THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 27, 1994 TAG: 9406250028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940627 LENGTH: Medium
In the days since Nicole Brown Simpson's murder, Internet's bulletin boards and subscription services were jammed with postings dissecting the crime and assessing her ex-husband's culpability.
{REST} Amateur sleuths inspected the evidence and offered theories on motive. Would-be lawyers exchanged strategies for Simpson's defense. Hackers with in-the-know pals passed on details from behind the police tape. Football fans wailed.
Questions about the case began appearing on the net almost as soon as the killings made the news.
``Lots of loopholes, in my opinion,'' Jan wrote on alt.true-crime a day before Simpson's arrest. ``How could *one* person murder *two* people in a condo setting (homes close together like apartments), and wouldn't one be able to scream or run away when the first one was getting attacked?''
``I have a friend who writes for The Orange County Register,'' reported a California posting. ``According to her, the killer used a pick-ax - O.J.'s wife was nearly decapitated and the police are now very close to arresting O.J.''
Once Simpson was identified as a suspect and took flight, the net went nuts. Some of the postings had a ``Where were you when you heard?'' character.
``I live in NYC & on Canal Street a man had taken his television and put it on a milk crate on the street,'' an America Online user wrote. ``A huge crowd of people got beers & boxes to sit on and watched right on the sidewalk. They all shared the common bond that was OJ. OJ brought my whole community together.''
Others debated Simpson's odds. ``Just having the heavy gloves smacks of premeditation in the DA's book,'' read one posting. ``Who carries winter gloves with them in LA?''
``What I want to know,'' wrote one netexpert, ``is, he's almost certain to get the death penalty for this, so why didn't he go ahead and spill his own blood on live TV? If you're gonna die, you might as well get it over with on your own terms, rather than spend 15 years in San Quentin getting raped every six hours.''
``Never in a million years will he get the death penalty,'' fired back Kevin of California. ``I'll be very surprised if he is convicted of anything beyond 2nd Degree Murder, to which I still expect him to be offered a plea bargain. He'll be out in 10 years or less.''
``Five years in a nice, comfortable prison (maybe less),'' predicted Charles of Dartmouth College, ``and OJ walks.''
Responded another netsurfer: ``If a jury of his peers included all the people in Los Angeles who flocked to every overpass and emergency lane to wave and cheer for the man, as an entire fleet of cops followed him, I would say that he would win hands-down.''
Meanwhile, Simpson's arrest trickled into bulletin boards far afield from crime news. Postings to deviants(AT)csv.warwick.ac.uk, a British subscription list that dwells on the unsightly, confused some foreigners who'd never heard of O.J.
One Brit helpfully explained: ``OJ Simpson was one of the top quarterbacks in American football, ever.''
{KEYWORDS} INTERNET COMPUTER
by CNB