West L.A. Homicide

Lt. Frank Spangler, West L.A. Supervisor of Detectives.  Spangler testified in the O.J. criminal trial, "I have something like 38 detectives in my entire division." He could not give a fixed number because of a West L.A. program created to allow officers without homicide experience in any LAPD division to be attached to the West L.A. Homicide unit on a single case. The West L.A. Homicide unit consisted of three permanently assigned men, Ron Phillips, Mark Fuhrman and Brad Roberts, with an open slot for an unspecified detective. Ron Phillips testified that he filled that slot on June 13, 1994 with a trainee detective called Tom Nolan. No evidence is available to us at this time to prove that this detective ever existed. Spangler would have necessarily known who he was if he did exist or had reason to question who Phillips said he was until Fuhrman claimed in a February 19, 1997 TV interview with Geraldo Rivera that Nolan witnessed a fingerprint in blood on Nicole's back gate. 

Like all LAPD detectives, West L.A. detectives were ranked I (the lowest) to III (the highest). Detective III was equivalent in pay grade to sergeant. Notwithstanding his title, Phillips did not functioned as investigators. He was the first highest ranking detective on the Bundy murder scene, but as an administrator, his job was to select the active investigators, to give them specific assignments and to facilitate their work. He gave the orders and was responsible for monitoring where they went and what they did to carry them out. How he could do this with Fuhrman and his partner at different addresses without the cell phone that he said he gave to Officer Riske when he left for Rockingham with Fuhrman, Vannatter and Lange at 5:00 a.m. on the 13th has not been explained

Det. III Ron Phillips, West L.A. Homicide Coordinator  Although Phillips was on Marcia Clark's witness list in the O.J. preliminary hearing she did not call him to testify. In the O.J. criminal trial Phillips testified falsely under direct examination by Marcia Clark that he was Mark Fuhrman's partner on June 13, 1994 just as Fuhrman did in the preliminary hearing. Under cross-examination by O.J.'s attorney Johnnie Cochran, Phillips admitted that he was not Fuhrman's partner that morning.

Phillips was Fuhrman's senior partner in the West L.A. Homicide unit from 1991 to July, 1993 when Phillips took the newly created administrative position of West L.A. Homicide Coordinator. Phillips thus became Fuhrman's supervisor as well as the supervisor of Fuhrman's new partner Brad Roberts.

Phillips also testified falsely that he sent Detective Nolan to the West L.A. police station from Bundy along with Roberts to question one witness. The only known witnesses at the time were the man and his wife who were led to the bodies on Bundy by Nicole's dog. Steven Schwab, the single witness who found the dog was at home in bed on Montana Street a long block north of the Bundy murder scene. The West L.A. Police Station was approximately three miles southeast of the murder scene. The combined testimony of the officers on Bundy (other than Phillips, Fuhrman and Roberts) and the three witnesses involved with Nicole's dog on the night of the murders indicates that another man was with Roberts but he did not come from Bundy and he did not have to be a detective. 

Det. II Mark Fuhrman, first lead investigator in the Bundy murders. He was the only person in the case who matches up physically, psychologically and historically with all the evidence used against O.J. in his criminal trial. If O.J. didn't do it, whoever did had to have the personal contacts, professional know-how and self-made opportunities that Fuhrman had to commit the murders and point the finger of blame at O.J. The killer had to understand the system from the inside. He had to know what homicide detectives, medical examiners and prosecutors look for crimes of passion and how they process that information when they see it. He had to be able to create convincing illusions to make impossible actions attributed to O.J. seem dead certain that O.J. performed them and things the killer could do easily seem implausible, impractical or impossible. To perform these feats of "magic" he needed to know everything that Mark Fuhrman knew, all the people that Fuhrman knew and be able to put himself everywhere Mark Fuhrman put himself as the first lead detective on the case.

Det. I Brad Roberts, Mark Fuhrman's partner in the Bundy murder investigation.   

Det. Trainee Tom Nolan

LAPD Robbery/Homicide Division (RHD)

Partners -- Det. III Phil Vannatter and  Det. III Tom Lange

Partners -- Det. Burt Luper and Det. Cliff LeFall

Partners -- Det. Richard Haro and Det. James Harper

Partners -- Det. Tippin and Det. Carr

District Attorney's Office

Stephen Oppler

David Thomson

Michael Stevens

Defense Team's Private Investigators

John McNally

Pat McKenna

William Pavelic

Independent Investigators

Ian Bowater: Private Investigator for Donald Freed. Gathered information used in the preparation of Freed's book Killing Time.

From Phillips' February 16, 1995 testimony in the O.J. criminal case: