American Autopsy by Michael M. Baden

Author:Michael M. Baden
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637740477
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
Published: 2022-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

◆ ◆ ◆

O.J.

Over the phone against my ear, an interviewer was peppering me with questions. On the television screen before me, a white SUV was rolling down the freeways of Los Angeles with a suicidal celebrity inside and more than a dozen police vehicles trailing behind.

It was late afternoon on June 17, 1994. O.J. Simpson was in the back seat of that Ford Bronco with a handgun in his lap. His former football teammate, Al Cowling, was driving while trying to talk sense to his friend. Police said that Simpson was periodically pointing the gun at his own head, threating to kill himself.

Around the world, people watched it all on live TV.

This wasn’t a high-speed chase. The Bronco didn’t exceed the speed limit. No one knew where O.J. was headed, but everyone knew he was on the lam. He had vanished that morning, after police told Simpson’s attorney they were coming to arrest the former football star for the murder of his wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman.

“Doctor Baden, you were with O.J. today. Can you tell us his state of mind?” Larry King asked through the phone.

“Not good, Larry,” I responded. “He was very depressed. I’m worried that he might kill himself.”

“He never admitted to the killing, right?” King asked.

“Not to me. He seemed to be bewildered, Larry, why people were so sure that he had killed his wife when he was so bereaved, when he was so upset. He didn’t understand why suspicion was pointed at him.”

Twelve hours earlier, I had gotten a call from Robert Shapiro at my home in Manhattan. It was 11 PM. He apologized for calling so late, but he wanted me to fly to Los Angeles early the next morning so I could examine Simpson, who was about to be arrested for the murder of his ex-wife. That call was the start of my involvement in one of the nation’s most controversial murder trials. At first it seemed like just another celebrity murder case. But I’d soon discover that it was much more. The case would reveal deep divisions in our nation related to race, class, policing, and the criminal justice system. And it brought me back into the orbit of Johnnie Cochran, the lawyer I’d worked with on the Ron Settles case.

In 1994, I was busier than ever. The Medgar Evers trial had just wound up, and everything was going well with the New York State Police. We had helped solve a number of homicides. I had written a book, Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner, which looked at some of the most challenging cases of my career. And I had just been approached by HBO to host a new documentary series called Autopsy, where I’d reveal the stories behind the cases of unnatural or suspicious deaths that I’d helped to solve.

My work with the state police allowed me to take private cases as long as they didn’t conflict with their own possible cases. I was selective, but the cases I did work on outside of New York seemed to raise my public profile a little more.

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