The knife used to kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1994 has never been found. Newly unsealed federal records and fresh interviews published by The New York Times today, Oct. 18, now offer at least four different accounts of where it went. One came from a federal informant, one from that informant’s brother, one from a rapper’s podcast and one from O.J. Simpson’s own book. None has been proven, but together they point toward something police long dismissed, the possibility that Simpson had help.
The murder weapon is the most important missing piece of evidence in the case. Here is what each account says.
What do we know about the O.J. Simpson murder weapon?
Very little. A medical examiner testified that the victims were likely killed with a single-blade knife about 6 inches long, the Daily Beast reported. Prosecutors argued that O.J. Simpson was rushing home that night to catch a limousine to the airport. Detectives searched the route through woods and dumpsters, and even searched an airport waste tank that may have held discharge from his plane. They found nothing.
What did the federal informant say about the knife?
The informant was Joseph “Joey” Ippolito, a drug runner with mob ties who escaped a Florida prison weeks before the murders. After his capture in August 1995, he began cooperating with federal prosecutors in New York. A sealed December 1996 memo, now made public, said he knew about O.J. Simpson’s alleged disposal of the murder weapon through his friendship with Al Cowlings, O.J. Simpson’s closest friend.
David Kelley, the prosecutor who wrote the memo, told The Times he remembered Ippolito describing a knife hidden somewhere around Simpson’s property. Kelley said the information came from a close associate of Simpson, though he would not name the person. A longtime friend of Ippolito, Eddie Trotta, told The Times that Ippolito once claimed he told investigators Cowlings had hidden the knife and later gotten rid of it. Trotta said he thought Ippolito was making it up. Kelley said he does not believe Ippolito took part in the killings.
What did Ippolito’s brother claim?
Sam Ippolito offered a darker version. He told The Times that Joey came back to their West Hollywood apartment around midnight on the night of the murders. He said Joey was carrying a heavy bag and had what looked like blood on his hands. Sam said he threw the bag into a dumpster on Doheny Drive. Months later, he asked the newspaper for money and then tried to take the story back, saying he could no longer tell what was real.
What did O.J. Simpson’s own book say?
In If I Did It, Simpson described a hypothetical version of the murders in which a friend named Charlie took the bloody clothes and the knife and agreed to get rid of them. Ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves told The Times he came up with the name Charlie himself. A man named Charlie Ehrlich, who was charged alongside Simpson in a 2007 robbery case, once hinted he was that friend. He now says that was a lie he told to cash in.
Where does Al Cowlings fit in?
Cowlings is the one living person in the middle of all of these stories, and he has not commented. He and Simpson played football together in high school, in college and in the NFL, and Cowlings drove the white Bronco during the famous chase. In a letter to a judge, he once credited Ippolito with helping him stop using cocaine. A former DEA agent told The Times that Ippolito said Cowlings called him after the murders asking for help getting Simpson out of the area.
Rapper Fat Joe added another layer on his podcast. He said a friend called Joe Bentley, a name Ippolito used, told him he had been waiting with a private jet during the Bronco chase. Investigators did find a passport and a disguise kit in the Bronco. No account has accused Cowlings of a crime, and none has been tested in court.
Will the knife ever be found?
Probably not. Simpson died in 2024, Ippolito died in 2006, and the dumpster Sam described was emptied decades ago. The LAPD says the case remains open and that detectives will follow any new evidence. Retired lead detective Tom Lange still believes Simpson acted alone. Former defense attorney Robert Blasier says an accomplice is possible but not proven.
That leaves four stories and no knife. For Black Americans who watched the 1995 verdict as a judgment on the LAPD, and for the Goldman and Brown families still waiting for answers, that is the same uncertainty they have lived with for 32 years.
