A timeline of his life – from fame to murder trial and death – Firstpost

OJ Simpson, the American football legend who became a Hollywood star and directed television sets in the United States before being accused of the murder of his wife, died Thursday at the age of 76 following prostate cancer.

He lived the American dream as a sports legend, movie actor, commercial pitchman and millionaire. With his wildly successful career, stunning good looks, and stunning wife, he became an image of success for Black Americans and was embraced by people of all races. Everyone could safely love Simpson, who lived in a world of glamor and privilege available to a few.

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

It all came crashing down in the summer of 1994, when Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, was found dead outside her Los Angeles apartment. Her friend Ronald Goldman, a waiter who came to her house to return a pair of glasses abandoned in a restaurant, was lying a few meters away, stabbed to death.

Simpson, who died Wednesday at age 76 of prostate cancer, immediately came under suspicion amid discussions of domestic violence and jealousy.

A criminal jury found him not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil jury found him responsible in 1997 for those deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to Brown and Goldman’s relatives.

This is a timeline of major events in Simpson’s life.

— 1967: Leads all college running backs in rushing in his freshman season at the University of Southern California.

— 1968: Wins the Heisman Trophy, college football’s highest honor.

— 1969: Picked first in the professional draft, he spent the next nine seasons with the Buffalo Bills.

— 1973: Became the first NFL player to rush for 2,000 or more yards (2,003) in a season.

— 1979: He retired after rushing for 11,236 yards, the second-highest total in NFL history at the time.

— 1985: Inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

— 1988: After appearing in television shows and commercials since the late 1960s, he starred in the first of the crime comedies “Naked Gun”, perhaps his most popular role.

— 1992: Nicole Brown Simpson files for divorce after seven years of marriage. It becomes final on October 15.

— June 12, 1994: Nicole Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman are stabbed to death outside her Los Angeles home.

— June 17, 1994: Ordered to surrender, Simpson instead fled in a white Ford Bronco, leading police on a nationally televised slow-speed chase through California highways.

— June 1995: During the murder trial, a prosecutor asked him to put on a pair of gloves that the killer would have worn. They appeared too small, and defense attorney Johnnie Cochran told jurors, “If you don’t like it, you must acquit.”

— October 3, 1995: Simpson is acquitted.

— February 1997: The jury hearing a civil suit finds Simpson liable for the deaths and orders him to pay $33.5 million to the victims’ families.

— July 2007: A federal bankruptcy judge grants Goldman’s family the rights to a book written in the first person in which Simpson explains how he could have committed the murders. The family renamed the book “(If) I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.”

— September 2007: Confronts two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room, angrily telling them that most of what they plan to sell is rightfully his.

— October 2008: Convicted, along with co-defendant Clarence “CJ” Stewart, of kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and conspiracy; four other co-conspirators took plea deals and received probation.

— December 2008: Sentenced to nine to 33 years and sent to Lovelock Correctional Center in northern Nevada.

— October 2010: Denied an appeal by the Nevada Supreme Court. Stewart gets a new trial, takes a plea deal, and is released.

– July 2013: Asks Nevada Parole Board for leniency, saying he tried to be a model prisoner. He is granted parole for some convictions, but he still has at least four years left to serve.

— July 2017: Is unanimously granted parole by a board that cites the low risk of him committing another crime, the support of his community and a release plan that includes a move to Florida, where he has family.

— October 2017: Is released from Lovelock Correctional after serving nine years for the botched hotel room robbery.

— January 2018: Avoid trying to force him to hand over money by signing autographs to satisfy the civil judgment of more than $70 million for the murders.

— March 2018: Fox TV invites viewers “inside” Simpson’s head by airing a never-before-seen interview from 2006 in which he theorizes about what happened the night his ex-wife was murdered. The show includes his fictionalized “lost confession” to the murders.

— June 2019: He says he is happy and healthy in Las Vegas, 25 years after the murders. “Life is good,” Simpson told the Associated Press, adding that he and his children “don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives.”

— April 2021: Settles his lawsuit claiming that Cosmopolitan employees defamed him by telling a celebrity news site that he had been banned for being drunk and disruptive. Lawyers for the hotel-casino said its reputation was already too tarnished.

— December 2021: Having earned credits for good behavior, he was released from parole.

— May 2023: Announcement that he underwent chemotherapy for cancer.

— February 2024: He denies entering hospice, saying he was entertaining friends at a Super Bowl party and “everything is fine.”