October 20, 2026

New York Times Investigation Raises Prospect of an O.J. Simpson Accomplice in 1994 Murders

By The Night Desk

Headline card by The Night Desk

New York Times Investigation Raises Prospect of an O.J. Simpson Accomplice in 1994 Murders

NEW YORK — A bombshell New York Times investigation published Sunday is raising a question three decades of books, documentaries, and podcasts never settled: did O.J. Simpson have help the night Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered?

The investigation is built on decades-old federal court records, unsealed at the Times' request, and new interviews with figures connected to the case.

The informant

At the center of the records is Joseph "Joey" Ippolito, a convicted drug trafficker born into a Mafia-connected New Jersey family who escaped from a Florida prison in May 1994 — one month before the June 12, 1994 killings — and moved to Los Angeles. He was a close friend of Al Cowlings, Simpson's confidant and the man behind the wheel of the white Ford Bronco during the infamous 1994 police chase. Ippolito died in 2006, aged 56.

Ippolito was recaptured in August 1995 and quickly began cooperating with federal authorities. A December 1996 court filing by former federal prosecutor David Kelley, seeking leniency for Ippolito's cooperation, said the informant was privy to facts including Simpson's "disposal of the murder weapon" — the knife that was never recovered.

The brother's account — and the recantation

The darkest turn in the Times investigation comes from Ippolito's brother, Sam Ippolito. He told the newspaper that on the night of the murders, Joey left their shared Los Angeles-area apartment to "help a friend," then returned around midnight with apparent blood on his hands and a bag containing a heavy object. Sam claimed Joey undressed, stuffed his clothes into the bag, and told Sam to get rid of it — which Sam said he did, throwing it into a dumpster at a construction site. Sam also claimed he overheard Joey telling Cowlings over the phone that he had been "helping" Simpson.

Then Sam recanted. According to the Times, his reversal came after the newspaper refused his request for payment for his story last summer. Sam reportedly said he had been "offered a ton of money" to tell his story elsewhere, and people close to him told the Times he couldn't be trusted. An attorney for the woman who owned the apartment called the bloody-hands story absurd.

Why it never reached the courtroom

Even the official paper trail hit walls. Ippolito's information reportedly reached Los Angeles prosecutors only after they had rested their case, before closing arguments — and was never used. Lead prosecutor Marcia Clark cast doubt on the whole theory, telling the Times: "If anyone had spoken to him and found him to have relevant and credible information, I surely would have been informed. The fact that I was never so informed establishes he had no credible or relevant evidence to provide."

Simpson's own "dream team" of lawyers once had a former NYPD detective with underworld connections vet Ippolito with senior figures of the five Mafia families. He was ruled out as having anything to do with the murders.

The case stands — the questions don't die

Simpson was acquitted of double homicide in 1995; a civil jury found him liable for the deaths in 1997. He died in 2024, aged 76, maintaining his innocence. The murder weapon was never found, and the LAPD says the case remains under investigation.

The Times investigation is not a verdict — it's a crack in the wall of a case many thought had no more secrets left. Whether Joey Ippolito knew something real, or was just a well-connected criminal trading stories for leniency, is a question the records don't fully answer. The recanted confession, the unheard testimony, the knife that was never found: thirty-two years later, the O.J. Simpson case still has shadows nobody has managed to chase down.

Source: The New York Times, via The Times. Corroborated by the New York Post and MyNewsLA.

All individuals named are presumed innocent; allegations described here come from the cited investigations and unsealed court records.

Source: The New York Times (via The Times) — read the original report