Members of the investigation team

There are many different individuals involved in the investigation of a crime, each of the individuals involved within the investigation of a crime has their own specific job roles that contribute to the investigation process. These job roles and the cooperation that is carried out with one another ensures that the evidence from a crime remains secure and travels through a secure audit trail, ensuring the evidence is not compromised in any way and that the exact whereabouts of the evidence at each point is recorded.The investigation team members involved in the investigation of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman included:
1.The Police,
2.Detectives,
3.Scenes of Crime Officers,
4.Specialists such as pathologists
5.Forensic scientists.


The job roles that these team members carry out, both in general and as part of the OJ Simpson case, have been described and can be seen on pages accessible from the home page of this blog. The next few pages of this blog will describe the handling of the evidence in this case and how the members of an investigation team should work together to ensure that the evidence was part of a secure audit trail. Also mentioned will be any mistakes that had been made by the team as part of the investigation into the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman and if these mistakes impacted the case. 

Evidence handled by members of the investigation team

The bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman:

  The first piece of evidence, which can be identified as being handled by different team members involved in the investigation, was the bodies of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. The Police, Detectives, Scenes Of Crime Officer’s and the Pathologist handled this evidence.

The first team members to handle the bodies of the victims were the police, primarily officer Robert Riske. It can be identified that he and other police officers failed to keep this evidence secure. The reasons for this are detailed below. Upon the discovery of the bodies he checked their pulses to determine whether the victims were still alive or not. This is common practice upon attendance at crime scenes to determine whether victims need first aid or not, however then officer Riske then failed to cordon off and secure the scene correctly which is a primary job role of the police, as this was not completed many unauthorised personnel were able to gain access into the scene. Many of these people obviously were interested in the bodies and therefore many of them came into contact with them – as none of these individuals were wearing Personal Protective Equipment, this led to the evidence (the bodies) potentially becoming contaminated.

When the investigation was taken over by detectives from the Los Angeles Homicide Division the evidence within the scene was also passed into their supervision. They were therefore the next people to handle the bodies, like the police they also failed to ensure that a secure audit trail was maintained. The detectives in the OJ Simpson case were Detective Fuhrman, Detective Lange and Detective Vannatter. These team members made mistakes in the handling of the bodies. The detectives were supposed to ensure that no contamination occurred to the bodies prior to them being processed for potential evidence. However due to large amounts of neighbours, media and other individuals gathering at the entrance to the crime scene Detective Lange took a blanket from within the house and placed it over the body of Nicole, to prevent pictures of the body being taken. This however led to contamination, as fibres, hairs and anything else that had been on the blanket would have transferred to the body. This mistake was detrimental to the investigation as a hair fibre found to belong to OJ Simpson was found on Nicole’s body, however this was dismissed in court as it was argued that this could have come from the blanket that had been previously innocently used by Simpson within the house – The dismissal of this evidence was a contributing factor to Simpson eventually being acquitted. 

As stated above the scenes of crime officers and the pathologist also handled the bodies. These members of the investigation in relation to the bodies are tasked with ensuring a secure audit trail, this is because they should ensure that any evidence on the body is packaged and labelled correctly, they then must ensure that this evidence is checked into the chain of custody – monitored by an exhibits officer the purpose of this chain of custody is in order to record who has handled the evidence, where the evidence was found within the crime scene and also to record where the evidence should go to be processed and analysed. Within the OJ Simpson case the scenes of crime officers and the pathologist did this correctly, however as the previous team members who handled the bodies had already contaminated the evidence, the SOCO’s and pathologist were unable to effectively secure the evidence within the audit trail - which is designed to prevent contamination occurring.

The gloves:

  Another piece of evidence that was handled by a number of different members of the investigation team investigating the murders of Nicole brown and Ronald Goldman, was a pair of blood covered leather gloves, one of which was found at the scene of the murders and another found behind OJ Simpson’s property. The police, detectives, scenes of crime officers and forensic scientists all handled this evidence.

Each of the members of the investigation team who handled this piece of evidence had the responsibility to ensure that it was part of a secure audit trail – ensuring that the evidence remained intact and uncontaminated – by correctly bagging and labelling the evidence and also by ensuring that the evidence was passed through a complete chain of custody in order to make it to the forensics lab to be analysed.

Officer Robert Riske –the first attending officer at the scene was the first team member to find the evidence in the form of the first leather glove found at the scene of the murders. Officer Riske approached the glove and handled it in order to investigate whether the perpetrator may have dropped the glove or whether it belonged to one of the victims. This can be identified as being a mistake as Officer Riske should not have handled the evidence prior to the scenes of crime officers arriving. Also as he was not wearing personal protective equipment he would have contaminated the glove when handling it. Also a similar situation occurred when detectives discovered the leather glove behind Simpsons property – the detectives handled the glove to determine if it matched the glove from the murder scene, however again they were not wearing personal protective equipment in order to prevent contamination occurring to the glove.

Also primarily at the scene of the murders of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown both the police and the detectives failed to correctly secure the scene allowing a large amount of people who were not clothed in appropriate personal protective equipment, including members of the public into the crime scene. As all these people were walking around various areas of the scene the evidence was not protected or kept secure as it could easily have been contaminated or moved by different individuals. These mistakes that were made by both the police officers and the detectives therefore can be identified as being a failure in keeping the evidence within a secure audit trail. These mistakes also proved to be detrimental to the case as it again allowed the defence to argue that if the evidence was contaminated by the team members who were supposed to keep it secure, it could also easily have been altered and blood evidence planted on the gloves by the team members or other individuals in order to frame Simpson, these mistakes and the argument of contamination of evidence was a contributing factor which ended in the acquittal of OJ Simpson.

Blood evidence:

  Another piece of evidence that was handled by a number of different members of the investigation team investigating the murders of Nicole brown and Ronald Goldman, was blood evidence, some of this was taken from the scene of the murder, other blood evidence was taken from Simpson’s Ford Bronco and more was taken from Simpson himself in order to make comparisons to the blood suspected to be from the perpetrator and taken from the scene of the crime. The detectives, scenes of crime officers and forensic scientists handled this evidence and were supposed to play a part in ensuring a secure audit trail of the evidence was maintained.

The detectives were the first team members to actually handle the blood evidence, this was because they performed a walk through of the crime scene prior to the scenes of crime officers arriving, this was in order to make a list of evidence within their notes that they felt were significant and needed to be collected and secured within the audit trail. One of the main detectives involved with this walk through was Detective Mark Fuhrman, at this point mistakes were made in regards to the securing of the blood evidence. When Detective Fuhrman finished his shift at the crime scene he was supposed to brief the detectives who were taking over about the significant evidence present at the scene. This was so that they would be able to inform the SOCO’s, who would then be able to collect this and enter it into the chain of custody. However Detective Fuhrman failed to tell the detectives taking over at the crime scene that there was a blood on a gate at the property, as no one was aware of this blood evidence it was overlooked and not collected during the initial investigation at the scene of the crime. It was however collected a couple of weeks afterwards. However because of the mistake Fuhrman made in not properly ensuring the evidence was secured, even though this blood came back indicating that it belonged to OJ Simpson it was thrown out of court due to the possibility that it was planted after the crime occurred by officers. This again helped contribute to the final decision of the jury – the acquittal of OJ Simpson.

Another detective who was part of the investigation team and handled blood evidence was Detective Vannatter, he was the detective who accompanied Simpson to the police station in order to have his blood taken as a sample to be analysed and compared to blood from the crime scene. After the blood had been taken Vannatter’s job role tasked him with securely taking the blood evidence and handing it to the exhibits officer in charge of the evidence from this case, then the blood would have been booked into the chain of custody and a secure audit trail established. However Vannatter made a mistake and took the blood sample with him in his pocket back to the crime scene where it stayed whilst he worked the scene and for hours afterwards, until he eventually gave this evidence to the senior scenes of crime officer who then labelled the evidence and booked it into the exhibits log. This mishandling of evidence proved detrimental to the case as at the trial, questions were asked about whether an amount had blood had gone missing from the sample, and as the blood was not correctly labelled nor was a secure audit trail established until hours after the blood had been drawn, the missing blood could not be explained, nor could Vannatter explain why instead of booking the blood sample into the chain of custody straight away, he carried it around and even entered back into the crime scene with it on him. This mistake again added to OJ Simpson being acquitted.

The scenes of crime officers who were members of the investigation team also handled all of the blood evidence. Their job role tasked them with swabbing blood samples from the scene of the murders and other areas – such as inside Simpsons ford bronco. They then were required to bag these samples separately and securely within the appropriate evidence bags and label the swabs stating exactly where the blood evidence had come from in relation to the crime scene and who had collected it. All of these procedures should have been followed in order to ensure that the evidence was a part of a secure audit trail. However within the OJ Simpson case the scenes of crime officers made a number of mistakes when collecting the blood evidence. Firstly many of the blood swabs collected by the SOCO’s were placed into the same evidence bag – the correct practice for the collection of this evidence is for each swab to be placed into its own separate bag. This therefore meant that all of the swabs that were packaged together were cross-contaminated. Another mistake made by the SOCO’s was that the majority of the blood evidence was not labelled at all – therefore it was impossible to know where any of the blood samples had come from within the scene – leading to a large amount of confusion. Finally a mistake made in relation to the chain of custody was that only a small number of blood swabs were actually recorded as being checked into the audit trail. However the forensics lab received considerably more blood swabs that had neither record of being collected at the scene nor any record indicating who had handled the evidence before it arrived at the labs. This meant that as no actual record had been kept regarding the amount of blood swabs collected nobody could be sure that they had not been tampered with, or whether some swabs may have got lost or been removed from the evidence. All of these mistakes made by the scenes of crime officers meant that a secure audit trail for the majority of all the blood evidence was not established. This therefore allowed the defence and jury to question how reliable the evidence against Simpson actually was, these mistakes and the questions they raised were a contributing factor to OJ Simpson eventually being acquitted even though a large amount of evidence pointed to him being the killer of Nicole and Ronald.

Agencies which worked together during the investigation:

  Within any criminal investigation it is important that all of the members of the investigation team work together, this is so that the investigation is carried out effectively and efficiently, when the members of an investigation team work together it is much more likely that a secure audit trail will be established and maintained, this is because all of the members will be cooperating in ultimately ensuring that evidence is kept secure and that the crime is solved and the correct individual convicted for what they did.

Although it has been previously discussed that many of the individual members of the investigation team in the OJ Simpson investigation made mistakes that ultimately led to the acquittal of Simpson, the team also did work together during parts of the investigation. An example of this can be seen when the detectives and scenes of crime officers worked together. As the scenes of crime officers did not arrive at the crime scene until hours after the crime had originally been discovered the detectives from the LAPD homicide division had already taken over the case. These detectives performed walk-throughs of the crime scene and also of Simpson’s property, the detectives then communicated with the scenes of crime officers as to what pieces of evidence they felt were important and therefore needed to be collected. The detectives also supervised the scenes of crime officers whilst they were collecting evidence. If the mistakes that have been previously pointed out, hadn't occurred the team work performed between these team members could have been effective in ensuring that a conviction was secured, this would be because the scenes of crime officers would have collected relevant and important evidence as identified as the detectives– much of which did actually point to Simpson being the perpetrator. However the teamwork was undermined by the large amounts of mistakes made by almost all of the members of the investigation.

Value of the investigation team members:

  When ensuring that a secure audit trail of evidence is established, it can be concluded that some of the members of the investigation team would have been of more value than others. Primarily the most valuable members of an investigation team when securing an audit trail would be the police and the scenes of crime officers. The police would be seen as valuable as they are tasked with ensuring that from the point in which they attend to a crime scene, until any evidence is collected they have to make sure that they protect the scene and the evidence in order to prevent contamination occurring – allowing the evidence to be collected in the same condition that it was in when it was originally found. As this is a highly important role in ensuring that a secure audit trail is established the police as members of an investigation team can be seen as very valuable. However within the investigation of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman the police failed to ensure that the scene remained secure – allowing large amounts of people into the scene who didn’t need to be there, also the police handled evidence without wearing PPE, therefore actually contaminating evidence themselves. It can therefore be concluded that within this investigation although the police should have been one of the most valuable team members they proved to actually be not very valuable at all – with there mistakes contributing to the acquittal of Simpson, even though there were large amounts of evidence indicating his guilt.

The other members of an investigation team which have been identified as being valuable in the ensuring that a secure audit trail is established is the scenes of crime officers. They can be seen as valuable team members as if they carry out their job role correctly which involves correctly collecting, packaging and labelling evidence and then submitting it to the exhibits officer to be checked into the chain of custody a secure audit trail will most likely be effective. However as identified within the OJ Simpson case the scenes of crime officers made many mistakes that led to the contamination and cross-contamination of evidence, it also led to the jury being able to question the reliability of any of the evidence as they made so many mistakes. It can therefore be concluded that although they should have been one of the most valuable team members the scenes of crime officers did not carry out their jobs correctly or effectively – leading to the majority of the evidence that they collected being thrown out and dismissed in court – leading to the acquittal of Simpson.