The Search for Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

questions we faced on Christian Brando ’s case, for instance, and I had dealt
     with them as well on behalf of other clients. But in this case, suffice it to say that O.J. Simpson wouldn ’t have considered
     pleading guilty to any charge, let alone first-degree murder. And the district attorney wouldn ’t have offered anything less.

    Speed is essential in criminal cases. Memories fade, evidence dissipates. Since we had few facts to go on, the people who
     had seen or been with O.J. throughout the day of the crime were clearly going to be key witnesses, and there were two in particular
     who were key to establishing his innocence. Brian “Kato” Kaelin had spent much of the evening of the murder with O.J., and
     Allan Park was the limo driver who had picked him up and taken him to the airport. I wanted to talk to both of them immediately.
    I wished to talk to them both that very night, before their stories eroded from repetition, before anyone had a chance to
     interrogate them at length with techniques that might favor a particular point of view. And I wanted to tape-record the interviews
     so that no one could dispute later what questions were asked and answered, or suggest that the questions were improper, or
     that undue pressure was put on either man.
    From Skip Taft ’s office I called Allan Park, and with Skip present and his secretary coming in and out, we talked over the
     speaker phone. Park was a conscientious young man who had just begun working part-time for Town and Country Limousine, the
     company that O.J. used regularly. The company ’s owner, Dale St. John, happened to live across the street from Park, and was
     O.J. ’s normal driver, but on this night he was unavailable and had sent Park in his place.
    Park told us that he had arrived at O.J. ’s about 10:25 P.M .(twenty minutes early, he said), parked outside the gate, got out of the car and had a cigarette, and then had gone up to
     the gate at 10:40 and rung the buzzer. When no one replied after several attempts, Park got back into the car and called his
     boss, who told him that O.J. always ran late and that he should wait until at least 11:15. As they were talking, Park saw
     Kato Kaelin coming around the side of the house with a flashlight. Almost simultaneously (at around 10:57, he estimated),
     he also saw someone go into the house. When Park saw the lights go on in the house, he then buzzed the intercom again. O.J.
     answered it and, according to Park, told him he ’d overslept and been in the shower and that he would be down in just a few
     minutes.
    It was Kaelin who opened the gate so that Park could drive the limo up to the front door. He ’d felt or heard thumping sounds
     near the back of the house, Kaelin told him, and that ’s why he had the flashlight. He wondered if perhaps it had been an
     earthquake, or perhaps a prowler.
    O.J. showed up about five minutes later, in a hurry because he knew it would be a race to the airport. As he would later tell
     the police, “I was doing my little crazy what I do…. Anybody who has ever picked me up says that O.J. ’s a whirlwind, he ’s
     running, he ’s grabbing things, and that ’s what I was doing.”
    After his luggage was loaded into the limo, O.J. went into the kitchen to get a better flashlight in order to check the grounds
     with Kato. When he looked at the kitchen clock, he knew he didn ’t have enough time, and he headed back to the limo. At 11:15,
     he and Park took off for the airport.
    After ending my discussion with Park, I then interviewed Kato Kaelin at Skip Taft ’s office. Kaelin, at first glance, looks
     like the kind of person you ’d never want to be your witness; you ’d much rather have him appear for the other side. But his
     shaggy surfer-dude hair, fragmented grammar, and off-handed manner are deceptive. In fact, although the police had already
     interviewed him once, when they were first at Rockingham the morning of the murders, their interview wasn