There is a whole dimension to the O.J. Simpson Case that I cannot see anyone has ever brought up.
What about where O.J. Simpson went to high school? You may be wondering what that could possibly have to do with it. He graduated from high school in 1965, 29 years before the double murder and the chase took place.
But look at the following two images, from Google Earth. The building in the foreground, with the red roof, is the high school that he went to. The island in the background is Alcatraz.
O. J. Simpson was going to high school here when the great escape from Alcatraz happened. The tall building in the background partially blocks the view of the island from the school today but that wasn't there when the escape happened, in June 1962. It must have been a prominent topic of discussion at O. J.'s school.
Could it be just a coincidence that the murders happened on the anniversary of the Alcatraz Escape, June 12? O. J. Simpson's number when he played for the Buffalo Bills was 32 and the murders happened on the 32nd anniversary of the Alcatraz Escape.
What is so intriguing about the Alcatraz Escape is that it is not known whether the escapees survived. Three prisoners, two of which were brothers, pulled off an elaborate escape plan. They got off the island on a raft that they secretly made by sewing raincoats together.
The exact time of their escape at night is not known, and that is where the question of their survival comes in. The deciding factor is considered to be the tide. If the tide was on the way in they would likely have ended up somewhere on the shore of San Francisco Bay and could well have escaped. But if the tide was on the way out they probably would have been swept out to sea and it would be unlikely that they survived.
The authorities searched for the escapees. But a search like this takes a lot of money and effort, as well as attention away from other crimes, and they didn't put anywhere near as much effort into the search as they would have were it known for sure that the escapees had survived.
A whole industry emerged around speculation about what became of the Alcatraz escapees if they survived. It has become part of American folklore.
So what does Niagara Falls have to do with this? When someone goes over Niagara Falls there is a very good chance that their body will never be found. What that does is make Niagara Falls, NY the fake suicide capital of the world. On the U.S. side there are few people around at night and many places where one could get into the water.
It is not uncommon to read about someone who complained about suffering from sadness and depression, or being heavily in debt, then took a trip to Niagara Falls and was never seen again. It was presumed that they jumped over the Falls. Sometimes they did, but then sometimes they didn't.
I find that this provides a perspective on the O.J. Simpson Case.
Just as with the Alcatraz Escape case that he must have been very familiar with, O. J. Simpson knew that the authorities would put much less effort into looking for him, if he faced arrest for the murders and had to escape, if they thought he was likely dead. O. J. didn't have a tide like the Alcatraz escapees but what he did have was fake suicide. O. J. could pretend to be suicidal. Remember that he had been an actor as well as an athlete.
O.J. Simpson went to the home of his long time friend, Robert Kardashian, after being charged with the double murder, but before he was required to turn himself in, allegedly to avoid the media. The police knew that he was there.
According to one report a delay was requested in when he had to turn himself in because he was "suicidal" and had to see a therapist. I cannot see that this therapy ever took place. What happened instead is that O.J. Simpson suddenly left the Kardashian residence with his old Buffalo Bills teammate, Al Cowlings.
After the departure of O.J. Simpson, meaning that he was now a fugitive, Robert Kardashian read his alleged suicide letter to the media. It didn't specifically mention ending his life but stated "I can't go on" and "Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life, great friends".
I have always thought that this reading of a friend's suicide letter to the media, before knowing that he was dead, was just a little bit bizarre.
That's not all that was bizarre. Robert Kardashian then reported that O. J. Simpson, who had long been close to the Kardashian family, had expressed his intention to commit suicide in daughter Kim's bedroom, who wasn't home at the time. Robert Kardashian had talked him out of it, because the room would then be essentially haunted. After O. J. had left he went and told the whole world about it.
Could it be that this was part of the plan? That it wasn't worth the effort to launch an all-out search for O. J. because he was probably dead by now anyway? Instead of the tide that the Alcatraz escapees had, to convince the authorities that they were probably dead, O. J. Simpson had being suicidal.
Long before that Robert Kardashian had been a lawyer. He would certainly have been called as a witness in the case. But what he cleverly did was reactivate his law license and serve as one of O. J.'s lawyers. That meant the police couldn't question him about the case nor could he be compelled to testify.
Writing these letters while at the Kardashian house sounds like something a lawyer advised him to do. Remember that he had a scheduled trip to Chicago, and he left right after the murders. The police called him in Chicago. He could have written these letters on the plane back from Chicago.
On the Chicago flight the crew reported that O. J. continuously drank water and used the bathroom. This could be part of the suicidal act also, that he had already taken some kind of pills and was washing it out of his system.
While fleeing with Al Cowlings driving, O. J. made the apparent mistake of making a phone call. Cell phones were still new but the location of a call could be approximately triangulated. The vehicle was moving south on the highway, seemingly going toward Mexico. A news helicopter caught sight of the vehicle and began to follow it. When they realized that they had been seen it seems that they turned around, possibly hoping to get lost in the dense traffic of the city.
What followed is the chase that I am sure no one who followed it will ever forget. I remember turning on the television to watch the news. I thought that this was a preview out of a movie that O. J. had made. I knew about his ex wife and the waiter who was returning her glasses being murdered shortly before. I thought this couldn't possibly be happening in real life. But then I changed the channel and it was the same thing on every channel.
The Ford Bronco was moving slowly along the highway, which had been quickly closed to all other traffic. About twenty police cars, with their lights flashing, were following it. They were holding off trying to stop it because O. J. was in the back seat with a gun to his head. In the air above the police cars was a formation of news helicopters.
People all across America dropped what they were doing to watch. It was absolutely surreal. It was difficult to believe that this was really happening. 9/11 was a shock but it wasn't difficult to believe that it was really happening.
Unfortunately the outside world watched it too, although maybe not live. Five years before the Berlin Wall had come down and it seemed like global democracy had triumphed. People were looking to America to see what a democratic society should be like. Then this had to happen. This surreal episode didn't do democracy any good. It wasn't the two murders, that could happen anywhere. It was the whole society was wrapped up in this difficult to believe spectacle. I am sure that the nearby presence of Hollywood was a factor and this probably wouldn't have happened like this in another city.
The pursuit ended at O. J.'s house. He went inside for a while and police waited until he emerged. O. J. was found to have been carrying in the car a fake beard, a passport and, a significant amount of cash. He wouldn't have this if he was really going to commit suicide.
Holding the gun in the Ford Bronco was part of this plan. So now he wasn't going to get away and pretend that he committed suicide. But there is one more thing that has to be remembered about his youth. It is that his mother worked in a psychiatric hospital. This brings us to Plan B.
The decade before John Hinckley had drawn attention to the insanity defense by being found "not guilty by reason of insanity" for trying to assassinate Ronald Reagan. While no one wanted to be confined to a psychiatric hospital it was probably preferable to prison. Holding the gun in the car also spared his friend and driver, Al Cowlings, who would otherwise be helping a fugitive to escape. But his "Dream Team" of lawyers lived up to their title and got him acquitted without using the insanity defense.
Could this really be a coincidence? O. J. Simpson was going to high school a short distance away when the great escape from Alcatraz took place. The murders for which he was charged happened on the anniversary of the Alcatraz Escape. O. J. wrote goodbye letters to throw off his pursuers just as the Alcatraz escapees put handmade dummies in their beds to throw off their pursuers. O. J. bought a disguise just as the dummies in Alcatraz were disguised to look like the escapees. There were three Alcatraz escapees just as O. J. had two close friends helping him, Robert Kardashian and Al Cowlings.
O. J. escaping in Al Cowlings' vehicle very much resembled the escaping from Alcatraz on the raft. The Alcatraz escapees had the tide to discourage an all out search for them because they likely didn't survive just as O. J. had his fake suicide scenario, remember again that he had been an actor as well as an athlete.
If only O. J. Simpson had still been in Buffalo, where he and Al Cowlings had been teammates on the Buffalo Bills. He could have written the goodbye letters and then made a quick trip to Niagara Falls and vanished, and this surreal spectacle could have been avoided.
As far as whether O. J. did it, if everything that was reported in the news was correct then O. J. Simpson absolutely murdered his ex-wife and the waiter who was returning her glasses. The question is whether everything that was reported in the news was correct. A lot of the "evidence" against O. J. is very subjective, such as his supposed demeanor and reactions. There were people claiming to have seen O. J. on the day of the murders and then selling their stories to tabloids. People with any connection to this case were using it to boost their own careers, most notably it introduced the world to the Kardashians.
Race was a heavy factor, there had been the very destructive racial uprising in Los Angeles two years before and now a black man was accused of murdering two white people. There was a police department that was, at the time, notorious for planting evidence and racism. I find it interesting that, 25 years before, the Manson Family had murdered high profile white people nearby in exactly the same way and made it look as if black people did it.
As for Buffalo, where O. J. played for the Bills, the Perry Projects are now in the process of being demolished. A musician emerged from this housing project, named Rick James. The first Manson mass killing was a get-together with actress Sharon Tate. Rick James had been invited but didn't attend, allegedly because of too much partying the night before. What if Rick James had been there? He would have been one of the victims and the world would never have heard of a Superfreak. But it would have changed the whole intended dynamic if they had also killed a black person. What if Rick James had been carrying a pistol and might have prevented the murders?
By the way, my personal opinion about the Alcatraz Escape is that they probably survived and escaped. I checked the phase of the moon for the night of the escape and it was nearing First Quarter, between New Moon and half moon. The Quarters are when the tides are weakest, known as Neap Tides, because the moon and sun are at right angles and thus pulling against each other. The tides are strongest at New Moon and Full Moon, known as Spring Tides, because the sun and moon form a straight line with earth and are thus pulling together. At any rate I am sure that they were aware of the tides, that a rising tide would push them toward shore but a lowering tide would pull them out to sea. They managed every other detail of the escape and I doubt that they missed this.
For more of high profile true crime see "The Assassination Of John F. Kennedy made really simple: www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-assassination-of-john-f-kennedy.html?m=0
And "The Unabomber And The Zodiac Killer": www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-unabomber-and-zodiac-killer.html?m=0
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