ABSTRACT
On the evening of June 12 1994, two people were stabbed to death outside a condominium in the exclusive Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. From the beginning, Los Angeles Police Department detectives labeled the double murder a ‘celebrity case’, not because of the renown of the two victims, but because one of them, Nicole Brown Simpson, was the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, former football star, sports commentator, movie star and Hertz rental car spokesman. Detectives were concerned that the media would arrive at the Bundy crime scene or Simpson’s Rockingham estate and create a spectacle. Because no spectacle is complete without an audience, the case did not fully erupt as a media event until several days later, on 17 June, when Simpson attempted to evade the LAPD rather than to turn himself over as the prime suspect in the murders. Police eventually tracked him down via a cellular phone in the now-infamous white Ford Bronco in which he was being chauffeured by his longtime friend, A.C. Cowlings. What has become known as ‘the lowspeed chase’ was televised for hours, with approximately 100 million viewers watching police cars slowly trailing the Bronco down the freeway to Simpson’s mansion as detectives attempted to dissuade the suspect from suicide. The freeway and the street leading to the mansion were lined with crowds of people, cheering, clapping, blowing kisses and holding signs declaring their dedication to the celebrity in the Bronco. Following his arrest that evening, Simpson’s mugshot appeared across the world’s media channels.
