Ron Shipp
(mint green) Prosecution witness / 6’ 2” aspiring African-American stage and screen actor / One of six LAPD domestic violence experts / Retired from LAPD in 1989 with alcohol and cocaine abuse problems / Started private security business / Last LAPD assignment in Forgery.
Relationship to:
O.J. Simpson (personal – contradictory): Shipp’s older brother played high school football with O.J. where they grew up together in San Francisco. After O.J. moved to Brentwood in 1979, Shipp became a frequent visitor to his home, climbing the Ashford wall and letting in his fellow LAPD friends to play tennis at O.J.’s Rockingham estate without O.J.’s consent. Shipp married a blonde Jewish woman. A week before the murders Shipp brought another blonde woman to O.J.’s house to use his Jacuzzi. In O.J.’s criminal trial Shipp testified that he was a friend. Then he said that O.J. treated him like a servant. He testified that he counseled O.J. for spouse abuse and that after the Bundy murders O.J. told him privately that he had dreams of killing Nicole. He said that he did not want Nicole’s blood on his hands. These remarks are key elements in Shakespeare’s plays of envy, obsession, treachery and murder, Othello and Macbeth.
Nicole Simpson (personal – confidant): Shipp interacted with Nicole more than he did with O.J. She told him about her fear of knives and sought his advise on problems she had with O.J. After the ’89 incident Shipp used what he learned about spouse abuse as an instructor at the police academy to advise O.J. and Nicole. When Nicole moved out of Rockingham in 1992, Shipp visited her frequently at her Gretna Green and Bundy condos. When Nicole threw a pizza party for O.J. at Rockingham in May 1994 Shipp provided the security with unnamed moonlighting LAPD officers.
Sheila Weller (professional – key information source): Prior to O.J.’s criminal trial Weller published a book called Raging Heart, which characterized O.J.’s marriage to Nicole as a classic example of an abusive relationship with O.J. as the classic spouse abuser. The incriminating “dream evidence” first appeared in Weller’s book with Shipp using the pseudonym “Leo,” an LAPD acronym for Law Enforcement Officer. Raging Heart draws heavily on Weller’s interviews with Nicole’s mother Juditha Brown, her sister Denise Brown, her friends Cynthia Shahian, Kris Jenner and Ron Shipp. Although Faye Resnick did not cooperate with the book project (she was writing her own book) Kris didn’t witness anything like the instances of O.J.’s abuse that Faye, Denise and Shipp said they witnessed. Neither did Nicole’s cousin Rolf Baur who referred Weller to Shipp as the person who knew the most about O.J. abusing Nicole. In Raging Heart Shipp tells Weller about driving over to Rockingham the day after the murders to see O.J. and saying to himself, “I hope he doesn’t have a cut on his hand.” He had no legitimate way of knowing at that time that O.J.’s blood had anything to do with the murder investigation or that O.J. did indeed have a cut on his hand.
Denise Brown (personal – see Sheila Weller): Denise acknowledged that she knew Ron Shipp. She said that Nicole and Shipp were close. During Denise’s deposition in O.J.’s civil trial, Philip Baker asked Denise about a drunk driving arrest in January ’94. He asked if she saw Faye Resnick and Ron Shipp that night and who her passengers were. Her attorney told her not to answer.
Cynthia Shahian (personal – see Sheila Weller)
Kris Jenner (see Sheila Weller)
Faye Resnick (personal – see Sheila Weller) Weller drew a verbal picture of Faye Resnick and her relationship with Nicole mostly through Kris Jenner’s observations and the stories Faye told Kris. Faye’s stories matched Ron Shipp’s and Denise Brown’s better than they matched hers in direct observations of O.J.’s abusive behavior patterns toward Nicole and others. She said that Nicole confided in Faye more than she confided in her
LAPD (professional – social): Ron Shipp worked in the LAPD for 15 years before his retirement in 1989. He was a patrol officer, an undercover cop, a spouse abuse instructor and a forgery investigator. He maintained contact with friends in the LAPD and hired them for to moonlight for private security jobs. None of these police officers and none of these police officers were ever named.
Bill Hodgeman (professional – witness): Hodgeman was the lead prosecutor in the criminal case against O.J. Simpson when Ron Shipp was called to testify in February 1995 as the fourth prosecution witness. Although Marcia Clark actually lead the prosecution Hodgeman was her boss. No witnesses could have been called to testify against O.J. without his approval.
Marcia Clark (professional – witness) Marcia prepared Shipp to testify and questioned him in court on direct examination. She did not disclose his prior relationship with Mark Fuhrman, which came out under cross-examination by Carl Douglas. Nor did she question the contradiction in his story of hearing about the murders for the first time at 10:30 on June 13, the morning after the murders and his statement to Sheila Weller about hoping O.J. hadn’t cut himself while he was driving to Rockingham. No one at that time at even suggested a bleeding killer, much less a killer bleeding from his hand except Mark Fuhrman who hinted at it in his Bundy notes.
Mark Fuhrman (personal – friend): When Shipp called Rockingham to enquire about the murders, Mark Fuhrman picked up the phone. According to Shipp and Fuhrman, Shipp asked if O.J. had “hurt” Nicole. In cross-examination Johnny Cochran’s top attorney Carl Douglas forced Shipp to admit that he had known Mark Fuhrman since 1995 and considered him a friend.
Johnnie Cochran (familial – cousin): O.J.’s attorney Johnnie Cochran left Shipp’s cross examination to Douglas because he and Shipp were cousins. However, he instructed Douglas to, “Kick his ass.” Figuratively, Douglass did just that. Bertram Fields and Johnnie Cochran worked together with Anthony Pellicano as their primary investigator on the first Michael Jackson scandal in 1992.
Bill Pavelic (professional): In 1992, the year O.J. investigator Bill Pavelic retried from the LAPD, he moonlighted on a private security detail for Johnny Carson along with Ron Phillips and Shipp’s friend Mark Fuhrman. Pavelic received a tape recording that proved Ron Shipp knew about the Bundy murders, hours before they were publicized. During O.J.’s civil trial O.J.’s attorney Bob Baker sent a message to Carl Douglas saying he could not find the tape. Pavelic said he turned it over to Douglas. Neither Douglas nor anyone else on O.J.’s defense team had even heard of its existence until then.
Dennis Sebenick (professional - business) Sebenick was an LAPD sergeant in the Harbor Division on June 16, 1994 when Shipp introduced him to O.J.'s friend Robert Kardashian at Nicole's funeral. He had is own private security business. He used Al Cowlings as a decoy for the media in the front of O.J.'s house while O.J. slipped out through the back. Sebenick's professional contacts through his Custom Protective Services security agency include the Secret Service, State Department, DEA, U.S. Military, FBI, Saudi Royal family, Paramount Pictures and United Artist Theaters. In 1988 he hired Shipp's friend Mark Fuhrman to moonlight as a security guard for a United Artist theater in Westwood. –Jasper