The bloody glove found on O.J. Simpson's estate that didn't fit — and the DNA that swayed the trial

A right-hand glove, bloodstained, lay on the ground at O.J. Simpson's Rockingham Avenue estate.

Detectives found it during their walk-through of the property.

It became the object the whole country watched him try on.

In court, Simpson pulled the glove over his hand.

It did not fit.

The prosecution had asked him to try it on, and the glove stopped short of his fingers.

The defense called that proof of a frame.

The glove, they argued, was planted or mishandled by investigators.

Was it?

That is not established.

The record shows the glove was found where it was found, and the defense's claim of planting remains a claim.

But the glove was never the whole case.

The prosecution leaned on something smaller and harder to see: DNA.

Blood on the glove.

Blood at the scene.

Blood in the Bronco.

Each sample carried a signature, and the prosecution said that signature was Simpson's.

The glove was the symbol.

The DNA was the evidence.

How the evidence was collected, though, became its own question.

Criminalists handled the samples, bagged them, logged them.

The defense said they handled them badly.

Contamination, they argued.

Mishandling.

The glove sat in the record as a thing that did not fit a hand, yet tied a man to a scene.

That is the unease at the center of the case.

A glove that does not fit.

A story that does, barely, if you follow the blood.

THE BODIES ON BUNDY

The neighbor walking her dog found them around midnight.

Nicole Brown Simpson was on the ground outside her condominium on Bundy Drive. Ronald Goldman was near her. Both had been stabbed repeatedly.

Nicole had been stabbed multiple times in the head and neck. Goldman was also stabbed repeatedly. The case record states the killings occurred sometime after 10:00 PM.

What time exactly?

The case record does not specify the exact time of death. It only places the killings after 10:00 PM.

Nicole was the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson. Goldman was a waiter at a nearby restaurant. He had returned Nicole’s mother’s glasses that night.

The scene was in Brentwood, Los Angeles. The date was June 12, 1994.

Simpson was scheduled to fly to Chicago that night. He became the primary suspect within days.

Not because of the glove. Because of the bodies, and the timeline that followed them.

The horror of the scene is the fact of the record. The immediacy is the timeline. A neighbor, a dog, a midnight discovery.

THE EVIDENCE ON ROCKINGHAM

Detectives Philip Vannatter and Tom Lange went to Simpson’s estate on Rockingham Avenue that night.

They found a bloodstained glove, a right-hand glove, on the grounds.

They found other evidence too, according to the investigation record.

Simpson had flown to Chicago that night.

He returned the next day and was questioned.