The family of the late Ronald Goldman, whom O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering along with ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson outside of her Brentwood home, is calling the death of the man they believe killed Ron, “a mixed bag of complicated emotions.”
Simpson died Wednesday after a battle with cancer, his family said.
And the death of the man they call “Ron’s killer,” Ron’s sister, Kim, and father, Fred, say in a statement posted to social media, means “the hope for true accountability has ended.”
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But they insist they will carry on with their efforts to seek justice for victims and survivors.
“We will continue to advocate for the rights of all victims and survivors, ensuring our voices are heard both within and beyond the courtroom,” the statement reads. “And despite [Simpson’s] death, the mission continues; there’s always more to be done. Thank you for keeping our family, and most importantly Ron, in your hearts for the last 30 years.”
Ron Goldman was a 25-year-old tennis instructor and waiter who had gone to Brown Simpson’s house the night she was murdered to return a pair of sunglasses her mother left at his restaurant. But when he arrived, he too was killed. Simpson was accused of murdering both and his criminal case, dubbed the Trial of the Century, riveted the U.S. before Simpson was ultimately found not guilty of the killings. The victims’ families filed a civil lawsuit against Simpson and in 1997 he was ordered to pay $33.5 million for the wrongful deaths of Brown Simpson and Ron. Though some of the property was seized and auctioned, most of the judgment hadn’t been paid.
Simpson was later convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping in an unrelated case and sentenced to 33 years in prison before he was released on parole in 2017, after nine years behind bars.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter in 2022, the Goldmans maintained they had still seen “none” of the millions they were awarded in the civil suit.
Kim said at the time that the Goldmans were awarded $31 million, with the rest going to the Brown family but, as Fred noted, “the total increases by 10 percent every year,” meaning “it’s almost $90 million now.”
“It’s a ridiculous number, none of which has ever appeared,” Fred told THR. “He’s never paid one single penny. Anything that we were able to take was through our own efforts of taking things away from him.”
Kim added, “When the If I Did It book [an infamous “hypothetical” confessional and accompanying TV special that earned Simpson $600,000 before being canceled by HarperCollins and Fox network] was taken from him, it got put into bankruptcy court. We were ordered to publish that book. Everybody that he ever owed money to threw their IOU into the kitty, and any money that was raised from the publication of that book was used to pay off all the people that he owed money to. A very small portion of that was toward our judgment. I don’t really think that there was that much beyond that.”
But Fred continued to take comfort in the civil suit verdict.
“When all is said and done, we received a court ruling that he was responsible for Ron’s and Nicole’s deaths, which was the ultimate important issue,” he said.
Gloria Allred, who represented Brown Simpson’s family in Simpson’s trial, continued to focus on the victims as she reacted to the news of Simpson’s death.
“The system failed Nicole Brown Simpson and failed battered women everywhere,” Allred told New York’s local ABC station. “In the civil case which followed, he was found liable, responsible for her wrongful death. So, it’s fair to call him a killer. But in any event, I don’t mourn for O.J. Simpson. I do mourn for Nicole Brown Simpson and her family. They should be remembered.”
Just hours after news of Simpson’s death broke, it was announced that Lifetime had been working on a two-night documentary about Brown Simpson titled The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson with Brown Simpson’s family’s participation.
The project had been in the works for more than a year and is centered on Brown Simpson’s story in an effort to reclaim her narrative. Pegged to the 30th anniversary of Brown Simpson’s death, the docuseries had been targeted for a June release but that date could be moved up after Simpson’s death.
