It was just past midnight on June 13, 1994, when a passerby noticed a white Akita with bloody paws wandering the streets of Brentwood. That dog eventually led neighbors to 875 South Bundy Drive. What they found there—and what was later captured in the oj simpson case crime scene photos—would basically change how the world looked at DNA, celebrity, and the LAPD forever.
The images were brutal. Honestly, "gruesome" doesn't even cover it. Nicole Brown Simpson was found slumped at the base of her front stairs in a short black dress, her neck severed so deeply she was nearly decapitated. Just a few feet away, Ronald Goldman’s body was wedged against a fence and some shrubbery. He’d been stabbed dozens of times.
But for all the blood shown in those photos, it was the small, seemingly mundane details that ended up carrying the most weight in court.
The Evidence That The Camera Didn't Lie About
When you look at the wide shots of the Bundy walkway, you see a trail of blood. These weren't just random splashes. They were deliberate drops leading away from the bodies toward the back of the property.
The prosecution argued these drops came from a cut on the killer’s left hand. And wouldn't you know it, when detectives finally met with O.J. later that day, he had a fresh bandage on his left middle finger.
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The Bruno Magli Mystery
One of the most famous elements in the oj simpson case crime scene photos was a series of bloody footprints. Experts identified them as coming from a size 12 Bruno Magli shoe, specifically the "Lorenzo" or "Lyon" style.
At the time, Simpson claimed he didn't own those "ugly ass shoes." He actually sounded offended by the suggestion.
However, during the later civil trial, a photographer named Harry Scull Jr. surfaced with a photo of Simpson at a 1993 Buffalo Bills game. He was wearing—yep—size 12 Bruno Maglis. It was a massive "gotcha" moment that the criminal jury never actually saw.
Why The Photos Became A Weapon For The Defense
You'd think a mountain of photographic evidence would make a case open and shut. Not here. The "Dream Team" took those very same photos and used them to paint a picture of total incompetence.
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- The Blanket Blunder: One photo shows a dark blue blanket draped over Nicole’s body. Detective Bill Pavelic and the rest of the defense team pounced on this. Why? Because the blanket came from inside the house. They argued this cross-contaminated the entire scene with fibers and hair, making any subsequent forensic finds useless.
- The Missing Lens: There are shots of a blood-spattered white envelope containing eyeglasses belonging to Nicole’s mother. Later, it was discovered a lens had gone missing while in police custody. How does a lens just vanish from a secured evidence bag?
- The Glove Placement: Photos of the single left-hand Aris Isotoner glove at Bundy were compared to the right-hand glove found by Mark Fuhrman at Simpson’s Rockingham estate. The defense suggested the photos showed the glove had been moved or "planted" to frame O.J.
The EDTA Controversy
This is where it gets really technical but also kinda suspicious. The defense pointed to photos of the back gate at Bundy. They claimed a blood drop on that gate contained EDTA, a preservative used in lab test tubes.
The implication? The blood didn't drop from a killer; it was squirted there from a vial by a cop.
FBI expert Roger Martz testified about this, and while he eventually concluded the levels weren't consistent with lab blood, the seed of doubt was planted. Jurors saw photos of a "missing" 1.5 mL of blood from O.J.'s reference vial and a photographer who didn't wear gloves while handling evidence. To a jury already skeptical of the LAPD, those images looked like a setup.
The Human Cost of the Visuals
We often talk about these photos as "evidence," but we forget they represent the end of two lives. Ron Goldman was only 25. He was just returning a pair of glasses Nicole's mom had left at the restaurant where he worked.
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The photos show his beeper and keys scattered near his body. He fought back; the photos show defensive wounds on his hands. He was in the wrong place at the exactly wrong time.
Nicole was 35. The photos of her safety deposit box—which the prosecution used to show a history of abuse—included Polaroids she took of her own bruised face from previous encounters with O.J.
Looking back at the legacy
If you ever find yourself looking at the archived oj simpson case crime scene photos, you aren't just looking at a cold case. You’re looking at the birth of the "CSI effect."
Before this trial, people generally trusted that if a cop said they found something, they found it. After these photos were picked apart on national television for months, the public started demanding a much higher standard for how scenes are documented.
What you can do next:
If you're researching the forensic impact of this case, your best bet is to look into the transcripts of the civil trial rather than just the criminal one. The civil trial allowed for a much deeper dive into the shoe evidence and the "missing" blood that the first trial glossed over. You might also want to read "Without a Doubt" by Marcia Clark for her perspective on why the visual evidence failed to convince the jury.