LOS ANGELES, Sept. 22 -- Nearly half of the two dozen witnesses the O.J. Simpson defense said would testify in their client's double- murder trial did not appear before the jury. Among the missing witnesses was Rosa Lopez, a key alibi witness who was expected to testify that she saw Simpson's Bronco at the curb of his estate about 10:15 p.m. June 12, 1994 -- about the same time the prosecution contends Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were slain 2 miles away. Other witnesses who never addressed the jury but were promised by chief defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. during opening statements nearly eight months ago were: --Mary Anne Gerchas, who claims she saw four men running from the condominium where the killings occurred. She was dropped from the defense's witness list after being charged with defrauding a hotel of $23,000, and she later pleaded guilty to felony charges. --Tom Lang, who claims he saw Nicole Brown embracing a man at the curb of her Brentwood condominium and a white or Hispanic man glowering nearby at about 10 p.m. the night of the killings. --Dr. Kary Mullis, the scientist who won the Nobel Prize for inventing a type of DNA testing used in the Simpson case. The eccentric scientist, known for his use of the hallucinogenic drug LSD, was expected to criticize police departments for using what Cochran called 'covered wagon technology.' --Deputy Chief Coroner Dr. Irwin Golden, who performed the autopsies on both murder victims.
Cochran said he would be called as a defense witness if he did not appear during the prosecution's case, but Golden, widely considered a disaster on the stand during the preliminary hearing, was not called by either side. --Four of Simpson's friends, including girlfriend Paula Barbieri and longtime pal Al Cowlings. --Simpson's personal lawyer, LeRoy 'Skip' Taft,' and Simpson's former defense lawyer, Howard Weitzman, who were expected to testify that police would not allow them to accompany their client when he was questioned by lead investigators Tom Lange and Philip Vannatter the day after the murders. --Dr. Lenore Walker, an expert on battered women's syndrome, to counter the prosecution's claim that Simpson physically and mentally abused his ex-wife for years before killing her. Lopez was the first witness mentioned in Cochran's opening statement in January. The Salvadoran maid, who worked at the house next door to Simpson's, was called outside the jury's presence to testify in the midst of the prosecution's case after she threatened to flee the country. Her testimony was videotaped in case the defense decided to play it for the jury later, but that never happened. Lopez -- whose credibility was battered by a string of inconsistencies -- contradicted Cochran's statement that she saw the Bronco at 10:15 p.m. , saying only that she was sure it was after 10 p.m. Simpson's high-powered, high-priced team of defense lawyers also rested their case without calling Gerchas and Lang, two witnesses who could have bolstered their theory of multiple killers or a killer other than Simpson. With no eyewitnesses at the murder scene, the jury will only have the testimony of several expert witnesses, including Los Angeles County's chief coroner, who said they could not exclude the possibility of two or more killers. The defense also rested its case without touching on a number of other issues Cochran also raised in his opening statements, including Simpson's alibi for the night of the murders and a case of chronic rhemumatoid arthritis so bad he could not shuffle a deck of cards earlier that day. Cochran had told the jury that the evidence would show Simpson was practicing golf shots in his yard and trying to call his girlfriend, Barbieri, from a cellular phone in his Ford Bronco, about the time the prosecution contends the murders occurred. The defense team rested without calling the famed defendant to the stand. While Simpson's doctor testified that the football legend suffered from arthritis, he said that Simpson was physically capable of committing the murders. No one who played golf with Simpson earlier that day was called to the stand to describe his physical limitations. The defense did not present any evidence, either, to back their contention that Nicole Simpson had 'been intimate' with 'a very close friend' of Simpson's and that he 'didn't go ballistic.' Prosecutors accused Simpson of killing Nicole Simpson and her friend in a jealous rage because he could not have her. During their case, Superior Court Judge Lance Ito barred the defense from delving deeply into two other areas mentioned by Cochran in his opening statements -- drug use by Nicole Simpson's friend, Faye Resnick, and a media report that indicated DNA test resultson a pair of bloodstained socks before the tests were even done. That testimony could have bolstered the defense's theories of a drug-related killing and a police conspiracy to plant evidence to frame Simpson.
