Investigators in the June 12,1994 Double Homicide at 875 South Bundy Drive

West L.A. Homicide

Lt. Frank Spangler, Commanding officer of West L.A. Detectives:  Spangler testified in the O.J. criminal trial, "I have something like 38 detectives in my entire division." Apparently he could not give a fixed number because the number was not constant and open slots were not always filled. Furthermore, an informal loophole existed in a program instituted to give West L.A. detectives experience in homicide investigations. Although it was supposed to include only West L.A. detectives, in practice, it was up to Ron Phillips the man in charge of  West L.A. Homicide in the early morning hours of June 13, 1994, not the man in charge of all West L.A. detectives to choose who would participate. There is no record showing that Spangler ever heard of Ron Phillips calling a detective named Tom Nolan until Phillips first mentioned his name on February 15, 1995. Spangler testified on March 16, 1995. The day before was the first time the prosecutors asked him anything about the case. No one asked him a single question about Tom Nolan. 

People come in and go out of many departments in most large organization. Spangle's job required him to keep his list of detectives up to date. He had to rely on his supervisors to keep him apprised of significant developments in their units on a day to day basis. If he didn't recognize the name of a trainee detective eight months after he was supposedly called in on a case it would not have automatically meant to him that no such person was ever in his department. It could have meant that he simply did not remember him if he did nothing memorable at the time. If, however, he had seen him on the murder scene with a gun and a gold badge designating a detective he would have remembered him. He would have recognized him from an orientation meeting or wondered, Who the hell is this guy? If he didn't recognize him he would have found out who he was. Spangler never saw him.

West L.A. Homicide consisted of three assigned men, Ron Phillips, Mark Fuhrman and Brad Roberts, with an open slot for an unspecified detective. Phillips testified that he filled that slot on June 13, 1994 with a trainee detective called Tom Nolan. Spangler would have had no reason to question who Phillips said he was eight months after he turned over the investigation to the Robbery Homicide Division. Nolan's presence in the case did not become an issue until Fuhrman claimed in a February 19, 1997 TV interview with Geraldo Rivera that Nolan witnessed a fingerprint in blood on Nicole's back gate. As a trainee detective Nolan had to be paired with an experience detective. Phillips' testimony suggested that he paired Nolan with Roberts. The only detective Spangler paired with Roberts in his testimony was Fuhrman at roughly 3:00 a.m. Spangler did not leave Bundy until after 5:00 a.m. when Phillips, Fuhrman, Vannatter and Lange drove to Rockingham Ave. while Roberts and an unidentified detective were on Montana St. with the couple that found the bodies to talk to the man who found the dog

Like all LAPD detectives, West L.A. detectives were ranked from I (the lowest) to III (the highest). Detective III was equivalent in pay grade to sergeant.

Det. III Ron Phillips, West L.A. Homicide Coordinator:  Notwithstanding his title, Phillips did not functioned as an investigator. He was the first highest ranking detective on the Bundy murder scene, but as an administrator, his job was to select the active investigators, to give them specific assignments and to facilitate their work. He gave the orders and was responsible for monitoring where they went and what they did to carry them out. Although Phillips was on Marcia Clark's witness list in the O.J. preliminary hearing she did not call him to testify. In the O.J. criminal trial Phillips testified that Tom Nolan was a West L.A. detective but that none of the detectives he called worked for him. Under direct examination by Marcia Clark, Phillips testified that he (Phillips) was Mark Fuhrman's partner on June 13, 1994 just as Fuhrman did in the preliminary hearing. Under cross-examination by O.J.'s attorney Johnnie Cochran, Phillips admitted that he was not Fuhrman's partner that morning.

Phillips was not Fuhrman's partner that day, that week, that month or that year. He was Fuhrman's senior partner in the West L.A. Homicide unit from 1991 to July, 1993 when Phillips took the newly created administrative position of West L.A. Homicide Coordinator. Phillips thus became Fuhrman's supervisor and Fuhrman became the lead homicide investigator with Brad Roberts as his junior partner.

Phillips also testified falsely that he sent Detective Nolan to the West L.A. police station from Bundy along with Roberts to question one witness. The only known witnesses at the time were the man and his wife who were led to the bodies on Bundy by Nicole's dog. Steven Schwab, the single witness who found the dog was at home in bed on Montana Street a long block north of the Bundy murder scene. The West L.A. Police Station was approximately three miles southeast of the murder scene. The combined testimony of the officers on Bundy (other than Phillips, Fuhrman and Roberts) and the three witnesses involved with Nicole's dog on the night of the murders indicates that another man was with Roberts but he did not come from Bundy and he did not have to be a detective. 

Det. II Mark Fuhrman, first lead investigator on the Bundy murder scene: He is the only man in the case who matches up physically, psychologically and historically with all the evidence used against O.J. in his criminal trial. If O.J. didn't do it, whoever did had to have the personal contacts, professional know-how and self-made opportunities that Fuhrman had to commit the murders and point the finger of blame at O.J. The killer had to understand the system from the inside. He had to know what good homicide detectives, medical examiners and prosecutors look for in crimes of passion and how they process that information when they see it. He had to be able to create convincing illusions to make impossible actions attributed to O.J. seem dead certain that O.J. performed them and things the killer could do easily with a little help from a few people seem implausible, impractical or impossible without a lot of help from hundreds of people. To perform these feats of "magic" he needed to know everything that Mark Fuhrman knew, all the people that Fuhrman knew and be able to put himself everywhere Mark Fuhrman put himself as the first lead detective on the case.

Det. I Brad Roberts, Mark Fuhrman's partner: To pull off a frame-up of O.J. Simpson, it was essential for the killer to put as much confusion as possible into the murder timeline. Roberts interviewed all of the Bundy timeline witnesses that were known on the morning of June 13. He noted incorrect times that the witnesses later corrected but he did not correct them. The effect was to spread the timeline for the murders so broadly that the prosecution could pick a timeline that best suited the case it wanted to make and the defense could discredit legitimate timeline witnesses to draw attention away from what really happened and who could have done it.

Fuhrman could not have planted evidence against O.J. Simpson or planted ideas about O.J.'s guilt without the active cooperation of someone exactly like Brad Roberts. O.J.'s defense team recognized that he would have needed at least one other detective to do it but erroneously concluded that Phil Vannatter was that detective.

He couldn't have been.

Vannatter got the most important information in the case leading to the June 13, 1994 search of O.J.'s Rockingham estate and his decision to declare the estate a crime scene from both scenes as he saw them directly and indirectly from Ron Phillips and Mark Fuhrman. The key question that the RHD detectives did not ask before deciding where the Rockingham glove came from was this: "Where was Fuhrman's partner before Fuhrman showed it to them?" They couldn't ask that question because they thought Phillips was Fuhrman's partner -- and they knew where he was. He was with them.

By all indications, the first time Lange or Vannatter ever saw Roberts was on Rockingham after Fuhrman showed them the bloody glove. By all indications they still didn't know he was Fuhrman's partner until everyone else did eight months later through Ron Phillips' testimony in O.J.'s criminal trial.

"Det. Trainee" Tom Nolan: Nowhere in the transcripts of O.J. Simpson's court hearing is there anything that puts flesh on the "detective" Ron Phillips called Tom Nolen. Phillips identified all of the people he called after calling Roberts as "West L.A. detectives." He said that he worked with all of them in either of two other detective units that he headed up. Lt. Spangler never identified anyone on Bundy who could have been Detective Nolan. The only West L.A. detectives he did identify were Ron Phillips, Mark Fuhrman and Brad Roberts. In a February 28, 1997 Reuters article someone claiming to be Tom Nolan said he saw the fingerprint in blood on Nicole's back gate. He also said that he packed for detective school after his brief stay on the case. If he did exist he could not have been a detective.

For all practical purposes Tom Nolan was no more than a name on one man's list, a phone company number that did not have to go to a home and a name used by a man who could have been anyone in Phillips, Fuhrman and Roberts' circle of friends. There is no evidence in the public record that anyone else heard the voice of the man presumed to be Det. Nolan or got a good look at his face.

Phillips using Nolan's name in conjunction with Roberts had one far-reaching effect. It separated Roberts from Fuhrman in the minds of RHD detectives, the media and O.J. Simpson's defense team until it was too late for any of them to ask the questions that mattered about how O.J. could have been framed by a small group of people directly associated with Fuhrman.

No one had a reason to check on Nolan's existence. If he wasn't a detective, his name would not have appeared in any record of West L.A. detectives on or before June 13, 1994 if anyone bothered to check. Phillips could claim that he used the word "detective" loosely to describe a police officer seeking to become a detective just as he could claim he used the word "partner" to describe his relationship with Fuhrman on the 13th. Roberts could claim that he didn't really know Tom Nolan, that he had seen him for the first time on June 13, 1994 and heard from him again only after the Primetime Live show was aired over two and a half years later. Fuhrman could claim that he never knew the man at all and made an understandable mistake in identifying him in court as a detective 1. In the unlikely event that anyone dug deeper than asking Phillips who he was, he could mysteriously vanish, leaving everyone, including the only three people to name him, to "wonder" who he really was.

Our investigation (thanks to Lollie) showed that he was a real West L.A. police officer. However, Phillips, Fuhrman and Roberts had to know that he was not a detective in any sense of the word on June 12 or 13, 1994.

Everyone's focus was on Fuhrman's discovery of a bloody glove, a rumor that he found it on Bundy and that he planted it on Rockingham. Vannatter and Lange knew that he couldn't have planted it. As long as the defense was set on convincing the jury that he might have, they had no interest in Roberts or Nolan. O.J.'s defenders didn't even know who Roberts was until halfway through Phillips' testimony eight months after O.J.'s arrest. Their only interest in Roberts was in using his reports to discredit the prosecution's timeline. Tom Nolan was of no value to either side in this debate. Predictably, he disappeared from everyone's radar screen. They had too much evidence to analyze, too many tips to check out and too many "important" witnesses to interview to spend any time on a trainee detective who could have been any of four trainee detectives except for the apparent happenstance that the three called before him were not available.

Phillips phone records showed that he made five calls after he called Roberts. He said that one of them was a wrong number and he could not recall who the other one was.

LAPD Robbery/Homicide Division (RHD)

Lt. John Rogers Supervisor of the Special Homicide section: He was Lange and Vannatter's boss. He arrived on the Bundy murder scene between 2:40 and 3:00 a.m., before Vannatter and Lange arrived and took charge of the scene until Lange returned from Rockingham between 6:40 and 6:45.

Partners -- Det. III Phil Vannatter and  Det. III Tom Lange co-lead investigators on Bundy and Rockingham: Vannatter discovered a blood trail on O.J.'s driveway leading out from the front door to the Rockingham. When he declared Rockingham a crime scene he lead the investigation on Rockingham and Lange took primary responsibility for the investigation on Bundy.

Vannatter came under fire for carrying samples of O.J.'s blood to Rockingham before booking it into evidence at Parker Center. He also came under fire for ordering O.J. to be handcuffed as soon as he returned to Rockingham from Chicago then denying that he gave the order. He took O.J.'s travel bag from Roberts while he and Roberts were questioning O.J. on Rockingham.

Lange came under fire for covering Nicole's body with a blanket from her house. He also came under fire for taking a pair of O.J.'s shoes from his home, putting them in the trunk of his car and not booking them into evidence until the next day. He called the Brown's home to notify them that Nicole had been murdered. Denise Brown's cry that O.J. did it convinced him to use her as a primary resource in his investigation. He deferred to her wish that O.J.'s daughter Sydney not be questioned about what she heard on the night her mother was killed.

Partners -- Det. Burt Luper and Det. Cliff LeFall:  Luper was LeFall's senior partner. Vannatter put Luper in charge of searching O.J.'s home on June 13. Fuhrman and Roberts volunteered to help out. Fuhrman answered the phone calls to Rockingham while there is no official record of what Roberts did in the house. Neither Luper nor LeFall found anything incriminating. However, Luper testified that he saw the socks on O.J.'s rug leaving the impression that he found them. He also said that he kept in his desk the video that videographer Willie Ford took of the socks and "forgot" that he had it for months. He found one black leather glove in O.J.'s bedroom. He never claimed that he discovered the socks.

In Mark Fuhrman's Murder in Brentwood book he said that he and Brad Roberts discovered the socks when they were in O.J.'s bedroom before Luper. Fuhrman said that there was no German Stiletto in the house at that time but he and Roberts saw an open Swiss Army knife box on the rim of O.J.'s bathtub. He wrote in his book that the box was empty but the recessed portion of the box for the knife was large enough to be the murder weapon. Luper said it was a nick-knack box.

Luper also found the German Stiletto that prosecutors thought O.J. used to commit the murders. He said it still had sharpening oil on the blade and the price tag was still attached. He said he put it back because it was obviously unused.

LeFall appeared in a June 13, 1994 video squatting down to take a close look at the blood drops on the far left of O.J.'s driveway near the Rockingham gate. These were the blood drops that Brad Roberts marked and criminalist Dennis Fung ignored. LeFall was never called as a witness by the prosecution or the defense.

Luper and LeFall questioned William Wasz after his notebook with Nicole Simpson's schedule for a day in January, 1994 came to light after she and Ron Goldman were murdered.

Partners -- Det. Richard Haro and Det. James Harper:  Haro and Harper assisted Luper in the search of O.J.'s house on June 13 and June 28, 1994. Neither of them found anything incriminating. Marcia Clark was there on both occasions. She testified that she did not speak with Mark Fuhrman at a table in O.J.'s backyard on June 13. Haro testified as a defense witness that she did. But on cross-examination he wasn't sure. In Dianne Sawyer's February 19, 1997 interview with Brad Roberts, Roberts claimed that he found blood on a light switch in the maid's room and that he told Harper and Haro what he found. Sawyer said that Harper recalled "something about blood on a light switch" but could not recall what it was. Sawyer said nothing about contacting his partner James Harper.   

Partners -- Det. Paul Tippin and Det. Brian Carr:  Tippin and Carr worked with Tom Lange and Phil Vannatter in questioning witnesses. They questioned Pablo Fenjves (the wailing dog witness) and limo driver Allan Park. They also searched Ron Goldman's apartment and questioned his sister Kim. Tippin questioned Kato Kaelin.

Partners -- Det Ron Ito and Det. Richard Crotsley: Ito and Crotsley interviewed witnesses who were aboard the plane that O.J. took to Chicago and other unspecified witnesses. Crotsley was the first detective to whom Bill Wasz told his Kardashian story in July, 1994. In the acknowledgements of Evidence Dismissed, Vannatter and Lange credit Ito and Crotsley with handling "literally hundreds of 'clues.'" They put "clues" in quotes because these "clues" included numerous crank calls and messages from people claiming to be psychics who got their information by psychic means.

Det Otis Marlow: Marlow's name appears separately because he was called to testify in the civil trial after Ron Phillips named him as the man who set up a meeting between him and an attorney for the plaintiffs. He was one of over fifty RHD detectives listed in alphabetical order in the acknowledgement of Evidence Dismissed.

Stephen Oppler Oppler went with Assistant D.A. Hank Goldberg to the home of Nurse Thano Peratis on July 27, 1995 to videotape Peratis' recreation of how he took a blood sample from O.J. Simpson on June 13, 1994. Goldberg conducted the interview. Oppler taped it and wrote a two-page report.

Dana Thomson and Michael Stevens  Thomson and Stevens interviewed Nicole's cousin Rolf Bower and his wife Maria who worked on the Rockingham estate for three and for years respectively as groundskeeper and housekeeper in the early 80s. Neither of them told the investigators that they saw any instance of O.J. abusing Nicole.

Defense Team's Private Investigators

John McNally: O.J.'s first "dream team" lead attorney Robert Shapiro hired John McNally and William Pavelic as the first lead investigators for the defense. McNally was a famous private investigator from Palm Beach Florida who retired from LAPD in 1971. He was the LAPD detective who got the goods on the infamous jewel thief Jack "Muph the Surf" Murphy. His high profile cases as a private investigator included work for Patty Hurst, John Gotti and the subway vigilante shooter Bernard Goetz. He worked with Pat McKenna on the William Kennedy Smith rape trial. His most valuable contribution to the O.J. Simpson defense team was in establishing a realistic timeline for the Bundy murders.

Pavelic took the lead in O.J.'s search for the real killers and gave the press specious information that made the search look ridiculous. Meanwhile, he attempted to enlist the aid of a well known author in writing a book about the murders with O.J. Simpson as the man who committed them.  

McKenna interviewed the witnesses to O.J.'s demeanor after the murders and checked the LAX surveillance tapes to see if O.J. could have disposed of a bag containing incriminating items from the murders. He learned that none of the demeanor witnesses saw anything unusual and that the LAX surveillance cameras showed O.J. from the time he entered the terminal to the time he left. He learned that the police checked all of the trash containers and found nothing incriminating. He did not buy Fuhrman's story of finding the Rockingham glove but he did never looked at Fuhrman as a murder suspect and did not learn who his partner was until Phillips admitted that it was Brad Roberts.

Non of O.J.'s private investigators checked Fuhrman's alibi. None of them investigated Ron Phillips story of calling the detectives he said he called. None of them attempted to question Tom Nolan.

Independent Investigators

Ian Bowater: Private Investigator for Donald Freed. Gathered information used in the preparation of Freed's book Killing Time.

Dr. Henry Jonson: Author of Double-Crossed for Blood and Serpents Rising http://dabble.com/node/8155611

Thomas Jonson: Private investigator and lead investigator for his brother Dr. Henry Johnson http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6819643534015705226 

Sandy Glickman: Private investigator for Smartfellows Press

From Phillips' February 16, 1995 testimony in the O.J. criminal case: