Jessica Schladebeck | New York Daily News
The sisters of Nicole Brown Simpson, O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife, have opened up about the upcoming 30th anniversary of her murder and how they were affected by the former footballer’s recent death.
Brown Simpson was found fatally stabbed alongside her friend Ron Goldman in the courtyard of her Los Angeles home in June 1994. The following year, Simpson was famously acquitted in both murders during televised legal proceedings, hailed at the time as “the trial of the century.”
Undated file photo of Nicole Brown Simpson, ex-wife of football superstar O.J Simpson. She was killed along with restaurant waiter Ronald Goldman on June 12, 1994. (AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
A California jury later found the ex-running back liable in a civil wrongful death suit, and he was ordered to pay $33.5 million to the families of both Simpson Brown and Goldman.
Simpson died of prostate cancer on April 10 at the age of 76, after decades of neglecting to pay the victims’ loved ones.
“It’s very complicated,” Brown Simpson’s sister, Dominique, told People when asked about Simpson’s death.
“This is a person who’s been in our life for a very long time, who wreaked havoc on our family,” Tanya, another one of Brown Simpson’s sisters added. “It’s like the end of a chapter.”
It wasn’t always like that though, the sisters said. Dominique recalled meeting Simpson and how he was “just [Nicole’s] boyfriend to us” at the time. Then, their sister invited them to watch Simpson play a game while he was with the Buffalo Bills.
“I was like, ‘Wow, look at this guy. He’s amazing,’” Dominique told People.
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But things eventually soured between the pair, and they split in 1992. Her sisters said Brown Simpson left the marriage only after she endured years of abuse, but added she got to experience happiness at the end of her life.
“What no one knows she experienced before her death is freedom,” Dominique said. “There was this levity about her. She was glowing.”
Tanya added, “I’m so glad that she had a good time the last two years of her life. I can’t bring her back, so why not try to look at it like that?”
Though the 30th anniversary of Brown Simpson’s death is just weeks away, Dominique still refuses to discuss whether she believes Simpson was involved in her sister’s killing. Tanya, meanwhile, says the evidence on the scene points to the ex-athlete.
Simpson-Brown’s third sister, Denise, said she’s just always had a gut feeling about the case.
“The moment my mom got the phone call, I heard this screaming from my parents’ bedroom,” she says. “It was gut-wrenching. I grabbed the phone, and the detective said, ‘Your sister’s been killed.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, he did it, he finally did it.’ I knew in my heart [it was O.J.].”
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