O.J. Simpson Knife Missing At His Trial 22 Years Ago, Found By Construction Worker?

The missing murder weapon used in the killing of O.J. Simpson’s wife and her male friend 22 years ago may have surfaced in the form of a knife given by a construction worker to a retired police officer four years after the crime was committed. Simpson, who was acquitted in the case, and cannot be retried for it, is serving time in prison for an unrelated robbery conviction.

According to CNN, Los Angeles police revealed on Friday, March 4, 2016, DNA testing for linkage to the Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman homicide case. While the police indicated they are examining the knife for DNA and hair, no extra details were made public.

NBC News reported that retired LAPD officer George Maycott was doing off-duty work in the vicinity of O.J. Simpson’s former estate in 2001 or 2002 when a construction worker handed him the knife. The worker, whose identity has not been revealed, claimed having discovered the knife on the property.

Maycott’s attorney, Trent Copeland, said no apparent blood, “only dirt and mud,” was detected on the knife possibly used to kill the fallen football hero’s 35-year-old ex-wife and Goldman, a 25-year-old waiter, outside her rental condo on June 12, 1994. No murder weapon was presented as evidence in the case.

NBC News described what was found as a “relatively inexpensive, small knife typically carried and used by construction workers, gardeners, landscapers or other laborers.” The murder weapon’s determined characteristics and condition are reportedly not consistent with the item discovered, and the time frame of O.J. Simpson’s alleged crime does not match the length of time the knife was in the ground. However, investigators assert that forensics tests are being done “just in case.”

Copeland said that Maycott contacted police about his find but was allegedly told that O.J. Simpson was acquitted, and nothing more could be done about the case. In January, 2016, 70-year-old Maycott surrendered the knife he’d been keeping in a bag in his garage, to police.

CNN cited growing interest in the killings since the February debut of the FX television series, American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. CNN legal analyst Paul Callan, who represented the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson in a civil suit against Simpson, was vocal about the show’s influence on the ongoing narrative. He expressed the following viewpoint.

“What a coincidence, all of a sudden the knife would be found in the middle of the TV series. It sounds like a made-in-Hollywood knife discovery.”

According to U.S.A. Today, O.J. Simpson’s current jail time for robbery, can be traced back to a disagreement between Simpson and two sports memorabilia collectors at a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007. Simpson, now at the center of the knife controversy, claimed he was attempting to recover his own memorabilia then.

O.J. Simpson was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison for kidnapping and armed robbery, with the possibility of parole in nine years, after the three co-defendants pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him.

U.S.A. Today used a timeline format to flash back a decade before the robbery conviction to a civil court ruling O.J. Simpson liable for the knife-slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman. The civil case awarded $33.5 million in damages to families of the victims.

According to the BBC, O.J. Simpson may have nothing to do with the knife being examined. Police Captain Andrew Neiman of the LAPD told a news conference on Friday that the find could be “bogus.”

“If this story is accurate, you’d think anytime you come into contact with evidence that you should submit it to investigators. I don’t know why that didn’t happen.”

The bottom line is: even if O.J. Simpson is linked to the murders by the knife investigation, double jeopardy would prevent him from being charged again for the killings.

[Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]