FEBRUARY 12 - Jurors toured the murder scene, going to Nicole Brown Simpson's townhouse and to O.J. Simpson's mansion two miles away.
FEBRUARY 13 - The court was in recess.
FEBRUARY 14 - Defense attorneys continued to cross-examine Robert Riske, the first police officer to arrive at the crime scene. Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran asked Riske detailed questions about the scene and timeframe as testimony resumed following a day off Monday. Riske answered a series of questions about what he found but repeated that he did not touch any evidence.
Riske said he didn't check trash cans inside the home or test the temperature of the water in Nicole Brown Simpson's bathtub. He didn't pick up the cup of melting ice cream or check the Simpson's pet Akita for evidence.
The defense contends that police mishandled evidence from the start of the case and overlooked some details like checking to see how much of the ice cream had melted in order to better determine the time of the murders.
During subsequent questioning by Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark, Riske said it was not his job to investigate the murder. Rather, he said, that was the job of investigators and criminalists.
FEBRUARY 15 - The prosecution revealed that O.J. Simpson's blood was found on a gate near the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The revelation came during a hearing out of the jury's presence on the sharing of evidence.
Deputy District Attorney Rockne Harmon said prosecutors did not want to turn over the blood sample to the defense until it conducted additional tests. The tests, he said, would show the absence of a preservative that coroners used on Simpson's blood taken on the day after the murders. The same preservative was used on samples taken from the victims' bodies. Harmon said that if blood had been planted to incriminate Simpson -- as the defense has maintained -- the preservative would show up. Judge Lance Ito said the FBI would conduct the tests on the gate sample, the bloody socks found in Simpson's home and on other evidence.
Meanwhile, a police detective testified that Simpson was not initially a suspect in the case and that police tried to spare him from having to hear about the killings from the media.
"The commander gave me a direct order that I should do everything I could to find Mr. Simpson and notify him in person before the news media became aware of what happened," detective Ron Phillips said. "He thought it would be very insensitive if we knew about it and did not notify him in person prior to the news media notifying him."
Phillips also testified that he and three other policemen went to Simpson's house to inform him about the deaths and to ask his help in the investigation.
"We never considered Mr. Simpson to be a suspect at that time," he said.
In another development, it was disclosed that one of Simpson's key alibi witnesses, Rosa Lopez, had left for El Salvador as a result of what the defense said were threats and press harassment. The defense has said that Lopez, a maid at the adjacent estate, saw Simpson's Bronco outside his home at the time the killings took place.
FEBRUARY 16 - O.J. Simpson's first words on learning that his former wife had been killed were, "Oh my God, Nicole is killed. Oh my God, she's dead," a detective testified. Detective Ron Phillips said Simpson was "very upset" when notified of Nicole Brown Simpson's death the morning after she and her friend Ronald Goldman were found murdered.
Phillips testified about reaching Simpson by telephone at his Chicago hotel room after learning the former football legend left Los Angeles the previous evening.
While Phillips said Simpson became "very upset" at the news, he did not ask any questions about the circumstances surrounding the murders.
The prosecution is attempting to show that police properly handled the evidence at the crime scene and followed normal police procedures.
FEBRUARY 17 - Defense lawyers closely questioned police detective Ron Phillips about the telephone conversation with O.J. Simpson in which he told the football legend that his wife had been killed. Phillips had called Simpson at his hotel room in Chicago the morning of June 13 to inform him about the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
Phillips had testified that Simpson did not ask any questions about the circumstances of the murders. But on cross-examination he conceded that Simpson asked him, "What do you mean, she's been killed?"
Phillips said he "never had a chance" to answer that question because Simpson became upset over the phone, "repeating himself and talking to himself over and over and over." Phillips also admitted that he did not have any details of Nicole Simpson's death at that point and would not have shared them if he did because the deaths were being investigated as homicides.
The defense wants to leave jurors with a different impression of the phone conversation than the prosecution which wants jurors to think Simpson didn't ask specifics about the murders because he had committed them.
The week ended with prosecutor Marcia Clark carefully unpacking the first two pieces of evidence in the trial -- a leather glove and blue ski cap found near the bodies.
Meanwhile, defense attorney Robert Shapiro said potential defense witness Rosa Lopez was still in the United States. The defense has said earlier in the week that Lopez had fled to El Salvador.
