But NEWSWEEK has learned that the defense has lined up about eight witnesses who will cast doubt on the timing of the murder. They will testify either that they heard or saw nothing around 10:20, or that they heard a dog’s barking or other noises later – sometime after 10:30 p.m. One witness, NEWSWEEK has learned, is Denise Pilmak, who lives across the street and several doors down from Nicole’s condo. Defense sources say she will testify she didn’t hear frantic dog barking until 10:33 p.m. A compulsive time-noter, the defense says, she can recount her every step that night, down to when she flossed. Pilmak isn’t a dream witness, however. She thinks Simpson is “guilty as hell,” a defense source concedes. And she’s told the defense that the dog could have been out of her heating range earlier. Pilmak declined to discuss her testimony.
Before this defense gambit flies or dies, the prosecution will make one last dramatic move. The state is expected to rest this week; its final witness will be Nicole Brown simpson’s mother, Juditha Brown. She will likely give testimony about the last conversation she had with her daughter, roughly a half-hour before prosecutors believe the murder occurred. Prosecutors anticipate Brown will say that Nicole wanted to remain apart from O.J., perhaps bolstering the jealousy motive. This would add emotional kick to the prosecutors’ five-month-long ease, which has been strong on evidence and weak on presentation.
Last week it looked for a while as if the state had pulled off yet another legal blunder. prosecutors failed to reveal to the defense, as required, a report by one of their own experts that further linked Simpson to the double murders. It was “compelling circumstantial evidence,” said an angry Judge Lance Ire, who barred the state from presenting some of it to the jurors. But prosecutors redeemed themselves the next day with powerful new physical evidence. An FBI agent, Douglas Deedrick, said hairs resembling Simpson’s were present at the crime scene-on the bloodied shirt of victim Ronald Goldman and on a knit cap found by Goldman’s feet.
The defense professed not to be worried by the testimony. Lawyers have suggested that Simpson’s hair was scattered at the crime scene when a blanket from Nicole’s condo was brought outside to cover her body. That argument fits nicely into their strategy, which contends that the Los Angeles police framed Simpson, whether by deliberately planting blood or inadvertently contaminating evidence. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, chief defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran says the defense case will last four to six weeks. Said Cochran: “We don’t want to bore the jury to death, and we want to make the important points and get out.”
Demeanor: Defense sources say they will call as many as 10 witnesses who saw O.J. on the flight to Chicago the night of the murders, and after he returned to Los Angeles. They will testify that Simpson appeared normal on the flight and was distraught on his return. The pilot of the American Airlines flight to Chicago is expected to testify that he had Simpson sign his plane log – and observed nothing unusual about O.J.’s hands. A Chicago hotel clerk will say he gave Simpson a small bandage shortly before he left for the airport. Simpson has said he cut his hand slamming down a glass in his room, while prosecutors say he cut his hand during the murder struggle.
Blood evidence: DNA tests linking Simpson’s blood to the crime have always seemed the state’s strongest hand. Who could argue with statistics showing odds of one in a gazillion that it’s someone else’s? The defense will, calling DNA Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis and others to rebut the findings. They can also exploit the recent concession by a state witness, Dr. Bruce Weir, that he had rubbed calculating some of the odds. Of course, the defense wants the jury to believe DNA results are irrelevant, given the police-misconduct scenario. To that end, sources say the defense will raise new questions implying that the police may have surreptitiously created evidence in the laboratory using Nicole’s, Ron’s and OJ.’s blood. Won’t jurors wonder why the police would want to frame an icon like Simpson? “We don’t have to show that,” Cochran insists, just raise reasonable doubt.
O.J. on the stand? The most intriguing question is whether Simpson will testify. The former football star, apparently still convinced of his ability to engage an audience, has told his defense team he wants to. Cochran insists no decision has been made, but he sounds unenthused. He says it would open Simpson to a potentially damaging exploration of his treatment of Nicole, as well as his whereabouts the night of the murder. Most legal experts agree that allowing Simpson to testify would be foolish, especially when the defense seems to have the edge now. But in a case that relies heavily on the barking of a dog, nothing should be ruled out.
