OJ Simpson, acquitted murderer and football star, dies at 76

OJ Simpson, the acquitted California murder defendant, former football star and actor, has died, his agent confirmed to CBS News. He was 76.

Declaration posted on social media Simpson’s family said he died of cancer on Wednesday. Simpson’s agent said he did prostate cancer.

“On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, passed away after his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren,” the family said in a statement.

Simpson was famously acquitted of the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, in a case that dominated headlines and television screens for months. He was later found guilty of their deaths by a jury in a civil trial.

Simpson gained fame, fortune and acclaim through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife murders in Los Angeles.

Live TV coverage of his arrest after a famous slow speed chase marked a stunning fall from grace for the sporting hero. He seemed to break racial barriers as the star Trojans tailback for college football powerhouse USC in the late 1960s, as a rental car salesman running around airports in the late 1970s of the last century, and as the husband of the blonde, blue-eyed high school homecoming queen of the 1980s.

“I’m not black, I’m OJ,” he liked to tell friends.

The audience was mesmerized by his “trial of the century” on live television. His case has sparked debates about race, gender, domestic violence, celebrity justice and police misconduct.

A jury found him not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate jury in a civil trial found him responsible in 1997 for the death and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to Brown and Goldman family members.

A decade later, still in the shadow of California’s wrongful death conviction, Simpson led five men he barely knew into a confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room. Two men with Simpson had guns. A jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery and other crimes.

Imprisoned at 61, he served nine years in a remote prison in Northern Nevada, including a stint as a gym janitor. He showed no remorse when he was released on parole in October 2017.

The parole board heard him insist again that he was only trying to get back sports memorabilia and family heirlooms stolen from him after his criminal trial in Los Angeles.

“I’ve basically had a conflict-free life, you know,” said Simpson, whose parole expires at the end of 2021.

The public’s fascination with The Simpsons never waned. Many debated whether he was punished in Las Vegas for his acquittal in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was the subject of both an FX miniseries and a five-part ESPN documentary.

“I don’t think most of America believes I did it,” Simpson told The New York Times in 1995, a week after jurors decided he did not kill Brown and Goldman. “I have received thousands of letters and telegrams from people who support me.

Twelve years later, after a public outcry, Rupert Murdoch canceled a planned book from HarperCollins, owned by News Corp, in which Simpson offered his hypothetical account of the murders. It should have been titled “If I Did”.

Goldman’s family, which is still aggressively pursuing a multimillion-dollar wrongful-death lawsuit, won control of the manuscript. They renamed the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer”.

“It’s all blood money, and unfortunately I had to join the jackals,” Simpson told The Associated Press at the time. He raised $880,000 in advance for the book, paid through a third party.

“It helped me get out of debt and secure my home,” he said.

Less than two months after losing the rights to the book, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas.

Simpson played 11 NFL seasons, nine of them with the Buffalo Bills, where he became known as “The Juice” on an offensive line known as “The Electric Company.” He won four NFL rushing titles, rushed for 11,236 career yards, scored 76 touchdowns and played in five Pro Bowls. His best season was in 1973, when he rushed for 2,003 yards, the first running back to surpass the 2,000-yard mark.

“I was part of the history of the game,” he said years later, recalling that season. “If I did nothing else in my life, I would make my mark.”

Of course, Simpson went on to other fame.

One of the artifacts from his murder trial, the carefully tailored brown suit he wore when he was acquitted, was later donated and displayed at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Simpson County was told the suit would be in the Las Vegas hotel room, but turned out to be gone.