At the beginning of “The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson,” producers can be heard instructing interviewees to name specific people as they recall memories surrounding Nicole’s life and her death, to which Denise Brown, Nicole’s outspoken sister, responds, “There’s just one name I don’t want to say, if you don’t mind.”
She was referring, of course, to OJ Simpson, who was infamously accused of murdering Nicole and waiter Ron Goldman at Nicole’s Brentwood, Los Angeles, home on June 12, 1994.
The day after Simpson died of metastatic prostate cancer at age 76 earlier this year, Lifetime announced that the four-part documentary would air on Saturday, just days before the 30th anniversary of Nicole’s death.
Nicole’s sisters Denise, Tanya Brown and Dominique Brown, as well as young actresses such as Kris Jenner and Faye Resnick, friends of the slain woman and several police officers, have interacted with Nicole and attempted to portray the woman beyond her death and her relationship with the football player in question.
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O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson. “The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” premieres June 1st and 2nd. (Kris Jenner)
“I want to erase from my mind the image of that girl lying in a pool of blood in a little black dress. That’s not who she was,” Nicole’s friend Ron Hardy told the filmmakers. “I just want to talk about her cathartically, about who she was, what she meant to me, what she meant to other people, and how I will never regret meeting her.”
Until now, Nicole’s memory was preserved only through photographs that circulated after her death, including Polaroids documenting the bruises on her face that were kept in her safe deposit box and introduced as evidence at Simpson’s criminal trial.
But throughout the documentary, footage of Nicole as a child with her mother is shown, and later, her mother herself is seen cooing sweetly to her children on the beach. Stories from the couple’s Laguna Beach home offer a stark contrast to these innocent scenes. Nicole’s sister, Dominique, said a dark shadow fell over their always-bustling home whenever Simpson visited. Passersby recalled spotting the former football star with his wife on the beach, and watching in shock as Simpson violently punched Nicole and sent her falling into the waves.
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(From left) Taniya Brown, Dominique Brown and Denise Brown. “The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” premieres June 1st and 2nd. (lifetime )
It’s impossible to separate Simpson from Nicole’s story: The two met when she was 18, and friends and family say that even after 15 years of dating and marriage, Simpson remained deeply involved in her life through his children and his constant stalking.
“She’d say, ‘He won’t leave me. I’m not going to leave him,'” Denise recalled of their on-again, off-again relationship. “‘You should go back to him.'”
Through their stories, Nicole’s family often paint a picture of the years of abuse she suffered, lamenting how they didn’t notice the warning signs until it was too late.
“I hope that by keeping her memory alive, by keeping who she really was, maybe it will help someone else who may have been like Nicole,” said friend Robin Greer. “I hope they can avoid something that could have ruined their life or taken their life.”
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Nicole Brown Simpson, Dominique Brown, Dennis Brown, Nicole’s mother Juditha Brown, Nicole’s father Lewis Brown, and Tanya Brown. (The Brown Family)
“I thought, ‘I can’t save Nicole, but maybe I can save another life,'” Denise said of dedicating her life to educating people about domestic violence. “It’s something that nobody wants to talk about. I said, ‘No, we’re going to talk about it.’
Simpson met Nicole at the club where she worked, and her friend and roommate at the time, David Le Bon, recalled there were signs of violence shortly after Simpson took her out on their first date in his Rolls Royce.
“When she came home, the zipper on her pants had ripped,” Lebon said. “I said, ‘Nicole, what’s wrong?’ and she said, ‘He was a little pushy.'” [She told me to] Calm down. I was angry.”
Also interviewed, in a strange coincidence, was an LAPD officer who responded to both the Nicole and Goldman murders and a domestic violence call involving Simpson’s first wife, Marguerite, several years earlier.
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Nicole Brown Simpson pictured here with OJ Simpson. (Kris Jenner)
“During the argument, he became violent. He hit her. As I recall, he pulled a clump of her hair,” Terry Schauer said of his response to the home Simpson and Margaret shared. “She just wanted to get out and she had no transportation. She wouldn’t sign the report. She said, ‘My husband is O.J. Simpson, the football player.'”
Nearly 20 years later, Schauer rushed to Nicole’s home in Garden Grove after a neighbor found her and Goldman dead.
“The first officer there told me he worked in the area quite a bit. He said, [that police calls were] “It was very common in that house with O.J., and it brought back memories for me about Margaret Simpson,” Schauer said.
Simpson’s first wife publicly denied that any abuse had taken place.
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Nicole Brown Simpson and her mother Juditha Brown’s wedding. (David Le Bon)
Nicole’s friends recalled that she suffered constant anxiety after her split from Simpson: One night while he was stalking her, he saw his ex-wife kissing another man through the large living room window, after which he panicked and ripped the front door of her house off its hinges.
On the last night Nicole was alive, Dominique recalled her pointing out Simpson’s car as it drove past the restaurant they were eating at. For some reason, her mother was “eerie quiet” and seemed to know something was wrong that night, Dennis said.
She had left her glasses at a restaurant, and Goldman, who was working as a waiter there, took them to Nicole’s home, where she was later murdered, family members said.
Dennis recalled hearing the horrific news on June 12, 1994.
“All of a sudden, at 6am, I heard this heart-rending scream coming from my parents’ bedroom,” she says. “My mother was on her knees and my father was on his elbows, looking up at her. I picked up the phone and said, ‘Who is it?’ And my father said, ‘I’m calling.’ [a detective]” … He said, ‘Your sister got killed.’ I said, ‘Oh my goodness, he did it, he finally did it, oh my goodness.’
Family members described how Simpson had grieved with them at Nicole’s funeral and had fears about his guilt. When asked directly in the car afterwards whether he was responsible for her death, family friend Dan Persily recalled Simpson looking down at his hands and repeatedly saying, “I loved her too much.”
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Nicole Brown Simpson and Denise Brown in an undated photo. (The Brown Family)
After Nicole’s death, the ghost of her sister’s jealous ex-husband was replaced by the incessant sounds of helicopters and media attention. Before Simpson was acquitted of murder at trial and regained custody of his children, Dominique recalls, her parents removed all the televisions from the house to protect them from the constant media coverage.
Though they are often seen with their mother in family photos, Nicole and Simpson’s children do not appear in the documentary, nor do Simpson’s three children from a previous marriage. Sydney and Justin were eight and five years old, respectively, at the time of their mother’s death, but are now parents and prefer to stay out of the spotlight, Nicole’s family said.
But the bulk of the film offers an unprecedented look at what they went through at the center of a murder case that has engulfed the nation.
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O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson pose at the premiere of O.J.’s film The Naked Gun: 33 1/3 – The Final Insult, in Los Angeles, March 16, 1994. (Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
“One night, I was tucking[Sydney]in bed and we were talking, and she asked me, ‘Dennis, is my dad in jail?'” Nicole’s sister recalled. “I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Is my dad going to die?’ I said, ‘No, why?’ And she said, ‘Don’t murderers kill others?'”
Persily recalled another awkward conversation she had with the girl shortly after her father was released from prison.
“After he got out of prison, he kept saying how important it was for him to be with Sydney on her birthday. When he got home, he went to the Browns’ house, picked up Sydney and took her to Neverland, which was Michael Jackson’s estate,” Persily recalled.
Dominique Brown, Nicole Brown Simpson and Tanya Brown smile in an undated photo. (The Brown Family)
“next time [my kids] To Neverland [with them]I sat down with her and I said, ‘Sydney, I want you to understand that I will never let my sons go to your father. I cannot let my kids go there because I believe your father killed your mother.’ She just looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, I know.'”
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Nicole is remembered by friends and family as a strong-willed, energetic and generous person and a loving mother.
“She never got to see them grow up, never got to see them have kids, have lives, graduate. Before she could do anything, he killed her,” Dennis said. “I’ve been angry for 13 years since Nicole was killed. I realized while we were here that I still have a lot of anger inside of me.”
“He destroyed our whole family,” Dennis said. “How can one person destroy so many people’s lives?”
