I've heard from three different folks who went to the NecroComicon yesterday — one as a guest, two as attendees — that the thing kind of turned into The O.J. Simpson Convention. Simultaneously this weekend, there's a Hollywood Collectors Show in progress at the Burbank Hilton and at least two guests advertised for the NecroComicon (Kevin McCarthy and Priscilla Barnes) are now listed for the H.C.S. As one of the attendees wrote me…
I guess if he was supposed to bring in crowds, he accomplished that. But I'm not sure how many of those people were paying attendees and how many were reporters. I don't think very many of them were interested in horror movies and memorabilia, which is what the convention was supposed to be all about. I guess the fires kept some people away, too. A lot of the guests seemed pretty uncomfortable with the whole situation and some either left early or never showed up at all.
Incidentally, a gent named Michael Kilgore who reads this site pointed out something that I hadn't realized even though I read just about everything one could read about the various Simpson trials. In the civil trial, O.J. was not found liable in the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. That's how it was generally reported and even folks who should have known better said that. Technically, he was found liable in the battery of Nicole Brown Simpson and in the death and battery of Ronald Goldman. This very old section of the CNN website details the precise verdicts.
The distinction is, of course, minor and I still have no problem with referring to the guy as a murderer of two human beings. And let's note that it has now been ten years since the first verdict and not only has O.J. not found (or even conspicuously tried to find) "the real killers" as he once vowed…but not a single piece of credible evidence has popped up to point to anyone else as the culprit. I would have thought that one of those guys on his Dream Team — Cochran, Bailey or even an associate — would have written a major book purporting to prove that those Colombian Drug Lords did it or that Mark Fuhrman was the mastermind..but nope. Lots of other damning evidence, including the infamous photos of O.J. in the Bruno Magli shoes, turned up after the trial…but not one bit of exculpatory (to Simpson) data.