O.J. Simpson Trials: 1995 & 1996-97

LAPD forensic chemist Gregory Matheson testified that blood on the Bundy walkway could not have come from 99.5 percent of the population but could be Simpson's, and that blood found on socks in Simpson's bedroom could have come from Nicole but not from the defendant. During the cross-examination, defense attorney Robert Blasier repeated a litany of incompetencies: police did not follow proper chain-of-custody procedures for the blood samples; bodies were wrongly covered with improper blankets; officers were late reaching the crime scene; laboratory tweezers were improperly cleaned; 1.5 millimeters of Simpson's blood sample had mysteriously disappeared.

Robin Cotton, director of Cellmark Diagnostics in Germantown, Maryland, said DNA tests confirmed that blood found near the victims was the defendant's, indicating that Simpson cut himself while committing the murders. While cross-examining, defense attorney Peter Neufeld questioned Cotton's estimate that only 1 in 170 million African-Americans and Caucasians showed the same genetic pattern as Simpson. In probability statistics, she replied, numbers "mean what they mean. A number isn't an opinion."

Gary Sims, lead forensic analyst at the California Justice Department's DNA laboratory, testified that blood on the glove found at Simpson's Rockingham estate matched Goldman's blood, and that blood in the Bronco matched both victims' as well as the defendant's. Under cross-examination, Sims minimized the possibility of cross-contamination of blood samples—that is, one being tainted by another—in the laboratory.

Extremely graphic photos of the victims' bodies were presented with the testimony of Dr. Lakshman Sathyavagiswaran, chief medical examiner of Los Angeles County. The doctor described Mrs. Simpson facing her killer's slashing knife and absorbing a severe blow that probably knocked her out. Goldman was then killed, he surmised, before the killer slashed Nicole's throat. Next, Goldman was stabbed more than two dozen times before he died. Dr. Sathyavagiswaran said the deaths occurred between 9:00 P.M. and 12:45 A.M. No pathologist, he concluded, could give a more precise time.