Fuhrman Tells of His Actions at Scene of Slayings

In even tones that belied the tension in the courtroom, LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman told jurors Friday that he had spent almost no time alone at the scene of the murders O.J. Simpson is charged with committing, and he concluded his second day on the witness stand by dramatically unveiling a shovel and heavy plastic bag found in Simpson’s car.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark, who is presenting the Los Angeles police detective’s testimony, attempted to use Friday’s session to head off the expected defense charge that Fuhrman is a racist who may have planted evidence, and to plant a tantalizing, if unexplained, notion in the minds of jurors about the items found inside Simpson’s Bronco.

Law enforcement sources long have suggested that they believe Simpson carefully planned the killing of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and those sources have speculated that the shovel and plastic bag were in the car because Simpson intended to use them to dispose of bloody clothes and the murder weapon once he had committed the crimes. Last summer, pursuing that theory, officers scoured a vacant lot between Simpson’s home and the murder scene, hoping to dig up the missing items.

But despite that search and others in Los Angeles and Chicago, authorities never recovered the clothes or the weapon.

According to sources, prosecutors could offer another possible explanation for the items--that they could have been in the car because Simpson hoped to dispose of his ex-wife’s body after killing her. Under that theory, Simpson, who has pleaded not guilty, abandoned that plan after being surprised by Ronald Lyle Goldman and killing him, too.

But the government lawyers have offered no physical evidence to support that theory, either. As a result, the notion that the bag and shovel are somehow connected to the crimes--either as tools for disposing of the clothes and weapon or as the means for burying a body--remains little more than a hypothesis, albeit one that offered prosecutors the chance to display some courtroom theatrics as the week wound to a close Friday.

Prosecutors have previously tried to end on emotional high notes, saving the tearful testimony of Nicole Simpson’s sister for a Friday afternoon, and presenting a bloody glove and knit cap at the end of another week.

Friday, as the noon hour approached, Clark guided Fuhrman to his description of what he saw in Simpson’s car on the morning after the bodies of Goldman and Nicole Simpson were discovered.

“There was a shovel that was approximately five feet long,� Fuhrman said. “It was, I can’t remember if it was a pointed or a flat-nosed shovel, but it was turned point down--in other words, the cutting edge down. And there was a large piece of heavy-gauge plastic that was tucked in the side cargo area in the rear part of the vehicle.�

Detective Tom Lange, one of the lead investigators in the case, stood at the back of the courtroom while Fuhrman described peering into the back of Simpson’s white Ford Bronco, which investigators had found parked outside the former football star’s Brentwood estate. Lange was holding several large packages, and though they did not attract the jury’s attention, the rest of the audience stole glances at the detective as he waited.

When Clark finally called Lange to the front, just before noon, he toted the packages to the prosecution table and gave them to her. The audience sat silently and expectantly as she then presented the bundles to Fuhrman. Ito handed the detective a pair of scissors, and Fuhrman and Clark carefully opened and displayed the packages for the jury.

One was a large shovel, its blade partially encrusted in dirt. The others included a slightly tattered white towel and a large, heavy plastic bag.

At Clark’s instruction, Fuhrman hoisted the shovel and held it out in front of the jury, just a few feet from the nearest member of the panel. He then stood and unfolded the bag, made of a heavy-gauge clear plastic and measuring, by Fuhrman’s estimate, roughly 3 feet by 4 feet or 3 feet by 5 feet.

Simpson, who had stared steadily at Fuhrman through much of the detective’s testimony, bowed his head and smiled as the detective displayed the items. The defendant leaned over to Robert L. Shapiro, one of his attorneys, and whispered to him. Shapiro nodded without expression.

Fuhrman then unwrapped and displayed a small, splintered piece of wood found near Simpson’s car. According to Fuhrman, that short, broken piece seemed out of place on the grassy strip near the Simpson estate in the pre-dawn hours of June 13, when he and three other detectives allegedly were attempting to notify Simpson of his former wife’s death.

Neither Fuhrman nor Clark explained the significance of any of the items, concluding the day on a mysterious note. Afterward, some members of the defense team fumed over the display. One called it “cheap theater,� and said prosecutors used the effort to plant an idea in the jury’s mind without having the evidence to back it up.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., Simpson’s lead trial lawyer, called all the items a “non sequitur,� and predicted that prosecutors would never produce evidence to conclusively link them to the crimes in any way. None of the items are stained with blood or contain other trace evidence connecting them to the crimes, according to defense sources.

“It’s just another one of their theories,� Cochran said outside court.

Fuhrman delivered his testimony without interruption Friday. Defense attorneys, who have objected repeatedly during other testimony, elected to allow Fuhrman to give his account without objection, even when the detective discussed conversations with witnesses--testimony that would normally not be allowed because it is hearsay.

Legal experts speculated that the defense’s approach was intended to convey the defense team’s confidence about their challenge to Fuhrman. As if to emphasize that, F. Lee Bailey, the famed criminal defense lawyer who will cross-examine the detective, sat through Friday’s entire session without taking a single note.

Earlier, Clark had methodically questioned Fuhrman about his actions at the crime scene, building the prosecution argument that the detective could not have made off with a bloody glove from that area and taken it to Simpson’s house, where Fuhrman has said he found it. Fuhrman also said he had not even planned to go to Simpson’s house that morning, but only had joined other detectives at their request.

That testimony is an important bulwark against the expected defense attack on Fuhrman, which probably will commence next week. Simpson’s lawyers have charged that Fuhrman is a racist who may have planted the bloody glove outside Simpson’s house in order to implicate him in the murders.

They have not produced any evidence that Fuhrman did plant the glove--or even that he could have done so. But a real estate agent named Kathleen Bell has said Fuhrman made racist comments to her in 1985 or 1986, adding that the detective boasted of his willingness to manufacture evidence in order to implicate members of interracial couples.

In his testimony Thursday, Fuhrman denied ever having met Bell, but Bailey said the defense will produce a witness to challenge that testimony. At a news conference Friday, Bailey said he was looking forward to cross-examining the detective, a face-off that legal observers have been anticipating for weeks.

“Any lawyer who would not look forward to cross-examining Mark Fuhrman is out of his mind,� Bailey told reporters Friday.

Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator hired by Fuhrman, said he knows the identity of the witness Bailey intends to produce but said he was not worried by the prospect. Pellicano said at a news conference last year that another witness told him Bell was spurned by Fuhrman--a statement which, if true, could raise doubts about Bell’s credibility but also could undercut Fuhrman’s insistence that he never met Bell.

Friday, however, Pellicano stressed that his comments about Fuhrman allegedly spurning the real estate agent were not based on Fuhrman’s recollections but on those of another witness.

“He stated to me in the beginning, and he states to me now that he has no recollection of her at all,� Pellicano said of Fuhrman. “We’re talking about 1985 here. He doesn’t remember meeting her, and the conversation that she says took place never took place.�

At the beginning of Friday’s session, Deputy Dist. Atty. Cheri Lewis complained that the defense was hiding the identity of the witness who allegedly will link Fuhrman to Bell. Prosecutors and defense attorneys have regularly traded charges of hiding evidence, and Lewis reminded Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito of those disputes Friday, asking him to intercede again.

In response, Bailey turned over a thin envelope that he said contained the background of the witness, whom he has refused to identify publicly. Ito met privately in chambers with the attorneys at the end of the court day, and a defense team member said later that prosecutors already had the background material on the witness.

Fuhrman’s alleged racism forms the most powerful emotional basis for the attack on his credibility and character, but even if the defense can persuade the jury that the detective is a racist--an allegation that he has vehemently denied through his attorney--that would not prove that he planted evidence.

As a result, Clark has focused much of her questioning on trying to show that the detective did not have any opportunity to remove a bloody glove from the murder scene--Nicole Simpson’s condominium at 875 S. Bundy Drive--and take it to Simpson’s house.

Fuhrman testified Friday that he had toured the crime scene in the company of Officer Robert Riske and Detective Ronald Phillips, and he said he had only been left alone briefly to jot down some notes as he sat inside the condo.

“Before you entered the house at that point to sit down and write your notes,� Clark asked, “was there any point when you were at the crime scene up until that time that you were alone?�

“No,� Fuhrman answered.

Clark then asked a series of questions retracing Fuhrman’s steps through the crime scene. At each point, she asked the detective whom he was with.

Each time, Fuhrman responded: “Officer Riske and Detective Phillips.�

After about half an hour at the murder scene, Fuhrman said, he was informed that robbery-homicide division detectives would be taking over the case and he stopped work on it at that point. He was called into service again, however, after the new detectives asked him for his help in finding O.J. Simpson’s house, where they have said they were headed to notify Simpson of his ex-wife’s death and to arrange for him to pick up his children at the West Los Angeles police station.

Fuhrman, who had been to Simpson’s house in 1985 in response to a domestic violence call, said he vaguely remembered where it was but asked another officer for the precise address and directions. Fuhrman said that he and Phillips then got in one car and led the two robbery-homicide detectives, Lange and Philip L. Vannatter, to the house.

As he did during last summer’s preliminary hearing, Fuhrman testified Friday about the efforts that he said the detectives made to raise Simpson at the house, pressing a buzzer button on his gate repeatedly and soliciting the help of a private security company. While the other detectives tried to get the attention of someone indoors, Fuhrman said he walked over to inspect the Ford Bronco parked outside the gate.

Fuhrman said he spotted red marks on the door of that car and that they appeared to him to be blood. Confronted with that information, detectives said they decided to go over the wall into Simpson’s house because they were confused and concerned that another victim might be inside.

Fuhrman, the youngest and most physically fit of the four detectives, volunteered to scale the fence. Once over, he opened the gate and let his colleagues inside, he and others have testified.

In response to a question from Clark, Fuhrman noted that he was not wearing his jacket at that point--which is potentially significant because it would have been difficult to hide a bloody glove without his jacket to cover it.

Fuhrman went on to describe interviewing Brian (Kato) Kaelin, the Simpson guest house tenant who recalled hearing thumps on his back wall at about 10:45 p.m. on the night of the murders. The day ended Friday before Fuhrman reached the climactic point in his testimony--his description of finding the bloody glove.

Fuhrman will be back on the stand Monday morning. Once Clark completes her questioning, Bailey will begin his cross-examination.

Times staff writer Tim Rutten contributed to this story.