Ron Goldman’s dad reacts to OJ Simpson’s death: ‘No great loss’
The family of Ron Goldman, who was stabbed to death alongside Nicole Brown Simpson, mourned OJ Simpson’s death only as the end of hoping for “true accountability — but scathingly blasted his passing as “no great loss.”
“The news of Ron’s killer passing away is a mixed bag of complicated emotions and reminds us that the journey through grief is not linear,” Kim and Fred Goldman offered in a statement Thursday, hours after news broke that Simpson had died of cancer at age 76.
“For three decades we tirelessly pursued justice for Ron and Nicole, and despite a civil judgment and his confession in ‘If I Did It,’ the hope for true accountability has ended.”
Ron Goldman was just 25 years old when he was murdered outside Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson’s Brentwood home on June 12, 1994.
Goldman worked as a waiter at the restaurant Mezzaluna, and is believed to have stopped by Brown’s home after his shift to return her mother’s reading glasses.
The pair was found stabbed to death shortly after midnight.
Simpson – who was divorced from Brown two years earlier – was acquitted of the brutal killings in October 1995.
The victims’ family members, including Fred Goldman, always insisted on his guilt.
The heartbroken father insisted earlier Thursday that Simpon’s death was “just further reminder of Ron being gone all these years.”
“It’s no great loss to the world. It’s a further reminder of Ron’s being gone,” Fred Goldman told NBC News.
Simpson was ordered to pay both families over $33 million total in a civil suit for wrongful death and battery.
“O.J. died without penance,” the Goldmans’ attorney, David Cook, told TMZ, adding that the family is waiting to hear if they will collect any remaining assets as part of the previous judgment.
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Alan Dershowitz, the well-known attorney who rounded out Simpson’s “Dream Team” during the murder trial, told NBC that he was saddened by the former NFL player’s death.
“I knew he was very sick, so I’m upset that he died,” Dershowitz, 85, said.
“I got to know him fairly well during the trial. It was one of the most divisive trials in American history along racial lines,” the former Harvard Law professor said.
Simpson’s trial came on the heels of the infamous Los Angeles riots, which broke out when four white police officers were acquitted of the vicious, caught-on-camera beating of a black man named Rodney King.
The verdict left simmering racial tensions in the city, which bled into the case against Simpson, who at the time was one of the most famous black men in America.
“He’ll always be remembered for the Bronco chase, for the glove, and for the moment of acquittal,” added Dershowitz.
Simpson was infamously arrested for Brown and Goldman’s killings following a slow-speed car chase in his white Bronco on June 17, 1994.
At trial, he struggled to try on a blood-stained glove that prosecutors argued linked him to the crime scene.
The moment prompted defense attorney Johnnie Cochran to insist that, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
