IT BEGAN a decade ago today on a misty evening in Los Angeles’ rich Brentwood neighbourhood. The howling of Nicole Brown Simpson’s dog led passers-by to a gruesome scene - the bodies of Ms Simpson, 35, and Ronald Goldman, 25, outside the front door of her condominium.
Ms Simpson, who had been married to OJ Simpson, the former American football star, for seven years before they divorced, had been nearly decapitated.
She and Mr Goldman, a waiter who had stopped by to return a pair of spectacles, had been stabbed
repeatedly.
Ten years on and Ms Simpson’s family are preparing to remember her tonight, as they have done every year since her death, with a public vigil at a California beach park near their home.
"People say it gets easier, but this year it’s much harder because I realise it’s been ten years since Nicole and I went out to lunch together, ten years since I told her I loved her," said her sister, Denise Brown.
"I don’t cry as often any more but tears don’t mean anything. It’s what’s inside that matters."
But while she is coming to terms with her sister’s death, Ms Brown is a long way from forgiving Simpson, recently branding him "the devil walking on Earth".
Simpson was cleared in a criminal trial of killing his former wife with a knife at their Los Angeles home in 1994. He was found liable for her death in a civil action three years later but has yet to pay her family their share of the $33.5 million (£18.5 million) awarded against him.
"He can hide, manipulate, cheat and steal, and do anything he can to avoid paying," Ms Brown told The Scotsman yesterday. "It’s simple for him. He has money in the Bahamas, in the Isle of Man, lots of places. What hurts is that the money was meant to be for his kids."
Ms Brown said her family has tried to turn the tragedy into a cause for good, setting up the California-based Nicole Brown Foundation to support women who are the victims of domestic abuse.
"I think Nicole would be very happy and so proud of what we’re trying to achieve," she said. "As for OJ Simpson, I don’t dwell on any of it. I’m OK with it because he was found liable for Nicole’s death, found guilty by a jury of his peers."
The murders led to the most notorious celebrity trial in America’s history, a televised nine-month marathon that enthralled the public and made celebrities of many of its participants.
Despite what many saw as overwhelming evidence of his guilt, a Los Angeles jury consisting largely of African-Americans acquitted Simpson, who is black, in October 1995. The verdict caused outrage.
Simpson, who was arrested after attempting to flee from police in a low-speed car chase, spent 16 months in custody until his acquittal. He then moved to Miami, where he has continued to clash with the law.
In October 2001, he was cleared of assault relating to a road-rage incident with a neighbour, sparing him a possible 16-year sentence. Two months later, FBI agents investigating a drugs ring raided his home and removed television-signal decoding equipment. A satellite television company has accused Simpson of pirating its signal and is seeking $20,000 in compensation, though no criminal charges have been filed.
In television interviews to mark the anniversary of his wife’s death, Simpson claimed he has never discussed the murders with their daughter, Sydney, 18, and son, Justin, 15, who have lived with him since the Browns lost a custody battle after his acquittal.
Justin is considered to be one of his high school’s top athletics prospects, while Sydney leaves Miami’s Gulliver Academy this month and wants to become a child psychologist.
The tabloid press in the United States have reported that father and daughter barely speak.
Simpson continues to plead his innocence of the murders, and blames the media for "convincing the American public I was guilty".
Denise Brown, however, is certain she knows who killed her sister. "She used to say, ‘He will kill me one day and he’ll get away with it. Let’s go to lunch’. It was just that, a sort of flippant comment and not a plea for help, but I wish she’d said she was in trouble.
"Nicole would still be here today if it wasn’t for OJ Simpson."
