Los Angeles police test knife found on property owned by O.J. Simpson

(Reuters) – Los Angeles police said on Friday they are testing a knife recovered on a property once owned by O.J. Simpson, the former football player acquitted in the murder of his former wife and her friend in a trial that gripped the public two decades ago.

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The department is running forensic tests on the Buck knife with a retractable blade, which was apparently turned over to an off-duty police officer a number of years ago by a construction worker at the property, the Los Angeles Times newspaper reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement source.

After finding the folding knife buried at the site, the worker gave it to the officer who was working security for a film crew in the area, TMZ, the celebrity gossip website, reported. The now-retired police officer kept the knife at home until about two months ago, TMZ reported.

The exact timeline of when the knife was recovered was not immediately clear. TMZ, citing unnamed sources, reported it was found years ago, but individuals remembered different times, ranging from “several years ago” to 1998, when the house was demolished.

Simpson, a retired pro football Hall of Fame running back for the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills, was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles.

The knife was found on the grounds of the house where Simpson lived at the time of the murders. The house, in the posh Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, has since been razed.

Los Angeles Police spokeswoman Norma Eisenman said the agency’s Robbery Homicide Division was investigating. She declined to provide further details.

Simpson’s ex-wife and Goldman were stabbed multiple times in the neck and head but the murder weapon was never found at the time of the nine-month long trial that ended in 1995 with his acquittal.

Simpson lost a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the victims’ families.

Simpson cannot be prosecuted again for the two murders because that would constitute double jeopardy.

Simpson is now in prison on a 2008 armed robbery conviction related to the robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers at a Las Vegas hotel.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Chicago and Jill Serjeant in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)