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CNN Special Reports
OJ's Wild Ride: 20 Years After the Chase
Aired January 30, 2015 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, AC360: The CNN Special Report O.J.'s Wild Ride: 20 Years After the Chase starts now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is 911, what are you reporting?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is A.C., I have O.J. in the car.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN SPECIAL REPORT HOST: O.J. Simpson on the run.
CMDR. DAVID GASCON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: The Los Angeles Police Department right now is searching for Mr. Simpson.
PHILLIPS: And on the edge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's still alive. He's got a gun to his head.
PHILLIPS: Was that gun loaded?
TOM LANGE, FORMER DETECTIVE, LOST ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: Oh yeah. It was a real gun. Real bullets.
PHILLIPS: And real drama.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're going through Orange County.
PHILLIPS: News helicopters hovering above as the Bronco drives past stun onlookers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were jamming on the brakes, jumping out of their cars sometimes in the middle of the freeway.
LANGE: Think about everybody else, all right?
O.J. SIMPSON, CONVICTED FELON: I just can't do it in the freeway. I can't do it in the field. I wanted to do it in a dream. I want to do it in my house.
LANGE: You're not going to do anything. Too many people love you. You got the whole world, don't throw it away.
PHILLIPS: Two bodies butchered. One of them? O.J.'s ex-wife.
LANGE: Slashed, stabbed every thing else. Nicole was nearly decapitated.
KIM GOLDMAN, RON GOLDMAN'S SISTER: This was deliberate. This was vicious.
PHILLIPS: If you watched the OJ Simpson case unfold and I did as a TV reporter for KCBS in L.A., it's a moment in time you could never forget.
Two decades later.
DENISE BROWN, NICOLE BROWN SIMPSON'S SISTER: I remember it like it was yesterday.
FRED GOLDMAN, RON GOLDMAN'S FATHER: It was raw and painful as it was 20 years ago.
PHILLIPS: An extraordinary story of celebrity and murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw perhaps the falling of an American hero.
PHILLIPS: O.J.'s Wilde Ride: 20 Years After the Chase.
GASCON: On June 13th, 1994 at approximately 10 minutes after midnight. A witness discovered the body of Nicole Brown Simpson. The presence of a second body, an individual who is now been identified as Mr. Ronald Goldman 25 years of age.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bodies were found in a side walk outside Nicole Simpson's condominium, a few miles from where O.J. Simpson lives.
LARRY KING, LARRY KING LIVE HOST: Terrible questions are hanging in the air around O.J. Simpson today as investigators in L.A. probed the violent deaths of his ex-wife and another man.
GASCON: We will piece this together until we bring the responsible party to justice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The man in question was, is O.J. Simpson.
GASCON: Well, obviously, we're not going to rule anyone out.
PHILLIPS: Orenthal James Simpson, better know as O.J., or the "The Juice" had been in the spotlight for years as a Heisman Trophy winner and NFL Hall of Famer.
SIMPSON: We'll do whatever we have to do to stay together.
PHILLIPS: And more recently as an actor and pitchman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody stand back.
PHILLIPS: But it wouldn't be those accolades or celebrity that he would be most remembered for.
Instead, it would be his connection to a grizzly double murder.
LANGE: He deserves to be in jail for murder, for slaughtering two people. And not giving a damn one way or the other but anybody but killing them.
PHILLIPS: Tom Lange was a detective with the Los Angels Police Department. He couldn't tell me how he really felt 20 years ago, but he sure can now.
LANGE: Simpson is a sociopath as simple as that. It took about 30 seconds for us to figure that out.
PHILLIPS: Let's go back to June 13th, 1994.
How brutal was that crime scene?
LANGE: Slashed, stabbed, everything else. Nicole was nearly decapitated. It was a very bloody scene. It was obvious that Ron Goldman had fought, fought hard.
PHILLIPS: The scene at Nicole's condo didn't add up. Who was Ron Goldman? And why was he there? As the LAPD inspected the crime scene at South Bundy Drive, they discovered a bloody glove.
LANGE: Of course, the interesting thing was it a left glove, bloody trail tailing in conjunction with foot wear impressions going west.
PHILLIPS: Officers were dispatched to O.J.'s home on North Rockingham Avenue to inform him about his ex-wife's murder.
O.J. and Nicole had met when she was a teenager and were together for most of the next 17 years, a sometimes rocky relationship with allegations of abuse. They divorced in 1992. It was at OJ's home where detective Lange made the call to Nicole's family to break the tragic news.
LANGE: Nicole's dad answered.
PHILLIPS: And what did you say?
LANGE: And I said, "Mr. Brown, I regret to inform you that your daughter has died. She's been killed." And right away, I heard Denise starts screaming.
D. BROWN: Oh, I remember it. I remember it as if it was yesterday.
PHILLIPS: Nicole's sister, Denise Brown, was also on the call. She says she had no doubt O.J. was the killer.
D. BROWN: And I said, "Oh my God. He finally did it." Something inside me just knew, something inside me just knew.
PHILLIPS: What did she scream?
LANGE: That MF. I know that son of a bitch did it. She's screaming and just completely just out of control. That's when something told me that something was going on with the Simpson guy. And it was at that point that things started to come together.
PHILLIPS: At Rockingham, they didn't find O.J. but what they did find appeared to be the match to the glove found at the crime scene.
LANGE: The sun comes up upfront and there's a blood trail from the Bronco right into the house. It's not tailing away from the house. It's tailing into the house.
PHILLIPS: So are you thinking at this point ...
LANGE: He's a suspect obviously.
PHILLIPS: O.J. is your suspect.
LANGE: He's a suspect. It didn't mean he did it. If he did it, we're going to be able to prove it. The blood is going to do it. The blood is at the core of the evidence in this case.
PHILLIPS: Police finally reached O.J. at a hotel in Chicago. He had flown there less than two hours after the murders. When police informed him of his ex-wife's murder. He flew home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you please move them and go away?
PHILLIPS: The media and police were waiting. O.J. was briefly handcuffed. Lange knew he had to deal with the former football star carefully if he wanted O.J. to cooperate.
Your goal was to get him to trust you so you could get your blood sample.
LANGE: Of course. You get the blood and this is importantly the finger, and the prints, and everything else. And along the way, well they always called it an interview. You attempt to glean inconsistencies in some of the statement. This is just hours after the murder. He doesn't have his head straight yet.
PHILLIPS: Surprisingly, O.J. agreed to an interview with Lange and his partner Philip Vannatter with no lawyer present.
PHILIP VANNATTER, LAPD DETECTIVE: The date is June 13th, 1994. And we're here with O.J. Simpson.
PHILLIPS: Were you surprised that O.J. Simpson agreed to an interview?
LANGE: It started as a little surprising especially when I looked at his hand and it was still bleeding and he had a band-aid on his left hand.
VANNATTER: How did you get the injury on your hand?
SIMPSON: I don't know. The first time, when I was in Chicago and all, but at the house I was just running around.
VANNATTER: How did you do it in Chicago?
SIMPSON: I broke a glass. I just was -- one of you guys had just called me, and I was in the bathroom, and I just kind of went bonkers for a little bit.
LANGE: Is that how you cut it?
SIMPSON: It was cut before, but I think I just opened it again, I'm not sure. I'm not sure, you know.
PHILLIPS: Did he screw up?
LANGE: Many times. I think there's 16 or 17 of them in there.
PHILLIPS: So he was inconsistent?
LANGE: Inconsistent in all of his statements and lied about others.
VANNATTER: O.J., we've got sort of a problem. We've got some blood on and in your car, we've got some blood at your house, and, it's sort of a problem.
SIMPSON: Well, take my blood test.
LANGE: Well, we'd like to do that.
PHILLIPS: Simpson allowed them to take a blood sample, finger prints, even a photo of his finger. This would be the first and only time LAPD investigators would speak with O.J. Simpson without a lawyer.
Coming up, O.J. disappears.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was to surrender to police at 11:45 this morning.
PHILLIPS: And murder turns into a manhunt.
GLASCON: The Los Angeles Police Department right now is actively searching for Mr. Simpson.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Ron Goldman, a 25-year old waiter with dreams of having his own restaurant was very close with his sister Kim and father Fred.
K. GOLDMAN: We were just each other's safe haven. We knew we were each others foundation and our comfort and it just was easy.
F. GOLDMAN: He had a heart of gold. Absolute heart of gold.
PHILLIPS: They buried Ron just days after the murders.
K. GOLDMAN: My dad just kept saying, "It should be me. It's not supposed to be him. It should be me. It should be me."
F. GOLDMAN: Any parent that's ever had to do that knows what a painful, horrifying gut carrying feeling it is.
PHILLIPS: Ron Goldman was a waiter at a restaurant that Nicole frequented. And that night, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now, 20 years later, his sister Kim reveals in her new book, she still can't forgive the man she believes murdered her brother.
K. GOLDMAN: This was deliberate, vicious, there's no active forgiveness there.
F. GOLDMAN: No.
PHILLIPS: Nicole Brown Simpson, a 35-year old mother of two and sister of Denise.
Tell me about the picture.
D. BROWN: My favorite picture of me and my sister and that's how I remember her. Like this. Fun, fun loving.
PHILLIPS: Her funeral attended by friends, family, and the prime suspect, former husband O.J. Simpson.
Why would he even show up at her funeral?
D. BROWN: Oh God, you know what? You're going to have to ask him that. I don't even want to address that.
PHILLIPS: How did that make you feel? How did that make the family feel?
D. BROWN: You know honestly, I was numb. I just lost my sister. I didn't even see what was going on around us.
PHILLIPS: The very next morning, the LAPD said there would be an announcement at noon regarding the murders. Reporters and photographers packed the room at police headquarters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bomb squad is still here.
PHILLIPS: But the press conference would be unexpectedly delayed.
GASCON: We had multiple bomb threats in the auditorium that morning. It didn't please me that I had to empty out that auditorium and get it checked but it was the right thing to do.
PHILLIPS: When Commander David Gascon finally stepped to the podium just before 2 p.m., no one was prepared for what came next.
GASCON: This morning, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department after an exhaustive investigation sought and obtained a warrant for the arrest of O.J. Simpson charging him with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Wilde Goldman. Mr. Simpson, in agreement with his attorney was scheduled to surrender this morning to the Los Angeles Police Department. Initially, that was 11 o'clock. It then became 11:45, Mr. Simpson has not appeared. The Los Angeles Police Department right now is actively searching for Mr. Simpson.
PHILLIPS: What were you thinking right there? All those gasps? GASCON: It was pretty interesting. I've heard a lot about that moment from a lot of people over the years and no one seems to forget that moment when they sucked the air out of the room with gasps.
PHILLIPS: A media crushed inside and a gathering crowd outside. The first inkling of what would explode into a national obsession. At 3 p.m., Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti delivered a stern message.
GIL GARCETTI, LOS ANGELES DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I want to say something to the entire community, if you in any way are assisting Mr. Simpson in avoiding justice -- Mr. Simpson is a fugitive of justice right now. And if you assist him in any way, you are committing a felony.
K. GOLDMAN: O.J. Simpson is a fugitive.
F. GOLDMAN: Is a fugitive.
PHILLIPS: What do you remember about that? Hearing that? What were you thinking?
K. GOLDMAN: Oh my God. I was mad.
PHILLIPS: Three hours later, there was another press conference. The first speaker, Attorney Robert Shapiro made a plea to his client, O.J. Simpson.
ROBERT SHAPIRO, O.J. SIMPSON'S ATTORNEY: For the sake of your family, for the sake of your children, please surrender immediately. Surrender to any law enforcement official at any police station, but please do it immediately.
PHILLIPS: Next, Robert Kardashian stepped to the microphones to read a note from his close friend.
ROBERT KARDASHIAN, O.J. SIMPSON'S FRIEND: This letter was written by O.J. today. To whom it may concern. First, everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder. Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life, great friends, please think of the real O.J. and not this lost person. Thanks for making my life special. I hope I helped yours.
PHILLIPS: It sounded like O.J. was saying goodbye. A suicide letter.
Coming up, a white Ford Bronco on the run.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I just saw O.J. Simpson on the five freeway.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GASCON: He assured us and agreed to provide for the surrender and that's not occurred.
PHILLIPS: On June 17th, 1994, O.J Simpson became the famous fugitive on the planet. Everybody was on the alert, looking for a wanted double homicide suspect, who happened to be a Heisman Trophy winner.
PHILLIPS: David Gascon, the LAPD's chief spokesperson at the time, believed O.J.'s whereabouts wouldn't remain a mystery very long.
GASCON: I remember having a conversation, and I told him directly. I said, you know, how this is going to end up. Somebody is going to see O.J. Simpson, somebody's going to see him out on the freeway. We're going to get the call.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Highway patrol?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, I think I just saw O.J. Simpson on the five freeway. He's heading north.
PHILLIPS: Near Nicole Brown Simpson's grave south of Los Angeles, the white Bronco is spotted, at the wheel, O.J.'s best friend and former teammate, Al Cowlings.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you see him?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, we believe so. We like looked at him, you know? And he like stared us down like he was death.
Hold on. I got cops coming in, right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, we'll put it out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Bye.
PHILLIPS: With police now in his rearview, Cowlings calls 911, making sure they know that O.J. is armed and desperate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is 911, what are you reporting?
A.C. COWLINGS, O.J. SIMPSON'S FORMER TEAMMATE: This is A.C. I have O.J. in the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Where are you?
COWLINGS: Please, I'm coming up the five freeway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
COWLINGS: Right now, we are OK. But you've got to tell the police to just back off. He's still alive, but he's got a gun to his head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is everything else OK?
COWLINGS: Everything right now is OK, Officer. Everything is OK. He wants to -- he needs to me to see his mom. He wants me to get to his house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
COWLINGS: So that's all I -- that's all we ask. He's got a gun to his head. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. What's your name?
COWLINGS: My name is A.C. You know who I am, goddamnit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
PHILLIPS: With a cavalcade of police cars in pursuit, TV helicopters swooped in to join the chase.
KING: I will never forget that night. I'm in Washington.
Our guest is John Madden.
Anchoring my Larry King Live
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The money that athlete's are being paid today is ...
KING: OK. I'm going to have to interrupt this call. I understand we're going to go to a live picture in Los Angeles, is that correct?
This is interstate five. Police believed that O.J. Simpson is in that car.
PHILLIPS: What do you remember from what was being said in your ear? We're you thinking oh my god, O.J. is on the run.
KING: Yeah. They were saying O.J.'s in the car, he's got a gun and the driver of the cars his former football lineman. The police are going slow behind him. This is crazy and going up on I-405 which is the busiest road in America. Nothing was bigger than the story.
We're viewing a car apparently being driven by Al Cowlings, one of O.J. oldest friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of the overpass that we've seen had been lined with cars and pedestrians.
KING: They could be heading to L.A. police headquarters.
PHILLIPS: The spectacle reeled in 95 million television viewers including the lead detective on the case, Tom Lange was blindsided by the news.
LANGE: Next thing we hear, we're sitting in the squad bay and they said to me, Simpson is on the TV. What's he doing on TV and we flipped it on and I mean we this slow speed chase.
PHILLIPS: What was going through your mind at that point?
LANGE: You hear prick people say, it's surreal. Well, that is such a thing I didn't believe but there is and it's kind like you're in a daze.
KING: We're going to stay with this. Obviously, the car is not exceeding the speed limit. The California highway patrol another and there's another helicopter, it could be a police helicopter is trailing it but nobody is pulling this car over and we could only guess as to why not.
PHILLIPS: Victim Ronald Goldman's father Fred Goldman had his own ideas.
F. GOLDMAN: I thought, "Quick. Follow him on the freeway. Do what you would do with any other fleeing felon". He's fugitive, he's running, take him down. I don't mean take him down shot him and kill him. Stop him. Arrest him.
PHILLIPS: When you were meeting with other members of the LAPD as this was going on, tell me how you were preparing and strategizing for number one, possible gun fight, shot out, or number two, surrender?
GASCON: When we have those discussions, it was a dynamic situation of whether or not we should do some type of intervention.
It could have gone sideways instantly. He could have jumped out of the car and there could have been a situation that required the officers unseen to protect themselves. It could have resulted in a shooting.
PHILLIPS: Still free and leading police on this bizarre slow speed chase. O.J does something unexpected. He called his deceased ex- wife's family from the backseat of the Bronco.
Did O.J. at anytime call you?
D. BROWN: I did talk to him and I said, "Listen, you got two kids." then I gave the phone to my dad.
PHILLIPS: Did your dad try to talk him out of it?
BROWN: He did. Yeah. Yeah, he did because of his children.
PHILLIPS: The Browns are not alone in reminding O.J. of his children.
LANGE: The kids need you.
SIMPSON: I've already said goodbye to my kids.
LANGE: Listen, no. We're not going to say goodbye to your kids.
PHILLIPS: Detective Tom Lange got O.J.'s cellphone number from a colleague.
LANGE: I'm thinking, "What the hell? What if he picks up. Nobody is in control of this situation. What's it going to hurt it you? No reason not to call."
PHILLIPS: I took Lange back to that heart pounding moment.
Let's take and listen.
LANGE: We're not going bother you. We're going to let you go up there. Just throw it out the window, please. You're scaring everybody. O.J., are you there? Nobody's going to hurt you.
SIMPSON: This is for me.
LANGE: OK. It's for you. I know that. But do it for you.
SIMPSON: This is for me. For me. That's all.
LANGE: I know that. I know that but do it for the kids too, will you?
SIMPSON: How?
LANGE: Think of your kids.
SIMPSON: No.
LANGE: Please, just toss it out. You're scaring everybody, man.
SIMPSON: No. I'm not going to hurt anybody. I did it for me.
LANGE: I know you're not going to hurt anyone.
SIMPSON: I'm just going to go with me.
LANGE: Please, you're scaring every body though. Are you scared?
SIMPSON: Just tell them I'm all sorry. You can tell them later on today and tomorrow that I was sorry. And that I'm sorry that I did this to the police.
PHILLIPS: He's apologizing to you. He saying, "Please apologize to all the police."
LANGE: Yeah.
PHILLIPS: Why?
LANGE: I give it, you have to argue that as guilt, no, it's not guilt. He's a sociopath. He's playing this game. In the back of my mind I know that.
PHILLIPS: Next, the slow speed chase take a frightening turn.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Think about everybody outside.
SIMPSOM: I couldn't do it here on the freeway. I couldn't do it in the field. I want to do it on her grave, I want to do it at my house.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point we can only pray that they will be able to pull this off in a safe measure.
PHILLIPS: Distraught, with a gun to his head, O.J. Simpson is on the run and threatening to end his emotional pain with a bullet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just throw it out the window. And nobody's going get hurt.
SIMPSON: I'm the only one that deserves it.
TOM LANGE, FORMER LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT DETECTIVE: No, you do not deserve that.
SIMPSON: I'm going to get hurt.
LANGE: You do not deserve to get hurt.
PHILLIPS: Detective Tom Lange is on the phone, hoping to prevent O.J. from committing suicide.
Was that gun loaded?
LANGE: Oh, yeah. It was a real gun. Real bullets. This is now a public safety issue.
SIMPSON: I love everybody. I'm trying to show everybody my whole life that I love everybody.
LANGE: We know that, and everybody loves you, especially your family, your mother, your kids, all your friends, A.C. Everybody does. Don't do this.
PHILLIPS: Lange is doing all that he can to try to try and kept things from escalating.
LANGE: What if he shoots himself? Cowlings? How about one of these dummies running up to the car? What he says really doesn't matter. What I say doesn't matter. As long as he doesn't shoot somebody.
PHILLIPS: How did you know what to say?
LANGE: I didn't.
PHILLIPS: It was just you and your gun?
LANGE: Yeah, basically. Some people kept putting little notes in front of me, but I didn't have time to read all of that crap, so just whatever kind of came up, and I figured family.
He can be the biggest sociopath in the world, doesn't mean he hates his family.
PHILLIPS: Kim Goldman also hopes detective Lange's please can keep O.J. alive.
KIM GOLDMAN, RON GOLDMAN'S SISTER: And so when everybody else was yelling, shot him, you know, just end this, I was like, "No, no, I need to know what happened." I wanted the truth. And so I was very nervous.
PHILLIPS: And she was right to be nervous. During the chase, O.J. sounds despondent.
LANGE: Don't do this.
SIMPSON: All I did was love Nicole. That's all I did was love her.
LANGE: Hey, it's going to better tomorrow, get rid of the gun. Toss it, please. So many people love you man, don't give it all up, don't hurt everybody, you're going to hurt everybody.
SIMPSON: Uh I'm just going to leave. I'm just going to go with Nicole. That's all I'm going to do. That's all I'm trying to do.
LANGE: Hey listen.
PHILLIPS: When Tom Lange and O.J. were talking in the bronco, when he's dead, when he said, I just want to be with Nicole. I just want to go to her grave. That's all I want to do. Was that true, did you believe that?
DENISE BROWN, NICOLE BROWN SIMPSON'S SISTER: Honestly no. What is it mean you want to go be there, you want to go sit at her grave, you feel remorse for what you did? A lot of people thought he was going to take his life and I'm like, no. Sorry.
PHILLIPS: You didn't think he was going to?
D. BROWN: No.
PHILLIPS: Why not?
D. BROWN: I just know that with the people that I know that has committed suicide, they don't talk about it, they do.
LANGE: It's going be a lot better tomorrow, believe me. Please. We'll let you go up to the house, but we need you to throw that out the window.
PHILLIPS: While O.J. is mulling over what to do, thousands of fans and spectators stop everything, including driving, just to get a front raw seat to O.J.'s bronco drama.
BRIAN CHERKAS: People were jamming on the breaks, jumping out of their cars, sometimes in the middle of the freeway to run over to the side, to cheer O.J. on.
PHILLIPS: Airline pilot Brian Cherkas was visiting his parents in L.A. when he learned the juice (ph) is was on the run and coming his way.
CHERKAS: All the media networks show there's going to -- pretty much play by play action. So I knew O.J. was traveling, the bronco was traveling north up to four and five and then I realized Emily (ph) two blocks away from hit. I may as well go down there and (inaudible) for myself.
PHILLIPS: Cherkas also an aspiring photographer make sure to bring his camera to the scene, he took these photos, capturing the riveting spectacle. CHERKAS: It was about 6:00 p.m. as far as I can remember in the Palms overpass and people were just meeting and droves on the overpass. There were people holding signs up, "Go O.J." signs. There are other people spray painting signs impromptu on the highway itself. The vibe was frenzy, it was a circus like atmosphere.
PHILLIPS: But those brief moments of frenzied energy would soon change as the bronco passes them by.
CHERKAS: People were jumping up and down, still shouting, screaming. And then all of the sudden they got quiet, and I notice some people were actually crying at the time. I think just the gravity of the whole event hit them that this is a guy charged with a double murder, trying to escape the police and he's obviously is not going to be able to do it. And I think that's when it hit him that his is really a sad situation.
PHILLIPS: The slow speed precession is now winding it's way closer to O.J.'s Brentwood home, though he's talking suicide. O.J. also seems afraid of the army of police that's waiting for him.
SIMPSON: You just tell them at my house, I know they're all over the place with guns and stuff.
LANGE: They're not going to do it.
SIMPSON: Please let them know I'm not coming there to hurt any of them, OK?
LANGE: OK, they know that, they don't want to hurt you.
PHILLIPS: Do you think he was going to hurt anybody else?
DAVID GASCOM: At that point I didn't think he was going to hurt anybody else, I think that he was going to hurt himself. I just though it was a matter of time before he'd surrendered.
LANGE: You're going to go to the house?
SIMPSON: You know, you just let them all know, you let the police know, you let them all know, I wasn't running.
LANGE: I know you weren't running.
SIMPSON: I was trying to go to...
LANGE: I know weren't running.
SIMPSON: ...I was trying to go to Nicole's grave.
PHILLIPS: As the bronco pulls off the freeway and on to Sunset Boulevard, it begins making its way through residential street. O.J. is now just blocks away from his home.
Coming up, the chase becomes a stand off.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The door is opening and let's see what happens now, we will watch with you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police believe that O.J. Simpson is in that car.
PHILLIPS: For hours.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up on Santa Monica Boulevard.
PHILLIPS: The Bronco has been slowly weaving his way through Los Angeles.
LANGE: Listen you're better man all your life, you know, don't stop now O.J.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LANGE: He keeps picking up, keeps talking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LANGE: Your tiered too, aren't you? I know, I know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: LAPD detective Tom Lange is trying to keep O.J. alive and calm as he reaches what is clearly his final destination.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There getting close to the house. The SWAT is waiting for him.
SIMPSON: (inaudible) for that driveway.
LANGE: I know I see it, I see it. Please toss the gun. Just toss it. Come on man. Just toss it, please. All right, just toss the gun.
PHILLIPS: But its not just police waiting for him as soon as the car arrive to Rockingham, O.J's 24 year old son Jason rushes to the Bronco.
LANGE: Lot of things are going on here. He just pulling on his driveway, that's his son Jason out there screaming and hovering, his definitely not acting.
PHILLIPS: What was going on with Jason?
LANGE: He was very emotionally upset because he knows what's going on. His dad is in there with a gun.
LANGE: Who is out there? All right, just toss it please. He just try to help, he just try to help man.
PHILLIPS: A.C. Cowlings still in Bronco shoves Jason.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey pick up Jason.
JASON SIMPSON: Please sir don't make stay here. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you there.
PHILLIPS: And police officers quickly intervene dragging O.J.'s son away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just.
A.C. COWLINGS: Thank god he was great. Look at to me listened to O.J. listen to me.
PHILLIPS: I hear A.C. screaming at him.
LANGE: Yeah, yes, A.C. and he are very, very close. A.C. is closes as any family member. SWAT is yelling at him, Cowlings is involve at this point, Jason yelling at him, his getting all sorts of orders from the police. They do not want to see him step out that car with a gun.
PHILLIPS: With the car now secured in the driveway, Tom Lange hand over negotiation to the SWAT team.
LANGE: The conversation was over, they don't care about me any more, he get his hands full.
PHILLIPS: So that was it for you. Your job was done. You sit back. What was going to your mind at this point?
LANGE: I was relieved, I was a -- your tiered, you're trash, you're tiered anyway. I'm tiered before this began, I'm really tiered. This is an emotional thing that trashes you physically and mentally, I was completely trashed.
PHILLIPS: Lange is done but O.J. and A.C. remain in the car with a loaded gun. Helicopters swirl overhead and the world watches, waiting for something, anything to happen and then...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The door is opening and let see what happens now, we'll watch with you. This is the driver side.
PHILLIPS: A.C. exits the car and makes his way to the house. But police don't swarm to arrest him. In fact A.C. seems to become a middle man between officers and despondent O.J.
DAVID GASCON FORMER SPOKEMAN LOS ANGELES POLICR DEPT: It's like he knew there's no way out. He was trap by circumstance and then he was literally trapped by law enforcement. There was no place to go.
PHILLIPS: More than an hour of stalemate would pass.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There no one rushing or standing around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got Al Cowlings is having a conversation at this point. Was somebody inside that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are (inaudible), talking to O.J. on the phone, trying to negotiate something. PHILLIPS: Viewer stay driven to their TVs. and the sunset, O.J. is still hold up in the car. Police don't approach the Bronco though. They want to avoid a potentially violent end.
GASCON: There wouldn't be any mistakes. They would take him into custody without shot being fired. And if a shot needed to be fired it would be probably be one.
PHILLIPS: Until finally...
LARRY KING: This is Larry King in Washington, we had Greg Lamotte on the phone with us, Greg can you now confirm that O.J. Simpson is arrested?
GRED LAMOTTE CNN LOS ANGELES: Yes, sir, he is in custody over...
PHILLIPS: Hidden by night fall from prying cameras O.J. Simpson emerges from the Bronco. Clutching family photos, he stagers out of the car and collapse into officer's arms.
PHILLIPS: How did the SWAT negotiators do it? How did they get him out of that car and into his house?
GASCON: Well they just talk to him. There were able to talk him out into submission.
PHILLIPS: What do you think it was that clicked in O.J.'s head, "I'm getting out, this is over. I'm going inside, put my hand up?"
GASCON: I just thought it was from his prospective, it was inevitable. There was nothing else he could have done, it was over.
PHILLIPS: And he figured that out?
GASCON: Saw it right in front him. There's no place else to go.
PHILLIPS: In Cowling's pocket police would find almost $9,000 in cash. In Bronco a fake goatee, mustache, a bottle of make up adhesive and receipt from a beauty supply store. Along with O.J.'s passport and a gun.
LANGE: He had all these disguise kit and all of stuff. Maybe in the back of this muddle mind he was thinking, "I'm going to across the border and I'll lay low for a while." I don't know.
PHILLIPS: O.J. is brought down to police headquarters as crowds gather. With O.J. in custody, the LAPD has one more press conference that night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was researched and then he was allowed to call his mother, visit the restroom and had a glass of orange juice.
PHILLIPS: The chase was over but the nation's obsession was just beginning.
Coming up. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 911 emergency...
N. SIMPSON: Can you get someone over here now.
PHILLIPS: Police release a chilling 911 recording from Nicole.
N. SIMPSON: He's back. Please.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. What does he look like?
N. SIMPSON: He's O.J. Simpson. I think you know his record.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just stay on the line...
N. SIMPSON: I don't want to stay on line. He's going to beat (inaudible) out of me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wait a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: O.J. Simpson, the juice, charged with being a viscous knife wielding murderer.
Adoring fans couldn't or wouldn't believe it. Because the O.J. they loved in movies and on TV was so charismatic.
O. SIMPSON: Nobody does it better than earth (ph).
PHILLIPS: And so likeable.
He seemed to have it all, the smile, charm, beautiful wife, but that wholesome image would be hard to maintain. First, the arrest for a double murder. Then days later, police would release a shocking recording.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to be in compliance with the law and release this material.
PHILLIPS: It was a 911 call made by Nicole Brown Simpson in 1993.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 911 emergency...
N. SIMPSON: Can you get someone over here now. He's back. Please.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. What does he look like?
N. SIMPSON: He's O.J. Simpson. I think you know his record.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Just stay on the line...
N. SIMPSON: I don't want to stay on line. He's going to beat (inaudible) out of me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wait a minute, Just stay on the line so we can know what's going in until the police get there, OK? Does he have any weapon?
N. SIMPSON: I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
N. SIMPSON: He went home and now he's back. The kids are upstairs sleeping and I don't want anything to happen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, just a moment.
N. SIMPSON: O.J., could you please leave?
Please leave.
O. SIMPSON: I'm leaving with my two (inaudible) fists is when I'm leaving.
PHILLIPS: Seven months later, Nicole Brown Simpson was dead.
D. BROWN: You know I missed Nicole terribly. I know that she's here. I know she's with me. I sure remember myself being so angry. And it took me 13 years to get over that anger.
I want to be able to remember Nicole as we were, the fun times we use to have, the good times, the joking around, horsing around times.
F. GOLDMAN: And it as raw and painful as it was 20 years ago.
Ron is in my thoughts every single day. And there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him. He's not buried somewhere inside it's right at the -- it's right the surface.
PHILLIPS: The lives of the Brown and Goldman families shuttered, so too the iconic image of O.J. Simpson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw perhaps the falling of an American hero.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In his court appearances, O.J. went through a dramatic transformation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please speak up so we could hear it.
O. SIMPSON: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Morphing from a grim depress defendant at his first arraignment...
O. SIMPSON: Not guilty.
PHILLIPS: ...to a confident superstar just one month later.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely 100 percent not guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A rocky romance, a double murder, a superstar on the run, all leading up what many people would call "The Trial of the Century." A long running TV drama every minute broadcast live. The cameras turning every lawyer and every witness into a celebrity.
F. GOLDMAN: Nine months of craziness, nine months of theatre, nine months of acting.
PHILLIPS: And nine months of debating every detail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How much hair do the people need?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Five to 10 hairs (ph) from each area, would usually amount to about 100 hairs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have never ever heard of such a request.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm very excited to hear Mr. (inaudible) was never of the number of hairs being required before because that is standard play.
PHILLIPS: But this much was beyond dispute. Two innocent people were dead as superstar had been charged with murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Simpson, would you please stand and face at your right.
PHILLIPS: And the entire country was captivated.
