OJ Simpson, 76, former American football player who went on to become an actor and was contentiously acquitted of double murder, passed away.
Born in San Francisco, Orenthal James Simpson gained fame in his collegiate years before entering the NFL.
According to a statement from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Simpson was undergoing chemotherapy after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
He passed away “surrounded by his children and grandchildren,” according to his family.
He was cleared in a widely publicized trial in 1995 of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her companion. He was given a 33-year prison term in 2008 for unrelated charges of armed robbery. However, he was freed in 2017.
He was taken into custody in 1994 on suspicion of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. The two were discovered dead from knife wounds outside of Brown’s Los Angeles residence. Simpson emerged as a figure of interest in the case right away. He and a former teammate took off in a white Ford Bronco on the day he was supposed to turn himself in, leading the police on a slow-motion pursuit across the Los Angeles region.
In what became known as the “trial of the century” in the United States media, the prosecution claimed Simpson had murdered Brown out of jealousy. Tests on Simpson’s hair, blood, and fibers were used as evidence to connect him to the killings.
