The Juice: Killer on the Loose

About the Book

Gerry Spence calls his book O.J. The Last Word. Daniel Petrocelli’s Triumph of Justice is subtitled: Closing the Book on the Simpson Saga. Both seem somewhat presumptuous. As long as O.J. Simpson is alive, I doubt if there will be any last words. He, his kids, and satellite figures connected to the investigation of the crime and to the two trials, will likely remain grist for the media mill. From the Book of Ecclesiastes: “The making of many books, there is no end.” In the years following the June 12, 1994, murders, there appeared to be no end to the making of books about the Simpson case. The fifty or so ground out during the last years of the 20th century hardly threatened to overtake the 2000-plus penned about John F. Kennedy. But in the light of new electronic media with global tentacles, chances are that the coverage of the Simpson murders and the trials far exceeded the coverage of the Kennedy assassination. There were, after all, at the time of the latter event, no communication satellites, no satellite TV, and no Internet, cell phones, or faxes. International media-blitzing of the crimes attributed to one of America’s most heralded jocks clearly outstripped the reportage of any crime in history, including the Holocaust, which occurred before the age of television. Is there room or reason for one more book on the subject? While this three-volume work may not be the best (that distinction the author concedes to Vincent Bugliosi’s Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder and, secondarily, to Schiller and Willwerth’s American Tragedy and to Petrocelli’s Triumph of Justice), it offers the most comprehensive coverage of not only the most media-intensive criminal case in history but arguably the most significant. No other killings, excluding those related to war or genocide, have impacted our society so broadly in matters of 20th century race relations, awareness of activism against domestic violence, law enforcement and police reform, investigative procedures and evidence gathering, DNA analysis and testing, etc. Hopefully, for these reasons, this exhaustive study may be among the most valuable resources for students, scholars, professionals and others interested in the many-faceted ramifications of an infamous crime.

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