O.J. Simpson: too dim to do it?

If only there had been a real Lieutenant Columbo, he could have sorted out the O.J. Simpson case,and rescued the LAPD in the process. The last episode of "The People v OJ Simpson; American Crime Story" aired on Monday on BBC2. The series did a good job of portraying the 'trial of the century' with the complexity and crazyness it had at the time. Yet bizarrely, even this excellent last episode failed to make a clear case against O.J. - as the series obviously wanted to make. For example, the question as to why there hadn't been more blood in the Bronco and thereabouts was blink-and-you-miss-it. But it's a good question! It can't be left as a throwaway line from a biased juror in the heat of an argument in the jury room. The attacks on Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were so savage that it defies belief the killer wouldn't have been soaked in blood, and suspiciously injured himself, yet Simpson was neither. Some of the evidence does point to him being at the scene (shoes etc) but not necessarily to being the perpetrator. This is where a TV-grade CSI team would have come in handy too. But in 1994 crime scene work was not sophisticated enough to make the most of the evidence. DNA testing was new, and no one seems to have known about blood splatter analysis or other go-to methods featured in the "CSI" shows. And in the Simpson case, the crime scene and the evidence collection were infamously mismanaged anyway. Come to think of it though, Columbo might have come a cropper over the issue of Simpson's IQ. The "Columbo" films were about criminals who thought they were too clever to get caught. Is O.J. clever? Everything about him, and everything about the case, suggests he isn't. Champion sportsman, good as a celebrity, yes, but not intelligent. Dimness could help to explain his dopey demeanour during the trial (as if he couldn't quite keep up), or his decision to accept media money to celebrate his acquittal with a flashy party, or his cringe-making vow to pursue and catch the killer. Dimness goes a long way towards explaining his subsequent robbery lark, for which he has been jailed for several years (eligible for parole next year). Apparently more people now believe he's guilty of the murders than believed he was in 1994/95. My inclination is to do the reverse. I was in America at the time of the murders  and also in the year of the trial, so was able to watch all the coverage live. Though he seemed to be guilty, I'm not so sure now, especially after seeing "The People v OJ Simpson". Besides the problematic forensics, the show brought home again the prosecution's insistence that being a savage knife-muderer is but a progression from being an abusive husband. Is it really? Why haven't more people questioned that assumption? It can't be true, any more than abusive wives seemlessly turn into frenzied murderesses as a matter of course. Who knows, maybe that was one of the things that didn't quite gel for the acquitting jury. Simpson's behaviour to his wife during and after their marriage suggests a bully rather than a maniac. It suggests someone who, for all his success and his ground-breaking 'cross-over appeal', still felt out of his depth and on the defensive. It suggests someone who craved acceptance by rich white folks yet took out his insecurities on the beautiful white woman closest to him. In that light, the casting of Cuba Gooding Jr as O.J. makes some sense. "The People v OJ Simpson" was well cast with actors who were dead ringers for the people they portrayed - except for he O.J. character. Cuba Gooding was trying his best, but he is too small, too crinkly, too squeeky-voiced, too unimposing, in short nothing like the real O.J. It seemed like the one major flaw in the series, but maybe it was an accurate representation of what O.J. felt like on the inside, the big statue of himself in his garden notwithstanding. One thing I learned from the series is that Robert Kardashian gave O.J. a Bible to read in prison. O.J. is shown to give the Bible back to Kardashian on his release, apparently unread, possibly unopened. It's a powerful moment, also indicative of O.J.'s lack of insight into what that gesture might mean to the recipient.The loyal Kardashian is by now convinced of O.J.'s guilt and the return of the Bible only reinforces that impression. Kardashian is later shown leaving the Bible in O.J.'s house at the party, giving his former friend a wounded, I-wash-my-hands-of-you look. But what could have happened if, instead of merely giving O.J. the Bible, Kardashian had made a point of reading it with him during the long months he was in prison? O.J. might not have been a reader, but he might have grown up in an environment where Scripture still counted for something. One-on-one Bible readings with his friend Bobby could have worn down the Juice's defenses and allowed the truth to emerge. If the episode is to be believed on this point, that huge but wasted opportunity is one of the sadder aspects of the whole sorry saga.