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Denver Author Knows Script of O.J. Trial

The Denver Post
May 7, 1995 Sunday 1ST EDITION

BYLINE: Maureen Harrington, Denver Post Staff Writer
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A-01
LENGTH: 1502 words

What seemed like fiction, or at least wild-eyed conspiracy theory nine months ago, now appears to be the heart of the defense strategy in the O.J. Simpson trial.

Denver author Stephen Singular’s theory of a tainted police investigation, which he suggested to the defense last August, is gaining credence in the courtroom - at least on O.J.’s side.

As Singular watched on television, testimony last week centered on whether the preservative EDTA was in blood samples taken from socks found in Simpson’s bedroom and the back gate at Nicole Simpson’s condo.

Nine months ago, after consulting with hematologist Dr. Dan Ambruso at Bonfils Blood Center, Singular told the defense team that they should test for EDTA.

If they found the preservative, he said, it would suggest the blood was taken from a police evidence container and sprinkled around the scene. If there was no preservative, the blood would have been there since the murders.

The presence of EDTA would support the Dream Team’s contention that Simpson is a victim of a police conspiracy framing him for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman on the night of June 12.

A defense source told the Los Angeles Times that the FBI tests show traces of the blood preservative in samples taken from the scene of the crime. On Friday, however, the prosecution said that there are no traces of EDTA. The FBI findings themselves have not yet been made public.

Los Angeles police chemist Gregory Matheson admitted in court that part of the blood from the vial taken from Simpson’s arm is missing. The defense says that proves police salted the crime scene with the football star’s blood. The prosecution says the missing 1.5 milliliters is normal loss from testing.

At home, following the trial on television Wednesday, Singular felt vindicated when he heard DNA expert Barry Scheck tell Judge Ito that the defense “has a bombshell coming on EDTA.”

“I knew that the tests described to me by Dr. Ambruso had been acted on,” said Singular. “Because I had stopped communicating with them, I wasn’t sure they had done the tests.”

Singular’s involvement in the O.J. case has all the makings of an absurdist drama or a Raymond Chandler novel.

Early in August the Kansas native got a call that changed the direction of his life. It was from a source in the Los Angeles legal system.

The case against Simpson was a sham.

Singular couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“I was like the rest of the country. I thought O.J. was an abusive man who had murdered his wife in a rage,” said Singular. “But this information was coming from a source I had worked with 10 years ago, when I was researching the Berg book.”

(In 1984, Singular wrote “Talked to Death: The Life and Murder of Alan Berg,” a Denver radio personality murdered by neo-Nazi white supremacists, which was later made into the Oliver Stone movie “Talk Radio.”)

“I made some phone calls, based on my respect for the source,” said Singular. “I thought I might be being duped, but it was worth looking into.”

On Aug. 3, Singular called the 800 number at the office of defense attorney Robert Shapiro and heard the greeting, “If you have any information that could lead to the exoneration of O.J. Simpson, press one now. If you are an expert in this field press two”

Singular left a message but realized with 100 calls coming in hourly he wasn’t going to be heard. The next day, he faxed Johnnie Cochran’s office detailing some of the information he had been given by his source:

“I was told that Nicole had known Detective Mark Fuhrman since 1985. I was told that when Fuhrman arrived at the crime scene at two a.m. on June 13, he came to an immediate and irrevocable conclusion - O.J. killed his wife.”

Singular informed the defense team that there was a stick and a bag in the evidence vaults of the LAPD. Neither side had seen them or their significance.

The source told this story:

“Fuhrman broke a piece off a fence in the alley somewhere behind Nicole’s condo, used it to pick up one of the bloody gloves near Goldman’s feet and put that glove in a blue plastic evidence bag.

“Then when homicide detectives Phillip Vannatter and Tom Lange came to the condo about an hour later, Fuhrman talked them into driving over to Simpson’s home. He then planted the glove on Simpson’s property.”

Singular included in the fax his source’s accusation that someone gained access to blood drawn from Simpson’s arm after he returned to Chicago June 13. The source said someone then removed it from the vial and planted it at the scene.

“The most important piece of information I was given,” said Singular, “was that there is a scientific test that could be run on blood droplets. If they had been drawn from the vial there would be a preservative present.”

Singular would find out from Ambruso that the anti-coagulant was EDTA.
Less than 24 hours after the fax, Singular got a call from Carl Douglas, second-in-command at Cochran’s office. The attorney was agitated.

There was no way that anyone in Denver could know this stuff.

There was no way, said Douglas, that any of this was true.

They’d had 200,000 leads of which they had taken 100 seriously and Douglas had only met with maybe ten or fifteen people.

Still, Douglas was intrigued. But Singular wouldn’t spill it on the phone. Four days later, Singular, accompanied by two lawyers, walked into defense attorney Shapiro’s Century City offices.

Stan Handman, one of the two attorneys with Singular, says he heard the conversation be-tween Singular, Douglas and lead investigator Bill Pavelic.

As the defense found that Singular’s tips checked out - including the presence of the stick and bag - they continued to press him for more information. Singular, who worked with the defense team through October, says he in turn pushed his source for additional leads.

The one thing he wouldn’t divulge was his source, in whom Singular had placed total faith.

It was the source, in fact, who told him to go to the defense rather than the prosecution. The source said the prosecution wouldn’t listen to him and might have forced him to reveal the name.

Meanwhile, the defense was working on the tip about blood preservatives. In September Barry Scheck, the DNA expert on the team, spoke with Ambruso, who explained how to do the testing.

The prosecution balked at sharing the blood samples. Eventually the defense prevailed, opening up a new line of attack against prosecutors.

Not given to hyperbole in speech or movement, Singular, 44, is a rangy man with big hands and a craggy face.

He’s a man to be trusted, said Jerry Leider who has Singular’s book “Sweet Evil” under option for a television movie.
“He is not a conspiracy kook.”

Still, the author acknowledges the absurdity of the situation.

“Here I am, a journalist from a provincial city, and I’m telling the million-dollar talents of the Dream Team what they don’t know. Sometimes I’d be talking to one of the attorneys giving him information while I diapered my one-year-old son, 1,200 miles from the scene of the crime.”

Singular is careful when he explains why he was given the information.

“It was suggested to me that this is not a conspiracy - it’s a mind-set - an idea that it may be all right to manipulate evidence to get a conviction.

“It was suggested to me that I was tipped to this because of the writing I had done 10 years ago about racism and white supremacy. It was suggested to me that the kinds of people whom I’d been writing about in the Berg case are now wearing a much more respectable face.”

Singular has no idea if O.J. Simpson is guilty or not. But, he will say, “There was a presumption of guilt” by the investigators, by the media, by the public.

“I don’t think enough investigation has been done yet. Obviously if they had to ask Ambruso how to do it, they hadn’t thought to test the blood for preservative.”

In late October, Singular asked the defense team to cooperate with him on a book.

“Not just about this case,” he said, “but the larger implications of what has happened to our justice system. You’re supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

Douglas refused, so Singular shopped a 22-page book proposal in New York and Los Angeles. That document was subpoenaed from a publisher and given to Ito and the prosecution in November. The defense, angry that much of their strategy was now in the hands of the enemy, cut off communications with Singular.

Weeks later, after the book proposal was mentioned during the trial April 27, Singular was besieged by newspapers, radio and television. Meanwhile, the man who triggered the defense strategy in this phase of the trial is waiting, like the rest of the country, to see what plays out.

“All of my involvement to date,” said Singular yesterday, “has been self-motivated and financed. All I’ve been doing is pursuing a story and seeing where it leads.”

The Associated Press, New York Times and Los Angeles Times contributed to this story.

LOAD-DATE: May 08, 1995

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: The Denver Post/Glen Martin Singular has a theory.