No murder confession found in recordings seized from OJ Simpson's ex-bodyguard, police say
No murder confessions were found in recordings that were seized from O.J. Simpson's ex-bodyguard, police told TMZ.
There was allegedly no evidence of Simpson in the recordings and that it was mostly just audio of Iroc Avelli, Simpson's former bodyguard, speaking to himself.
Bloomington police said they "did not locate any information of evidentiary value" after being asked by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to search several thumb drives that investigators believed might contain a confession from Simpson in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, according to a statement obtained by FOX 9 News.
FILE - O.J. Simpson watches his former defense attorney Yale Galanter testify during an evidentiary hearing in Clark County District Court on May 17, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
What was believed to be on the recording?
According to an application for a search warrant filed in Hennepin County, officer George Harms has applied for a court warrant to search for the imaging of thumb drives, so that, "full forensics examination can be conducted on all thumb drives to try and obtain the recording."
The search warrant was filed on the grounds that the thumb drives, "constitutes evidence which tends to show crime has been committed, or tends to show that particular person has committed crime."
According to the search warrant filed by the Bloomington Police Department in Minnesota, on March 3, 2022, Harms was investigating an assault that had occurred at a home on Lyndale Avenue South in Bloomington, for which he drafted a search warrant to collect evidence at the scene.
Several items of evidence were collected after the search warrant was executed, including a backpack with ammunition. Iroc Avelli, Simpson’s former bodyguard, was formally charged in the case, which is still pending.
On June 14, 2024, Harms received a call from the LAPD, who said that Avelli and his attorney met with detectives, and said that located in the backpack seized during the search was a thumb drive that contained a recording of O.J. Simpson confessing to the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Det. Mojarro of the LAPD has since requested that Harms look inside the green backpack for any thumb drives for the recording.
So far, Harms has reported finding the thumb drives, but does not know the contents yet.
RELATED: Nicole Brown Simpson's tragic murder and O.J.'s infamous escape: 30 years later
The murder trial
In 1994, Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her boyfriend, Ron Goldman, were found stabbed to death at her condo in Los Angeles. Simpson was quickly named a person of interest in the high-profile crime and, when he failed to turn himself in, police issued a warrant.
That led to the infamous low-speed chase when TV stations broadcast live coverage of police trailing the white Ford Bronco as former teammate Al Cowlings drove Simpson across L.A. before he eventually surrendered.
Simpson was arrested and charged with the murders. In a widely watched televised trial, he was ultimately found not guilty. No one else was ever convicted for the deaths.
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