DENVER (Court TV) — Thirty years after the historic O.J. Simpson murder trial, Marcia Clark made an appearance for the first time at the annual CrimeCon convention.
Clark was the featured speaker on Saturday afternoon, highlighting a case she described as “its own ‘trial of the century.'”
Marcia Clark and Nate Eaton appear at CrimeCon on Sept. 6, 2025. (Court TV)
“Do you know anything about having a trial of the century? Is that what drew you to the story?” host Nate Eaton asked Clark.
“No,” Clark said. “I wanted to write about a case that had more going on than just the ‘monster in the closet’…something that talks to us about us as a society. That’s hard to come by, it turns out.”
Clark took the audience through the trial of Barbara Graham, who was executed in 1955, two years after she was convicted of murder. The case, which inspired the 1958 movie “I Want to Live!”, involved a planned robbery that escalated to murder.
To write her book, Clark studied the complete transcripts from the trial, which featured legendary prosecutor J. Miller Leavy. “I was really excited to get these trial transcripts to see the hero in action,” Clark said. “And then…I read the transcripts.” Clark said the prosecution used now-illegal tactics and manipulation to secure Graham’s conviction. “There were some things he did…just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
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Barbara Graham, seen here holding her son, was executed in 1955 for the murder of a widow. (Court TV)
The trial itself was unlike anything people had seen before. Looking at photos of the courthouse, “It gave me a little bit of deja vu,” Clark said. “People showed up in the morning and lined up around the block. The gallery was packed every day.” At the time, journalists covering the case focused solely on Graham, though there were two other defendants who were both male. Among the topics of coverage was the color of Graham’s hair, described simultaneously by different outlets as red, brunette and blonde.
“Speaking of changing hair during a trial…” Eaton prompted. “I didn’t change it!” Clark insisted. “You know how much (expletive) I got from friends who have curly hair? Everyone was perming their hair then. It was the 90s. I had two little kids and I wanted wash-and-wear hair, but during the trial I didn’t have time to go and get another perm, and it fell out….I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
They did notice. Clark’s changed hairstyle was on the front page of magazines and newspapers across the country. “It’s going to be on my tombstone, I swear,” Clark sighed. “She shouldn’t have straightened her hair.”
When asked if she felt like she had any supporters during the trial, Clark said, “You mean like Karen Read and Turtleboy?” which garnered laughs from the audience.
Despite the fact that Clark is most widely known as the lead prosecutor in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, Clark only referenced that chapter in her life tangentially and refused to take any questions from the audience. Rather, Clark’s intention was to promote the book she authored on Graham’s case, “Trial by Ambush.”
