The Federal Bureau of Investigation released 475 pages of documents on Friday relating to OJ Simpson, the former NFL star, actor and notorious suspected double murderer who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend.
The documents largely focus on the investigation into the 1994 stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Simpson was a person of interest whose 1995 trial became one of the world’s most-watched popular culture events of the last century.
The majority of files included in Friday’s dump, which include some redactions, pertain to the collection and testing of forensic evidence from the crime scene. They also include records of an FBI visit to Italy to research the manufacture and distribution Bruno Magli shoes, the rare brand found by Los Angeles homicide investigators to have been worn by the murderer.
The FBI also sent out a memo warning its investigators of the widespread public attention the case was receiving.
“Due to the intense media interest in captioned matter, and the potential prejudicial impact that public dissemination could have on pending criminal proceedings,” the memo states, “the following information should be handled on a strict need to know basis, and should not be disseminated outside the FBI. Any media inquiries should be directed to the Los Angeles Police Department.”
The FBI instructors dispatched to investigate Bruno Magli retail distributors were instructed: “Under no circumstance should the interviewing agents mention that this investigation concerns OJ Simpson or the homicide investigation in Los Angeles, California.”
Additionally, the files released on Friday include a pair of rambling letters addressed to the FBI night supervisor and dated within a month of the crimes from a person who claimed to have had premonitions of the murders.
Despite the not guilty verdict, three years after Simpson’s criminal trial, he was found liable in a civil suit brought by the victims’ families and ordered to pay $33.5m. In 2008, he was sent to prison for 15 years for a botched robbery in Las Vegas in which he attempted to forcibly recover sports memorabilia he insisted had been stolen from him.
Simpson died of prostate cancer in April aged 76. The FBI publicly releases records it has maintained on individuals after they die.