▶ Watch Video: O.J. Simpson could have had an accomplice, court records show
More than three decades after the O.J. Simpson murder trial, a new investigation offers a different account of what might have happened the night his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death in 1994.
After O.J. Simpson was acquitted in the deaths in 1995, Los Angeles prosecutors received new information from Simpson’s friend about the murder weapon’s disposal, according to newly unsealed court documents obtained by the New York Times.
“You would think that there could not possibly be anything new, and now, for the public, there certainly is,” said legal analyst Rikki Klieman, who covered the case at the time for Court TV.
According to court records, a letter from an assistant U.S. attorney to a federal judge requested a lenient sentence for Joey Ippolito on a prison escape charge because the convicted drug trafficker had become a federal informant.
The letter described Ippolito as a valuable source who “had become privy to many facts relevant to the [O.J. Simpson] case,” including Simpson’s “disposal of the murder weapon,” which was never found.
Ippolito allegedly met Simpson through Al Cowlings, the man behind the wheel during Simpson’s infamous Bronco chase.
Ippolito died in 2006, but his brother, Sam, told the Times that Joey left the night of the killings to help a friend, only to return with what appeared to be blood on his hands and a bag containing a heavy object. He then allegedly told Sam to dispose of it while he showered. Sam said he tossed the bag in a dumpster at a nearby construction site.
“What gets complicated here is that you’re not only dealing with the original informant, Joey Ippolito, but you’re dealing now with the embellishment by his brother, and there’s no real reason to trust the word of the brother,” Klieman said.
Others close to the case are also skeptical. Former prosecutor Marcia Clark told the Times she had no knowledge of Ippolito and because of that he must have “had no credible or relevant evidence to provide.”
The Times, meanwhile, reports that Ippolito’s brother Sam insisted he was 100% certain his brother was at the crime scene. But after the paper turned down his request for compensation for providing them this story, he attempted to retract those statements.
Still, the account bears striking similarities to Simpson’s book “If I Did It,” in which he gave a “hypothetical” account of an accomplice who helps him dispose of the weapon.
“The authorities, that is, police and the current district attorney of Los Angeles County, cannot simply discount it. They have got to look at it, or continue to look at it,” Klieman said.
Simpson was found liable for the murders in a civil trial in 1997 and ordered to pay $33.5 million to Brown and Goldman’s family. Goldman’s family declined to comment on the Times investigation.
In a statement to CBS News, the executor of Simpson’s estate, Malcolm LaVergne, said the only three people whose firsthand accounts of that night matter the most are now deceased, referring to Brown, Goldman and Simpson, who died in 2024.
“None of those three people can speak for themselves today,” LaVergne said. “And I certainly cannot speak for them about what happened that night. At some point, I believe we must recognize that the continued production of theories, allegations, and sensational accounts may do little to bring meaningful resolution to those who have already suffered so much.”
