Bird of a Feather was in the cell with me.
While in prison awaiting trial for the murder of his ex-wife, disgraced NFL star O.J. Simpson found allies in Lyle and Eric Menedez, who were also awaiting trial for the shooting deaths of his parents.
“I didn’t see him cry, but I think he was crying.” According to Rand’s 2018 book “The Menendez Murder Case,” Simpson, who died Wednesday at age 76, was in the Los Angeles County Men’s Jail. About the first night he spent there, Eric Menendez told journalist Robert Land. Excerpt from A+E.
It was June 17, 1994. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and her friend Ron Goldman, 25, had been brutally murdered days earlier, and Simpson had just been arrested after a low-speed car chase. .
“It was very depressing, very sad. When his suicide note was read on TV, I almost cried,” Eric, then 23, said of the dramatic chase he was watching on TV in prison. According to the book, he said.
Eric and his brother Lyle were being held in prison while awaiting trial for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, Rand explained.
The brothers claimed that their father, an entertainment industry executive, had sexually abused them for years, but that their mother knew about it but ignored it, and shot them to death.
After Mr. Simpson was arrested, authorities placed him in a cell next to Eric, Rand wrote.
“Hey Eric, it’s OJ!” Eric recalled the former Buffalo Bills player calling out to him.
Eric claimed that he tried to teach Simpson how to survive behind bars.
“I told him not to tell any deputies or inmates about his case. I told him not to worry, just calm down and relax. After a long chase. , you can imagine what condition he was in,” he told Rand.
“He wasn’t happy being in prison like everyone else,” Eric added. “He wasn’t any worse than me or Lyle. He was really delusional and thought he would be out in three weeks.”
Within days, he said, every police officer was asking Simpson for an autograph.
“They were giving the officer good food (roast beef, pork chops, burritos) and letting him use the phone all day. They kept his cell open all the time,” Eric told Rand.
“They treated him like royalty. Everyone was in awe of him. Everyone wanted to talk to him.”
Rand said Simpson’s job in Hollywood after retiring from the NFL was actually how Eric and Lyle met. The younger brothers met Simpson by chance 10 years ago when his father was an executive at Hertz and Simpson was in public relations.
Eric and Simpson chatted through the flap of his cell door, but the only time Eric actually saw his famous neighbor was when he was walking to and from the shower stall.
“It was sad to see O.J. Simpson on the other side of that wall. I told him to be brave. Every time he passed my cell, he smiled and looked at me. ” he recalled.
Once, Eric left a letter in Simpson’s shower.
“I told him a lot of things. I said, ‘This is his life.’ “When you cry, remember those tears. You’re crying for your children, you’re crying for all you’ve lost, so hold them.” I told them to remember what they were doing and keep fighting. I told him he should start worrying about his life, not his reputation,” he said of the letter.
Eric said Simpson was particularly upset that his career had plummeted following the accusations.
“I’ll never work for NBC again,” he supposedly breathed at one point.
Eventually, Lyle Menendez also wrote a letter to Simpson.
Mr. Lyle told Mr. Rand that the two were not in nearby cells, but spoke frequently while waiting to meet with their lawyers in the prison’s attorney’s office.
“I told him I thought the people would understand,” Lyle insisted. “I expressed my concern that [defense lawyer] Robert Shapiro didn’t let him tell the truth. I told him I knew it wasn’t planned and that he had lost his temper. ”
When Rand asked Lyle if he thought Simpson killed Brown and Goldman, Lyle replied, “Absolutely.”
“He knew Eric and I and he trusted us,” he added.
Simpson was ultimately acquitted of murder in October 1995, a verdict that is still remembered as perhaps the most shocking in the history of the American justice system.
The Menendez brothers’ first trial began in 1993, but ended in a mistrial six months later.
After a second trial in 1996, they were found guilty of murdering their parents and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
