Free Murder in Brentwood by Mark Fuhrman

cover Nicole’s corpse with a cotton blanket from her house. Simpson had no doubt slept over at the house occasionally. So, even though it was later argued that the blanket had been laundered the day before the murder, it was still a mistake to allow even the possibility of hair and fiber contamination.
    Then there is the issue of Simpson’s blood sample. After Vannatter got a blood sample from Simpson on the afternoon of June 13, he carried it to the Rockingham scene instead of booking it as evidence. He claimed that he wanted to give the sample to Dennis Fung, so the criminalist could put it in with the other evidence. But Vannatter could just as easily have put the blood vial in an evidence envelope and stowed it in an evidence locker. When Fung returned to the station, Vannatter could have given him the blood. There was no reason for Vannatter to carry the blood back to the crime scenes, and doing so only opened him to criticism. His actions showed a lack of presence of mind, and frankly I agree with the defense for questioning them. Vannatter should have realized that in such a high-profile case his every movement would be dissected in court. If both he and Lange had simply stayed at their respective crime scenes, many of the problems eventually exploited by the defense would have been avoided.
    Every crime scene is different, and the process of evidence collection changes with the conditions of each particular scene. The Bundy residence was the most challenging type of crime scene: outside, and without much room for us to move around the bodies. In any outdoor crime scene, you have to worry about wind, rain, and other factors that could degrade or destroy evidence. The entire block should have been sealed off until we had gathered every piece of evidence that we could possibly find, but we did not.
    Still, these errors were minor compared to a truly tragic error by which the prosecution lost a single piece of evidence that could have put the case away that morning.
    Hindsight is always 20/20, and it would not be fair to say that the Bundy crime scene would have been better served by Phillips, Roberts, and myself. But this much is certain: Had we remained in charge of the case, Brad and I would never have gone to Rockingham, Mislead, we would have stayed at Bundy and investigated the scene completely and without pause.
    Remember, at the Bundy scene, Brad and I had found a bloody latent fingerprint on the north walkway gate. We both saw the print as we shined our flashlights on the other blood evidence on the gate. The print was formed in blood on the brass-plated doorknob turnstile. We both commented that it appeared to be several points in quality and very clear.
    Once my preliminary walk-through of the Bundy crime scene was complete, I carefully wrote my observations, including the print on the gate, in clear, neat notes. I had a meticulous system for taking notes at crime scenes. During the first walkthrough, I noted every obvious point of evidentiary value and gave each of those items a number. As the investigation proceeded, I would make more extensive notes concerning each numbered item and use the originally assigned number to connect these notes forever to my initial observation. This system is immensely important for prioritizing evidence collection.
    When the case was reassigned, I gave my notes to Ron Phillips and told him there was a fingerprint on the gate. Then Brad and I walked out to the street and waited for the RHD detectives to arrive. We felt we had done a good job and the case was just about over.
    When I was turning over the Bundy crime scene to Robbery/Homicide, it never occurred to me to lead two veteran homicide detectives by the hand and show them the bloody fingerprint. It would have been an insult for me to emphasize a single piece of evidence to senior detectives. The fingerprint was clearly described right there in my notes, and I had no reason to think they wouldn’t read my notes before