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OJ SIMPSON DEAD: KILLER, NO HERO
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Former NFL star and the centerpiece of one of the nation’s most notorious murder trials, OJ Simpson, is dead at 76.

According to CBS News, Simpson passed away in Las Vegas, following a battle with cancer. His family confirmed his death on X Thursday morning.

“On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer,” the family wrote.

“He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace,” the statement continued.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, the double murder is the crime Simpson was best known for, even though he was never criminally convicted. But two years after his acquittal, Simpson was ordered to pay a $33 million settlement in a wrongful death suit brought by Goldman’s family.

The loss of the wrongful death civil suit appears to have sent Simpson on a downward spiral and indirectly led to the conviction that put him behind bars over 10 years ago.

FILE – Fred Goldman, father of Ron Goldman, hugs his wife Patti, as his daughter, Kim, left, reacts during the reading of the not guilty verdicts in O.J. Simpson double-murder trial in Tuesday, Oct. 3,1995, in Los Angeles. Simpson was acquitted in the murders of Goldman and Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole. Foreground is Los Angeles Police Detective Tom Lange, co-lead investigator in the case. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76.  (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)

In 1997, Simpson defaulted on his mortgage for the Brentwood estate, where he had lived for two decades. He later relocated to Miami, facing multiple legal issues ranging from minor battery charges to alleged involvement in a significant drug operation.

Despite escaping conviction for the more serious allegations, Simpson avoided legal consequences until 2007, when he became embroiled in an armed robbery at a Las Vegas casino.

In September of that same year, Simpson and his accomplices seized sports memorabilia from a hotel room in Vegas. Simpson reportedly believed the victim, memorabilia dealer Bruce Fromong, possessed sports memorabilia that Simpson said belonged to him.

To address debts from the wrongful death suit against Simpson by the Goldman family, some of his associates and family members sought to conceal personal property slated for auction. It’s speculated that some of these items may have been sold, potentially leading to Fromong acquiring them.

Fromong previously told Vulture that none of the items in his hotel room that day had belonged to Simpson.

In 2008, after his co-defendants made plea bargains in exchange for testimony, Simpson was sent to trial and found guilty of multiple felony charges.

Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after nine years.

The Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners conducted an early discharge hearing on November 30, 2021, and its decision to end Simpson’s parole was ratified on December 6 of that year.

FILE – In this Oct. 3, 1995, file photo, O.J. Simpson reacts as he is found not guilty in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in Los Angeles. Defense attorneys F. Lee Bailey, left, and Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. stand with him. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)

The story of the double murder of Brown Simpson and Goldman never stayed out of the headlines for long. In 2016, two major television events were devoted to the trial and the acquittal: The ESPN documentary series O.J.: Made in America, and a season of American Crime Stories adapted from Simpson’s notorious murder trial.

Also, in 2011, Kris Jenner, the former wife of Simpson’s close friend and attorney Robert Kardashian, published a memoir. Much of the material is about her close friendship with Nicole Brown Simpson and her alleged fears that O.J. would one day seriously hurt or kill her.

In the memoir, she says she blamed herself for not doing more to keep her friend safe, as Brown Simpson purportedly confided her fears about her ex shortly before her murder.

O.J. Simpson crime scene photos: **Warning** Graphic Images

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[Feature Photo: FILE – In this May 14, 2013, file photo, O.J. Simpson appears at an evidentiary hearing in Clark County District Court in Las Vegas. On Friday, June 18, 2021, Simpson’s lawyer says he’ll keep fighting recent court orders in Nevada that the former football star owes least $60 million in judgments stemming from the 1994 killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman. (Ethan Miller via AP, Pool, File)]

Additional reporting by Ellen Killoran and Jacquelyn Gray