MORE THAN 95 MILLION WATCHED THE CAR CHASE BETWEEN OJ SIMPSON AND LAPD AFTER WIFE'S MURDER

Decades have passed since the nation woke up to reports of NFL star OJ Simpson allegedly killing his ex-wife and her friend before they were glued to TV screens watching every major twist in his trial. But before the televised court proceedings shaped public perception about the case, 95 million Americans tuned in to watch an edge-of-the-seat car chase involving LAPD officers and Simpson, as he made a run to evade arrest in a Ford Bronco. Simpson was wanted as the prime suspect in the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, waiter Ronald Goldman. The chase on the Southern Californian interstate freeway captivated American audiences for two hours.

According to PEOPLE, Simpson refused to follow the orders from the law and his location was unknown till the late afternoon of June 17. Meanwhile, Simpson's attorney, Robert Kardashian read a letter to media which was given to him by Simpson. "Thanks for making my life special. I hope I helped you. Peace and love. O.J.” the letter read briefly. But Simpson was later spotted that evening at 6 p.m. in a Ford Bronco along with his fellow player Al Cowlings while the latter drove through the interstate traffic. Cowlings informed the police that Simpson was seated in the back of the Bronco with a gun to his own head, and was prompting Cowlings to continue driving.

Cowlings was initially arrested but his charges were ultimately dropped for "aiding a fugitive." Several police cars started to chase Simpson as they went all the way to his home in Brentwood. Media helicopters kept pace with them as events unfolded and the freeway traffic came to a halt with onlookers even pulling over to wave at Simpson. "It was already the most televised police pursuit in history, but now it's so bizarre with people coming out," Orange County Sheriff's Deputy Larry Pool, the officer who originally spotted the Ford Bronco, told NBC News in 2014. 

"People were interfering with our pursuit. At one point, when we got into L.A., it was as though a concert had let out on the freeway. People were partying. I thought, if this was a movie, people would say that was a pretty good movie until that stupid car chase!" Pool further mentioned. The vehicle carried Simpson to his home in the Los Angeles area as LAPD and snipers surrounded the house. Simpson finally surrendered to the authorities on his own and later on makeup adhesive, a fake mustache, and a goatee were discovered in the Bronco along with Simpson’s passport and a gun. Simpson was brought to trial after getting charged with Brown and Goldman's murders where he was acquitted, before a civil court ultimately found him liable for the deaths.

In the years that followed, Simpson was credited as the author of a controversial memoir titled If I Did It. Simpson allegedly paid ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves to pen the book, which Simpson described as a collection of hypothetical accounts of the murder from his perspective. The book hit the market at the point when Simpson filed for bankruptcy in the wake of his civil trial where he was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages to the victim's families, per Daily Mail.

Even though, Simpson's manager claimed that he had put his name on the book to cash in on the revenue generated from the memoir's sale, Fenjves disputed the claim stating that he was reportedly paid $600,000 for the ghostwriting project. In 2007, a Florida bankruptcy court awarded the rights to the memoir to Goldman's family to help satisfy the civil judgment, sparking "one of the strangest odysseys in publishing history." The title of the book was changed to If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer and notes were added from the Goldman family.