‘The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson’: Family and Friends Shed Light on Infamous Case in New Documentary

At the beginning of “The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson”, a producer is heard asking interview subjects to use specific names when remembering Nicole’s life and their memories surrounding her death. Denise Brown, Nicole’s older sister, responds: “There’s only one name I don’t want to say, if you don’t mind.”

Of course, she was referring to OJ Simpson, infamously accused of murdering Nicole and waiter Ron Goldman at Nicole’s home in Brentwood, Los Angeles on June 12, 1994.

A day after Simpson died from metastatic prostate cancer at age 76 this year, Lifetime announced the release of the four-part documentary that aired Saturday, just days before the 30th anniversary of Nicole’s death .

Nicole’s sisters Denise, Tanya Brown and Dominique Brown are joined by starlets including Kris Jenner and Faye Resnick and a number of the murdered woman’s friends and law enforcement officers who interacted with Nicole in an effort to portray the woman beyond her death and her relationship with the troubled football player.

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“I want to exorcise from my mind a girl lying on the sidewalk in a little black dress in a pool of blood – that’s not who she was,” Nicole’s friend Ron Hardy told the filmmakers. “I just want to talk about her in a cathartic way, talk about who she was, what she was to me, what she was to other people and how I will never regret meeting her. “

Previously, Nicole was only remembered by the photographs that circulated after her death, including Polaroids documenting bruises on her face that were stored in her safe and entered as evidence in Simpson’s criminal trial.

But archival footage throughout the documentary shows Nicole as a child with her mother, and then footage as a mother herself, cooing to her children on the beach. Stories from the couple’s vacation home in Laguna Beach contrast with the innocent scenes. Nicole’s sister, Dominique, said a pall fell over the otherwise bustling house every time Simpson entered. A passerby recalls spotting the former football star on the beach with his wife, then watching in shock as he punched Nicole so hard she fell into the waves.

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It’s impossible to separate Simpson from Nicole’s story. The couple met when she was just 18, and after 15 years of dating and marriage, Simpson continued to play a significant role in her life through their children and constant harassment, according to her friends and his family.

“She said, ‘He’ll never leave me alone. I’ll never get rid of him,'” Denise recalled of one of the many times the couple got back together. “’I might as well go back to him.’”

Through their stories, Nicole’s loved ones paint a picture of the years of abuse she suffered, often lamenting ignoring the warning signs until it was too late.

“I hope that by keeping her memory alive, the person she really was, maybe it can help someone who was another Nicole,” said friend Robin Greer. “Get out of something that could ruin their life or cost them their life.”

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“I thought, ‘I can’t help Nicole, but maybe I can save another life,'” Denise said, speaking about her lifelong commitment to domestic violence education . “It’s something that no one wants to talk about. I said, ‘No, we’ll talk about it.'”

Simpson was 30 when he met Nicole at the club where she worked. Her friend and roommate at the time, David Lebon, recalled that there were signs of violence just after Simpson took her on their first date in his Rolls-Royce.

“When she came home, her pants were torn, as well as the zipper,” Lebon said. “I said Nicole, what happened to you? And she said, ‘He got a little energetic.’ … (She told me to) calm down. I was upset.

Also interviewed was an LAPD police officer who, by bizarre coincidence, responded to both the murders of Nicole and Goldman and a domestic violence call involving Simpson’s first wife, Marguerite, years earlier.

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“During the argument, he became violent. He hit her. As far as I remember, he pulled out a clump of her hair,” Terry Schauer said of his response to the home Simpson shared and Marguerite. “She just wanted to get out of the house and she had no transportation – she wouldn’t sign a report. She said, ‘My husband is OJ Simpson, the football player.'”

About 20 years later, Schauer went to Nicole’s home in Garden Grove after neighbors found her and Goldman dead.

“The officer who was there first told me that he did a lot of work in that area. He said that (calls to the police were) a very common occurrence in that house with OJ. That’s what jogged my memory about Marguerite Simpson,” Schauer said.

Simpson’s first wife publicly denied any abuse.

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Nicole’s friends remember her constant discomfort even after her separation from Simpson. In one case, Simpson saw his ex-wife kissing another man through a large window in her living room during one of his many nights of stalking. He ripped his front door off its hinges during his subsequent seizure.

On Nicole’s last night alive, Dominique remembers Nicole pointing out Simpson’s car driving past the restaurant where they were eating. Somehow, Denise said, their mother was “eerily quiet” and seemed to know something was wrong that night.

She had left her glasses at the restaurant. Goldman, a waiter, took them to Nicole’s home, where he was later killed, the family said.

Denise remembers hearing the terrible news on June 12, 1994.

“It’s six in the morning, and all of a sudden I hear this… heartbreaking, curdled scream coming from my parents’ bedroom,” she said. “My mom was on her knees and my dad was on his elbow looking at her. I picked up the phone and said, ‘Who is that,’ and he said, ‘It’s (a detective).’ … He said, “Your sister was killed. I said, ‘Oh my God, he did it, he finally did it, oh my God.’

Relatives described Simpson crying alongside them at Nicole’s funeral and their worrying uncertainty about his guilt. When asked directly if he was responsible for her death during a car ride, D’Anne Purcilly, a family friend, recalled that he looked down at his hands and repeatedly said : “I loved him too much”.

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After Nicole’s death, the specter of their sister’s jealous ex-husband was replaced by the constant whir of helicopters and press attention. Before Simpson was acquitted of murder in court and regained custody of his children, Dominique recalls, their parents removed all the televisions from their house so the children could be safe from the constant media coverage.

Although they are largely depicted alongside their mother in family footage, Nicole and Simpson’s children did not participate in the documentary, nor did Simpson’s three children from his previous marriage. Sydney and Justin, aged 8 and 5 respectively at the time of their mother’s death, are now parents themselves and avoid the spotlight, Nicole’s family explains.

But much of the film provides an unprecedented window into their experience at the center of the murder that captured the nation.

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“One night I was tucking (Sydney) into bed, and we were talking, and she said, ‘Denise, is my dad in jail?’ Nicole’s sister recalled: “I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Is my father going to die?’ People who kill other people, don’t they kill them?

Purcilly recalls another uncomfortable conversation with the girl shortly after her father’s release from prison.

“When he got out of prison, he kept saying how important it was… to be with Sydney on his birthday. He came home, went to the Browns, picked up Sidney and took them to Neverland…Michael Jackson’s property,” Purcilly recalled.

“She asked me if next time we could take (my children) to Neverland (with them). I sat down with her and said, ‘Sydney, you have to understand that I will never let my boys go with your dad. Because I think your dad killed your mom and I can’t let my kids go there. She just looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, I know.'”

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In addition to her strong will, vibrant energy and generosity, Nicole was remembered by friends and family as a loving mother.

“She didn’t have the opportunity to see them grow up. She didn’t have the opportunity to see them have children and a life…