Decades after the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the long-dismissed theory that Simpson had help is being carried into the mainstream by a major newspaper investigation and a new streaming documentary.
The foremost additional name in the new reporting is Joey Ippolito, a Simpson associate and convicted drug trafficker who later became a federal informant with alleged ties to New Jersey organized crime.
A second figure drawing attention is Charlie Ehrlich, a Miami strip club manager convicted alongside Simpson in a 2007 armed robbery case, who is captured on audio in the Peacock series OJ's Accomplice relaying a claim that Ippolito's brother Lou told him Joey admitted involvement about a month before Joey's death. Ehrlich has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the murders.
The renewed attention has produced concrete demands for scrutiny. A sister of Nicole Brown Simpson and Alan Dershowitz, who helped defend Simpson at his 1995 trial, have called for an investigation into whether an accomplice took part. The case remains open because no criminal conviction was ever secured, even though Simpson was found liable for the deaths in civil court.
Much of the theory's fuel comes from a murky subculture of self-styled experts, fringe publishers, former associates and unverified recordings, a world that has proven difficult for reporters to separate from provable fact. One former Simpson bodyguard has claimed for years to hold audio of a confession; the recordings police recovered were of him talking to himself.
Nearly thirty years on, the case still measures how far celebrity can fall, and how long a rumor can wait before the institutions catch up to it.