‘No Me Recuerdos,’ Maid Repeatedly Tells The Court Lopez’ Honesty, Ability To Recall Anything Comes Under Question

The current and unlikely center of gravity in the O.J. Simpson trial, a slight Spanishspeaking maid in a new sea-green jacket, testified Thursday about what she did - and, more often, did not - remember about the night when Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman died, and what she told Simpson’s defense team about it afterward.

Rosa Lopez, formerly the housekeeper for Simpson’s neighbor, repeated that she saw Simpson’s Bronco outside his home “shortly after 10” on the night of June 12, about the time that prosecutors say Simpson was committing murder two miles away.

But Lopez acknowledged that she had failed to provide the same information to her employers, friends and the police because, she said, what she knew was too dangerous to disseminate.

Prosecutors sought to show that she had forgotten so much else - she said “I don’t remember” in Salvadoran Spanish at least 50 times Thursday - that nothing she said could be believed.

Three more “no me recuerdos” came near day’s end: when Lopez was asked whether she told a friend “O.J. Simpson is a great guy and I’ll testify to anything anytime”; when, asked by that friend whether she thought Simpson was guilty, she replied, “Oh, no, he had somebody do it for him,” and whether she told another friend that she could receive $5,000 for saying she saw Simpson’s Bronco outside his home at 360 North Rockingham.

Christopher Darden, conducting Thursday’s cross examination, suggested that even were Lopez honest, the defense investigator who questioned her over the summer, William Pavelic, was not. Pavelic, Darden said, pushed back the hour at which she saw the Bronco to a time that would clear Simpson of the killings. Lopez did not appear to disagree.

“It’s Mr. Pavelic who decided that you saw the Bronco at 10:15 or 10:20, as opposed to a few minutes before or around 10, correct?” Darden asked.

“All I said was that it was after 10,” she replied.

“So you don’t know how long after 10, correct?”

“No, sir,” she replied.

“OK. So Mr. Pavelic is the one that first suggested 10:15 or 10:20, correct?”

“If that’s what he’s saying, that’s fine.”

“And you did not agree with all the times that Mr. Pavelic said, correct?”

“Maybe he didn’t understand me,” she replied.

In a refrain disconcerting for the defense, Lopez repeatedly pleaded a poor memory. At one point, she said she did not remember the time of day, month or even the season in which she met with Pavelic. By way of explanation, she said these events had happened long ago and she had not taken notes.

“Is that the only way you can remember dates and times is when they are written down?” Darden asked.

“No, sir,” she replied.

When Darden was not challenging Lopez’s memory, he was suggesting that she was acting out of an animus for Nicole Simpson, who had slapped another maid with whom Lopez was friendly.

Beyond that, he questioned her honesty about even the most basic things, including her stated name and age.

He challenged her assertion that she had not met with defense lawyers over the weekend - suggesting that she had, in fact, spent seven hours at the law office of Simpson’s chief trial lawyer, Johnnie Cochran Jr., on Saturday afternoon. At various times she said that she had seen Cochran, had not seen him and could not remember whether she had seen him.