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From: Jasper
Date: 8/7/04
Time: 8:26:34 PM
Remote Name: 68.255.165.181
Kari,
You have been reading my mind again.
A few days ago I taped a made-for-television movie called The People Across the Lake (’88) with Gerald McRaney and Valerie Harper to see if there were any connections between that movie and the Jack the Ripper (’88) movie with Michael Caine. In Blame it on Rio (’84) Valerie Harper is Michael Cain’s wife and Demi Moore (Ghost) is his daughter Nicole. Michelle Johnson is a blonde teenager with braces on her teeth (like Martha Moxley in Murder in Greenwich) who speaks to the camera the way Martha’s ghost does in Murder in Greenwich.
I’ve never seen The Haunting Passion but the fact that Jane Seymour appeared with Michael Caine in Jack the Ripper builds a bridge from Murder in Greenwich to Jack the Ripper that I didn’t know existed.
The Haunting Passion title, the timing of its release (October ’83) and the stars, Jane Seymour and Gerald McRaney grabbed my attention.
I think you are right about that movie being the one that started Fuhrman thinking specifically about going after O.J. I have always believed that O.J.’s role in Goldie and the Boxer (’79) and Goldie and the Boxer Go Hollywood (’91) with O.J. as the Boxer (bloody leather gloves) and Melissa Michaelsen as Goldie started his obsession (haunting passion) with O.J. and Nicole. But until your post I never knew that Gerald McRaney starred as Melissa Michaelsen’s father in another made-for-television movie, Memories Never Die (’82). Haunting Passion brings O.J. and Fuhrman together through all of the movies linked to McRaney and Seymour prior to the Bundy murders and maps the progression of his obsession to his search for ways to elevate himself by bringing O.J. down.
I suspected that Haunting Passion aired late in 1993 before Fuhrman went back to work and asked for duty in West LA. But that doesn’t mean he saw it then. I think he saw it on video a year later shortly before he appeared on Rockingham to witness the aftermath of the baseball bat incident. From there we get Fuhrman introducing himself the Laura Hart (April ’85) and making “friends” with Ron Shipp (sometime in 85). In 89 he gets his big break to insert himself into the Simpsons lives. In ’92 he starts a rumor that he was having an affair with Nicole and “knew” about O.J.’s “continuing abuse.” In ’93 Nicole stages a “domestic violence incident” with her 911 call.
In ’94 Fuhrman gets the call to investigate Nicole’s murder. He finds a lot of stuff including a video of Ghost in O.J.’s VCR. He becomes the most important and most controversial figure in the case. The 911 tape gets released. He becomes the star witness in O.J.’s 1995 murder trial and gets busted on the McKinny tapes – which makes him more controversial and more marketable as a best selling writer. In ’96 he writes Murder in Brentwood. In ‘97 Regnery Press publishes it. He does a lot of television interviews. Murder in Brentwood becomes a bestseller. Fuhrman becomes a celebrity writer. –Jasper