IIt has been 30 years since the so -called “trial of the century” began on January 24, 1995. The star of black football Oj Simpson was tried for the 1994 murders of her ex -wife Nicole Brown Simpson – who was white – and She friend Ron Goldman – also Blanche – from her house in Los Angeles.
Simpson was acquitted in this criminal trial in October because the jurors noted a reasonable doubt, because his defense lawyers managed to affirm that certain evidence had been manipulated and planted. But Simpson was tried responsible for their death during a civil trial in 1997 because the burden of evidence was different in this case. He was ordered to pay more than $ 33 million to families and spent almost a decade in prison.
There have been many OJ Simpson documentaries in the past three decades – as OJ: Made in America, which was broadcast on ESPN in 2016 – but a new Netflix Document series, American Manhunt: Oj Simpson, aims to reintroduce the essay and its impact on conversations on domestic violence and racism to a younger audience who grew up in the era of the Materials of Matter #MeToo and Black. He also released less than a year after the death of OJ Simpson in 2024.
Director Floyd Russ says Simpson was invited to participate in the Netflix documentary, but wanted to be paid to tell his side of the story – which the filmmakers considered as contrary to ethics – and he wanted a certain level of control on The production that filmmakers could not allow.
On four episodes, the documentary series takes place as a chronology, featuring interviews with the lawyers involved, the detectives, the people who knew Simpson and some people who were not called to testify, but who say they have seen Simpson On the flight.
Russ says that the objective of the Docu series is to allow the public to be the jurors and to decide for themselves whether Simpson killed his ex-wife and his friend. But he adds: “I think it is quite clear that he did it.”
The people of Russ have spoken for the documentary series seem to think in the same way. Here are some of the most revealing parts of American manhunt.
People who knew that Oj expresses doubts about him
The filmmakers interviewed the agent of OJ Simpson, Mike Gilbert, after the death of the football player. Gilbert was friends with Simpson and represented it for about 22 years. But he had a fall with Simpson and even published a book in 2008 which said that Simpson admitted to Gilbert that he was behind the killings after the trial.
In Human American man, Gilbert describes his client as an enigma: “Was she a very good person who was able to do bad things? Or was OJ just a very bad person who sometimes did good things? I still don’t know – who was he? What person did I know?
Ron Shipp, who had been friends with Simpson, recalls a conversation with Simpson shortly after the murders made the headlines. Simpson complained to Shipp that the authorities wanted him to pass a lie detection test. Shipp thought it was obvious and asked Simpson why he hesitated. He says Simpson admitted that he had dreamed of killing Nicole.
When Shipp testified, he spoke of a model of domestic violence, how Nicole told him that Simpson had struck her and showed her photos of bruises on her body after other altercations. Shipp said that Simpson had not denied it when Shipip confronted it on this subject.
The main mystery not resolved
We can say that the greatest mystery of the OJ Simpson affair which has never been resolved is what happened to the murder weapon, a knife. No murder weapon was presented as proof in the trial, and no evidence of its place, turned out to be three decades. And yet some people interviewed to American manhunt think they know what happened to him.
Kato Kaelin, who stayed at the OJ guest house at the time of the murders, remembers having tried to help Oj far from a small bag in Duffel. The interview with Kaelin is juxtaposed to the testimony of the Limousine driver, Allan Park, who described having seen the small duffel bag to which Kaelin was referring.
In an interview, Skip Junis says he was at the airport while waiting to recover his wife when he saw Oj come out of the limousine. He says that the athlete had several pieces of luggage from Louis Vuitton, but held a cheap -looking bag and was categorical that the Limousine driver and the Skycap remain away from this bag. The Limousine driver also said in 1995 that Oj Simpson had a bag on his shoulder. Junis says he saw Oj going to the trash, decompressing the bag, taking out “something long” and immediately put it in the trash. Then he entered the terminal and went up on a flight to Chicago.
The case for another OJ Simpson documentary in 2025
The OJ Simpson affair was not only a case on domestic violence, but also a case on the breed. A central part of the defense argument was that one of the main detectives in the case, Mark Furman, had a story of racist statements and could not trust.
When the filmmakers interviews Furman and asked him questions about his racist statements made three decades later, he said: “There was a period in my life. I talked about minorities in derogatory terms. I was a little lost.
Racial tensions were already raised in Los Angeles when the OJ Simpson trial took place. The city was still in shock from the riot of 1992 which occurred after the police were acquitted of assault in the beat of the video of a black man, Rodney King.
Russ hopes that Human American man, Released in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 – which sparked a national conversation on the breed and police misconduct – can call on viewers to talk about the racial aspects of the OJ Simpson affair in a more informed manner.
“Many things have happened in this country in the past eight years,” he said. “The question remains – has something really changed since 1995?”
