LAPD testing knife found on O.J. Simpson's L.A. property; construction owner suspects hoax

LOS ANGELES, March 4 (UPI) -- The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating a rusted knife that was supposedly found during the 1990s on the site where O.J. Simpson's infamous Brentwood home used to stand, authorities said Friday.

News of the knife's discovery at the former Simpson property at 360 North Rockingham Ave., in suburban Los Angeles, surfaced Friday morning following a report by entertainment media outlet TMZ.

Authorities believe the folding buck knife, which is now rusted and soiled, could potentially be the long-lost weapon used to kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman at the Bundy Drive condominium belonging to Simpson's ex-wife just after midnight on June 13, 1994.

O.J. Simpson was tried and acquitted of their murders in 1995, but the murder weapon used in the vicious attacks was never located.

A construction worker demolishing Simpson's house in the late 1990s supposedly found the knife and turned it over to an off-duty Los Angeles police officer, who happened to be nearby.

Sources told TMZ that the officer did not turn it over to the LAPD as potential evidence, but instead kept it at home until his retirement.

When authorities learned last year that the officer intended to frame the knife for a home wall display, they ordered the now-retired policeman to submit the knife to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Some news reports Friday stated that the police officer was in possession of the knife for at least 12 years.

The knife is now being tested by the LAPD Robbery Homicide Division for possible hair, fingerprint or blood evidence. Next week, it will be transferred to the Serology Unit for DNA and other biological processing.

There are many questions about the new discovery -- including how it was found, whether it may possibly have predated Simpson's living on the property, and why the officer in question failed to hand over what could be a significant piece of evidence in arguably the biggest murder case in Los Angeles history.

Some, like Mike Weber -- who owns the construction company that demolished Simpson's home in 1998 -- are skeptical that the knife is connected to the Brown and Goldman murders in any manner whatsoever.

"I think it's a joke. I think it's just filler ... no one on my crew found anything" he told the Los Angeles Times Friday. "I had instructed my people, 'If you find anything, don't keep it. Tell me, we'll take the appropriate action.'"

Weber, 70, recalled a circus-type atmosphere around the house at the time it was being razed and said he specifically remembers people wanting any part of the property they could get.

"A lot of people wanted me to sell them a piece of the home. I wouldn't personally allow it. That's blood money," he said.

The Simpson case is still officially an open investigation at the LAPD, since the murders have not met with a conviction.

Simpson, by law, cannot be prosecuted again if new evidence becomes available. He is presently serving a 33-year prison sentence in Nevada for an armed robbery conviction in 2008.

The owner of the Weber-Madgwick Inc., construction company also remembers joking at the time that he would let everyone know if he or his team found the murder weapon.

"Jokingly, I said I was looking for the knife. And that's not just being flippant," Weber said. "We never found it."