As evidence for this theory, Dear points out that Jason Simpson was on probation at the time of the killings after he had attacked a former employer with a knife; that he had been treated for a mental disorder and had tried to commit suicide three times; and that he killed Nicole Brown Simpson on the night of June 12, 1994, after she reneged on a promise to bring the family to the restaurant at which Jason Simpson was a chef, enraging him (Goldman was an innocent bystander).

Here’s where Dear’s theory falls flat, as detailed in a 2001 story by Tony Ortega , then a writer for the now-defunct New Times Los Angeles: Dear makes barely any effort to account for the fact that O.J. Simpson’s blood was found all over the crime scene, and his explanation for how all that O.J. Simpson blood got there is rather ludicrous. Plus, Dear’s timeline for the slayings is more or less implausible.

“In 12 minutes, he has Jason committing the murders, calling his father, and then O.J. coming down and observing the scene and returning home,” Ortega wrote in 2012, when he revisited and re-published his 2001 story in the Village Voice.