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If I Did It: The Prequel

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from: Bonnie Goldstein

Posted Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006, at 3:22 PM ET

The public obsession with O.J. Simpson was reawakened by HarperCollins' planned publication (through its ReganBooks subsidiary) of what it billed as a book-length murder confession in the subjunctive (title: If I Did It) by the acquitted-but-disgraced football hero. HarperCollins' parent company, Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp., also planned a Fox special featuring an already-taped Simpson interview with the book's editor, Judith Regan. A public hue and cry ensued, and Murdoch canceled both. Now Simpson's confession (if it really was a confession) will be pulped, leaving us in the dark (at least until a copy leaks to the press) about the particular circumstances under which Simpson would have murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman on that awful night in June 1994.

But readers seeking information about Simpson's behavior toward Nicole can still avail themselves of a highly detailed police report (see below, and on the following four pages) about Simpson's spousal assault on New Year's Day 1989. (The setting was the same house at 360 North Rockingham where Simpson would be arrested five years later on suspicion of murdering Nicole, from whom he was by then separated.) If Simpson were a documented wife-abuser, here's what the evidence would look like.

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from: Bonnie Goldstein

Posted Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006, at 3:22 PM ET
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Bonnie Goldstein is a former special investigator to the U.S. Senate and investigative producer for ABC News.
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