So half the street and every car that drove by should have
been witnesses.
So I tried the scenario and it didn’t work. Hope there are some clues in there for
you. —Maggie
Subj: Re: I tried out scenarios with OJ as the culprit BUT...
Date: 97-04-07 23:42:46 EDT
From: Trooper173
To: Maggie
CC: Hhhana, Pat, Peggy, Trille, Kim, Connie, Trooper173
Hi Maggie— I’m still trying to make an OJG scenario work; he’s the only
suspect I’ve got other than Fuhrman. You can’t make a rational assessment of
culpability by looking only at one suspect [Editor’s note: Ron Shipp makes a great
patsy, but that’s all]. You have to eliminate all but one. You can’t do that
without giving them all a thorough going-over.
As you have discovered, it is difficult, at best, to make a logical case against OJ
without a chain of baseless assumptions and the unquestioned acceptance of tainted
evidence. Your OJG scenario is, frankly, no sillier than Marcia Clark’s or
Christopher Darden’s. According to them, OJ, who had been wearing a pair of Reeboks,
changed into dress socks and shoes, then grabbed the cap he wore in Naked Gun to
disguise himself, but kept on the sweatsuit he wore to McDonald’s with Kato. He then
pulled a very unusual knife (with a blade like a Stiletto and a handle like a survival
knife) from thin air, and topped off his clever hit-man wardrobe with a pair of gloves
given to him as a gift by the woman he was going to slash to death.
He got into the car where Nicole’s receipt for the murder gloves was kept and
drove to Bundy.
And why did he do all of this? He was in a bad mood, probably because his girlfriend
broke up with him over the phone. So, naturally, he decided to slice and dice his ex-wife.
Under those circumstances, who wouldn’t?
Okay, he lets himself in though the back gate with his key. He makes his way to the
front of the house. There, he crouches in some bushes on his arthritic knees and waits for
Nicole to come out to open the gate, for some reason. Hopefully, she will do so before his
plane leaves for Chicago. Luckily, Ron shows up, which gets Nicole out of the house so he
can give his knees a break and get his name in the paper....
Now tell me, which OJG scenario is dumber, yours or Chris and Marcia’s? I’d
say it’s a toss-up. —Jasper
Jasper— Thank you for the laugh this morning. I needed it. That was exactly how I
used to describe the situation to my friends. You forgot though...after he gets finished
hacking two people to death, he remembers, "Oh shit, I have a plane to catch!"
He dashes home, takes a shower, (undressing in his room where the police can find
clues...he’s had a rough week so he needed some extra publicity), composes himself,
gets into the limo, signs autographs at the airport, and takes a leisurely cruise to
Chicago thinking, "Man, that was invigorating....hope I don’t get
caught..."
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. —Kim
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