Nicole Saved Letters About '89 Beating -- O.J. Simpson's Apologies Are Shown To The Jury

LOS ANGELES - Within minutes of reading letters in which O.J. Simpson apologized for beating his wife in 1989, promising never to do it again, the jury in his murder trial heard her desperate calls for help to a 911 operator four years later as an outraged Simpson roared in the background.

One letter, with many misspellings, taken from Nicole Brown Simpson's safe deposit box six months after she and a friend, Ronald Goldman were slain last June, said: "I'v taken full responcibility for this. It happen and I'm doing everything possible to assure it doe'nt happen agan . . . I love you and losing you is the only thing that madder to me . . . Know manner what I love you."

The letters were introduced yesterday through the testimony of district attorney investigator Michael Stevens, who said that on Dec. 6 he broke into a safe deposit box kept by Nicole Simpson and took out a number of items, including the letters, a newspaper article, her will and some Polaroid pictures. Prosecutors have previously said the photographs were taken of her after she had been beaten.

Nicole Simpson left the letters and photographs because she "believed something bad was going to happen to her, and that it would happen at the hands of the defendant," Deputy District Attorney Christopher Darden told Superior Court Judge Lance Ito before Stevens took the stand. "She's leaving a trail for us."

Shortly after the hand-printed letters were displayed on an overhead screen, Terri Moore, a 911 operator, testified.

The members of the jury sat impassively as they listened to two tape recordings, made within minutes of each other, of a frantic and crying Nicole Brown pleading with 911 operators at about 9:45 p.m. Oct. 25, 1993. In the background, Simpson could be heard screaming obscenities.

"My ex-husband has just broken into my house, and he's ranting and raving outside in the front yard," Nicole Simpson cried into the telephone. ". . . He's crazy. . . . He's . . . going nuts."

Ito had previously ordered redacted from the tape a comment from her that "He's going to beat the . . . out of me."

Just before the tape was played, Simpson's lawyer Johnnie Cochran asked that he also redact "the part about he's . . . going nuts."

"Well, I think it's descriptive of what appears to go on," replied Ito, bringing a look of amazement from Simpson.

The tape was played at the end of the court session. Jurors left with Simpson's curses and Nicole Brown Simpson's pleas for help ringing in their ears.

Witnesses today were expected to include a police officer who responded to the emergency call. Nicole Brown Simpson's sister Denise Brown also was expected to testify about the Simpsons' often-stormy relationship.

Earlier yesterday, Ronald Shipp, a longtime friend of Simpson, testified that Simpson admitted in 1989 that he was a batterer but did not admit it publicly because it would be bad for his image.

Shipp, who taught a class on domestic violence at the Los Angeles Police Academy before leaving the department in 1989, said that Simpson at first did not accept responsibility for beating his then-wife Jan. 1, 1989.

"I said, `Hey, man, you hit her. She's got marks. You're a batterer.' And that's when he kind of agreed and said, `I guess you're right.' " Under questioning by Darden during redirect testimony, Shipp said that he told Simpson to admit it publicly. "At first he was very resistant because he thought it was going to ruin his image." Simpson had been a longtime spokesman for the Hertz car rental company, and Shipp said Simpson told him admission could cost him the job.

Within a day or two, Shipp said, Simpson told him he had been advised it "was not a good idea" to admit being a wife-beater.

Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal battery charges.

Shipp, who said he has had an alcohol problem and left the department in 1989 because of stress, testified that on June 13, the day after Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were slain, Simpson told him that he had had dreams about killing her.

The defense has said that the conversation never took place, and Carl Douglas, a Simpson lawyer, suggested that Shipp was not a close friend.

Afterward, as Darden tried to have Shipp show that he and Simpson had been friends, Shipp said he had been called upon by Simpson about eight years ago when his son, Jason, had a cocaine-induced seizure and another time when "Jason had apparently taken a bat to O.J.'s life-size statue." Information from Associated Press is included in this report.