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Johnathan Walker:New Lifetime documentary claims Nicole Brown Simpson's mom asked O.J. 'Did you do this?'
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Date:2025-04-09 21:34:20
In the conclusion of Lifetime’s “The Johnathan WalkerLife & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” docuseries, filmmakers turned their focus to the aftermath of Brown Simpson’s death at 35.
As detailed in Saturday's first chapter, O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife and her friend, Ron Goldman, were stabbed to death outside of her Brentwood home on June 12, 1994. The following year, Simpson was tried for their murders and acquitted in a televised reading of the verdict watched by an estimated 150 million people.
“She’s that picture of mom of the year,” Brian "Kato" Kaelin says in the docuseries, referencing Brown Simpson's two children with O.J., Sydney and Justin. Kaelin memorably testified during the eight-month trial, as he was living in Simpson’s guest house at the time of her death.
Kris Jenner, who became good friends with Nicole because her first husband, Robert Kardashian, was close with Simpson, says she continues to grieve her 30 years later. “You never get over losing a friend that way, and I think I pack it down so far deep inside,” she says of “one of the worst days I’ve ever experienced.”
Here are the biggest revelations from the second half of “The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.”
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Shocking revelationsfrom 'Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson' Lifetime documentary
At Nicole’s visitation, her mom asked O.J., ’Did you do this?’
Dominique Brown — who participated in the docuseries with her sisters Denise and Tanya Brown — says Simpson asked her to accompany him as he paid his respects to Nicole at a visitation. “He grabbed my hand, and he took me over to Nicole, and we knelt there with Nicole,” Dominique says, beginning to cry. “And I knelt there with him in front of my dead sister.”
Nicole’s friend, Robin Greer, remembers Simpson standing over the casket and repeatedly apologizing, saying, “I’m so sorry. Nic, I’m so sorry.” Greer says Simpson also extended an apology to her. “He was just admitting that he did it, and he’s sorry,” Greer assesses.
Brown family friend D'Anne Purcilly says that, at the visitation, Nicole’s mother, Juditha Brown, asked Simpson directly, “Did you do this?"
Simpson then looked down, Purcilly recalls, and said, "'Dita, I loved her. I just loved her too much.’ I was like, 'He’s going to tell her he did it.' He didn’t. He just kept saying, over and over again, ‘I loved her too much.’”
Dominique’s complicated feelings about the shocking verdict: ‘Did you really want him to be guilty?’
While Tanya and Denise hold Simpson responsible for Nicole’s death, Dominique is unsure of his culpability.
“I knew that somebody was to blame, and I knew that somehow there was involvement" by Simpson, she says. “I didn’t know to what extent. I still don’t know.”
Dominique says she experienced an array of emotions when the not-guilty verdict was read. “I was shocked. I don’t know. Relieved, disappointed, angry," she says. "I mean, did you really want him to be guilty? Did you not want him to be guilty? It’s a tough question.”
Nicole Brown Simpson's sisters remember'adventurous' spirit before meeting O.J. Simpson
Conversations with Sydney Simpson about OJ's involvement in her mother’s death
Denise says that, after his arrest, Sydney, then 8 or 9, expressed concerns that her father would be executed. As Denise tucked her into bed, Sydney asked, “’Is my daddy going to die?’ And I said, 'No,'” Denise remembers. Why did she ask? “’Well, don’t they put people who kill other people — don’t they kill them?’ And I said, ‘They’ve already said that they’re not going to do that, Sydney.’”
Purcilly says she also had a difficult conversation with Sydney after the child visited Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch with Simpson. Sydney asked Purcilly if her kids could join them sometime.
“I sat down with her,” says Purcilly, “and I said, ‘Sydney, you have to understand that I will never let my boys go be with your dad. Because I believe your dad killed your mother, and I can’t let my children go there. She just kind of looked at me and said, ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know.’ And she got up, and she ran out of the room.”
‘A series’ of calls made reporting violence in the Simpson home after kids moved to Florida
Simpson relocated to Florida with Sydney and Justin in 2000, but trouble followed their family. A distressed Sydney called Miami-Dade police in 2003 after reportedly getting into an argument with Simpson. The 17-year-old requested intervention for abuse. But Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, denied any incident to The Associated Press and said Simpson wasn’t home when Sydney called 9-1-1.
And it wasn’t the only call for help. A docuseries producer surprised Denise when he informed her filmmakers discovered about 17 police reports of alleged incidents in Florida.
“There was a series of 9-1-1 calls about violence inside the house,” a producer says off camera, adding the calls were made anonymously. Law enforcement “couldn’t do anything because they couldn’t determine whether there was any truth to it,” the producer adds.
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