LOS ANGELES, Ca. — Twenty years ago today, 95 million viewers across the America were glued to their televisions as police went on a low-speed chase after a white Ford Bronco as it cruised along a Los Angeles freeway.
Inside the car, O.J. Simpson was sitting in the backseat, allegedly with a gun to his head. Al “A.C.” Cowlings, Simpson’s friend and former teammate in high school, college and the N.F.L., was at the wheel.
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The police expected Simpson to turn himself on the charges of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. But he never showed up. The Los Angeles Police Department located Simpson in the Bronco as it traveled on an interstate south of Los Angeles after tracking cell phone calls.
About an hour later, the Bronco pulled into the driveway of Simpson’s Brentwood, California, home. Simpson was immediately arrested and booked on double murder charges after he emerged from the car.
The jury in the O.J. Simpson case acquitted him of the murder charges in October 1995. A separate civil trial in 1997 found him liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to the families of his wife and Goldman.