THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 3, 1995 TAG: 9503030366
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
On NBC's ``Today'' show, co-host Matt Lauer asked novelist Edna Buchanan who killed Nicole Simpson.
``I think it's pretty obvious,'' Buchanan said Thursday. ``Only your nearest and dearest would kill you and do it that savagely.
``You're not as likely to be murdered by some stranger lurking in the shadows as you are by some person sitting across the breakfast table.''
That direct sardonic thrust is also how she writes. A former prize-winning reporter, she is one of the nation's two best mystery writers.
Covering 5,000 violent deaths for the Miami Herald, she was for 20 years a kind of recording angel of justice for those who could no longer speak for themselves, the dead.
Tough-minded, tender-hearted Edna, blond hair falling about her shoulders, big blue eyes that seem about to swallow her lean little face, looks like a prom queen. She has the tenacity of a pit bull.
Did she, as a reporter, have any reasonable doubt? Lauer asked.
``No, not really at all, because the physical evidence is there,'' she said. People are troubled that there is no murder weapon and there are no eyewitnesses, ``but eyewitness accounts are usually wrong.''
Jurors want eyewitness testimony, she said, but everybody sees an event from a different point of view. They all differ.
``When eyewitnesses really describe things identically, you know they've got together and gotten their stories straight,'' she said.
``So I think that the physical evidence is more than enough . . . the blood, the DNA. I mean, physical evidence is always preferable to eyewitness testimony.''
Did the Los Angeles police do a good job?
``They didn't do an excellent job, but they didn't go running around planting bloody evidence either,'' Buchanan said.
``Police are pretty queasy these days about handling blood and body fluids. They don't go around stuffing it in pockets and planting it here and there.''
Did their eight-hour delay in calling the coroner's office raise a question?
There's usually a delay in calling the coroner, but not that much of one, Buchanan said.
``I was a little concerned,'' she added, ``that they didn't do a rape kit, you know, to see if there'd been any sex involved, and that they didn't bag the hands of the victims and that the stomach contents were lost.''
Those were pretty bad things that happened, she said, ``but the coroner's office is responsible for a great deal of that. I don't know why they didn't do a better job.''
Did she think O.J. Simpson would be found guilty? Lauer asked.
``I hope the jury does the right thing,'' Buchanan said.
All you readers keep soaking up TV minutiae of the trial.
I'll buy Edna Buchanan's new novel, ``Suitable for Framing.''
She sees that justice gets done. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Edna Buchanan
by CNB