O.J. Simpson, the American football player and actor who was acquitted of murdering his former wife in a sensational 1995 trial but was later judged responsible for her death in a civil lawsuit and imprisoned for armed robbery and abduction, died at the age of 76.
Simpson, who was acquitted by a Los Angeles jury in what the media dubbed “the trial of the century,” died on Wednesday after a battle with cancer, his family announced on social media on Thursday.
“On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer,” the family’s X post said Thursday. “He was surrounded by his kids and grandchildren.
During this time of transition, his family requests that you respect their wishes for privacy and grace.
– “The Simpson Family.”
Simpson avoided prison after being found not guilty in the 1994 stabbing killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles. Simpson was convicted in 2008 of 12 charges of armed robbery and kidnapping two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint at a Las Vegas hotel. He later served nine years in a Nevada jail.
Simpson, known as “The Juice,” was one of the best and most popular athletes of the late 1960s and 1970s.
He overcame a childhood injury to become an outstanding running back at the University of Southern California, winning the Heisman Trophy as college football’s best player. After a record-breaking NFL career with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Simpson turned his football success into a career as a sportscaster, advertising pitchman, and Hollywood actor in films such as the “Naked Gun” series.
All of that changed on June 12, 1994, when Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were found fatally cut outside their Los Angeles home.
Simpson suddenly became a suspect. He was ordered to surrender to authorities, but five days after the murders, he fled in his white Ford
Bronco with a former teammate, who is holding his passport and disguise A slow-speed chase through the Los Angeles region ended at Simpson’s residence, and he was later charged with the murders.