Witness Links Simpson To Hair At Scene, On Glove Magnification Shows Variety Of Hair Types Among Blacks

A prosecution expert testified Friday that 12 hairs matching those of O.J. Simpson were found on both sides of the blue knit cap found near the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, and that other hairs resembling Simpson’s were lifted from Goldman’s shirt and a crucial leather glove.

In a day devoted to tracing how hair migrated from one person or object to another and what that movement means, the expert, Douglas Deedrick of the FBI, also testified that hairs resembling Mrs. Simpson’s and Goldman’s were found on the crumpled leather glove retrieved from behind Simpson’s house on Rockingham Avenue here.

The jurors, craning their necks, staring intently and taking notes intermittently, saw a variety of hair samples - from unknown sources, from Simpson and from a number of other blacks - magnified 250 times.

The pictures, which resembled tree branches, with a variety of widths, textures and colors, showed great variety even within the black population - thereby showing, prosecutors hope, how identifiable Simpson’s hair was.

Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark asked Deedrick if, over the 18 years he had studied hair and fiber evidence, he had generally found that an assailant leaves his hair on a victim’s clothing after a violent struggle.

“Yes, I have,” Deedrick replied. “That’s why I look at clothing from the victims of crime.”

A defense objection was sustained after Clark asked whether the presence of the hair was “consistent with the defendant having grabbed Ron Goldman from behind, wrapping his left arm around him in an effort to stab him with the right hand, in which his clothing would come into contact with the shirt of Ron Goldman.”

But it was reasonable to think, Deedrick said, that the hair had got there through some kind of physical contact.

Over two hours of compact testimony, Deedrick offered an inventory of the hairs, much of it cut, torn or forcibly removed, that was lifted from the victims, the cap and the pair of leather gloves retrieved from Rockingham and the crime scene at 875 South Bundy Drive.

A few hairs matching Mrs. Simpson’s, he said, were found on both gloves, as well as 35 fragments on Goldman’s shirt. Specimens like Goldman’s hair were found only on the Rockingham glove.

Prosecutors believe that Simpson effectively left his tracks on the crime scene as much with the hairs he pulled, carried and shed as with blood drops and shoe prints.