Simpson Pictured In Same Shoes As Killer, Expert Says
SANTA MONICA, Nov. 20 (Evening) -- FBI footwear expert William Bodziak said Wednesday afternoon that shoe prints left at the blood at the Bundy crime scene came from a rare brand of size-12 Italian shoes. Bodziak further told jurors that Simpson was wearing that type of shoes -- Bruno Magli -- in a photo taken in 1993 at a professional football game.
On Thursday, Bodziak will continue to testify on cross-examination; no other witnesses are scheduled and court is expected to end early. On Friday, O.J. Simpson will take the stand.
Bodziak painstakingly compared 18 characteristics of Bruno Magli's Lorenzo brand shoes to the pair that Simpson was wearing in the photograph. Jurors had previously seen the picture when the plaintiffs introduced the videotaped deposition of Harry Scull, a freelance photographer who took the picture during a Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins football game. Scull sold the picture to the "National Enquirer," and the defense contends it was faked. But Bodziak, looking at the soles, the stitching, the seams, and the curves among other design elements on the shoes, declared that Simpson was indeed wearing Bruno Maglis in the picture.
"Based on all these features combined, I was able to determine the shoe depicted in this photograph on the right foot of Mr. Simpson, is a Bruno Magli Lorenzo shoe," Bodziak said. "In addition, I examined the left shoe [in the photograph]...the left shoe corresponded with the left shoe of this design."
Bodziak gave the jury an extremely detailed lesson in shoe-print examination, even showing jurors how the manufactures in Italy put together a pair of Bruno Maglis. He also described how rare the shoes are: Between 1991 and 1993 only 40 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico sold them. These stores sold 299 pairs of the shoes that Simpson is purportedly wearing in the photo. In other testimony, Bodziak said that he saw only one set of shoe prints at the Bundy crime scene and that there appeared to be imprints from Bruno Magli shoes on the carpet taken from Simpson's Bronco.
Earlier Wednesday afternoon, limousine driver Allan Park finished cross-examination. Defense attorney Robert Baker continued to pound Park about small inconsistencies between what he said during the civil trial and his previous testimony. Baker also pointed out that Park, who was familiar with the sound a Ford Bronco makes, never head the car pull up to the house. The defense also tried to make the point that the six foot, African American wearing dark clothes that Park said he saw entering the Rockingham house might have been Simpson in a bathrobe.
On Park's redirect examination, lead plaintiff's attorney Daniel Petrocelli tried to say that the limousine driver had no stake in the case -- an impartial witness simply trying to tell the truth. And happening into a case like the Simpson trial, is not easy, Petrocelli noted.
How much did you get that night for all your trouble?" Petrocelli asked.
"Probably about forty dollars," Park replied as the courtroom spectators broke out in laughter.
-Robert Schmidt
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