IN LATE APRIL, 2006, Judith Regan, the publisher, called me about a highly confidential project. O.J. Simpson was going to write a book for her, she said, to confess to the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Only it wasn’t exactly a confession. The book was going to be called “If I Did It” and it would be sold as an account of whatmight have happened on the night of the murders. When I told Judith I wasn’t sure I understood what that meant, she said, “He wants to confess, and I’m being assured it’s a confession. But this is the only way he’ll do it.”
As soon as we got off the phone, I spoke to the only two other people at ReganBooks who were in the loop. One was a senior editor, the other a company attorney. I already had misgivings about the book, partly because I didn’t understand what O.J. was selling, and partly because there are laws about criminals cashing in on their crimes. I knew that this law only applied to convicted criminals, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
No, no, no, I was told. O.J. himself wouldn’t be making a penny. All the profits were being funneled into a corporation that was owned and controlled by his children. I thought that sounded more than slightly suspect, but I’m not an attorney. Surely, if a deal was being made with O.J.’s kids, it was being done with the blessing of the parent company, News Corp., and the powers that be at HarperCollins.
Of course, part of me didn’t want to probe too deeply. I was being given an opportunity to sit in a room with O.J. Simpson and listen to his confession, or an ersatz version of a confession, and it was simply too good to pass up. That he wanted to describe it as “hypothetical” meant very little to me. I’d assumed from the start that he was guilty, and in the years since I’d heard nothing to make me change my mind.
Not long after, I had lunch with the attorney who had brought the project to Judith. He told me that the idea for the book, and the bizarre title, had originated with a guy who operated on the fringes of the entertainment industry, and who was friendly with O.J.’s eldest daughter, Arnelle. I still wasn’t entirely sure what, exactly, the book was supposed to be, and neither was he, but I was assured, as Judith had been, that O.J. would be confessing, and that I’d be hearing details only he could possibly know. By the time the check arrived, we had hammered out a deal. I would be paid a guaranteed, upfront fee, plus a share of the book’s profits.
I kept waiting for the attorney to ask me about my history with O.J., but he never did. Ten years earlier, during the criminal trial, I testified for the prosecution. I had described the “plaintive wail” of Nicole’s dog, and Marcia Clark used the information to try to establish a timeline for the murders. I lived on Gretna Green Way, one street over from Bundy, and I shared a bac
