1 Year Later, Simpson Case Leaves Its Marks

LOS ANGELES - On a gentle slope beneath a spreading pine, a headstone finally marks the grave of Ronald Lyle Goldman.

"Missing you now, loving you always," it says.

His father and stepmother, Fred and Patti Goldman, waited almost a year, in accordance with Jewish faith, before marking the spot in Westlake Village where they buried their 25-year-old son. They unveiled his tombstone in a Memorial Day weekend ceremony symbolizing an end to formal mourning.

Few visit this place. One hazy morning, days before the service, a young woman arrived bearing sunflowers and delphiniums. She knelt and wept over the anonymous patch of grass. "I love you and miss you more every day," read the tiny florist's card signed by the dead man's girlfriend.

To the south, in a small Roman Catholic graveyard in Orange County, the body of Nicole Brown Simpson lies next to her grandfather's, under a simple granite rectangle bearing her name and declaring "Always in Our Hearts."

Many come here, some of them strangers who leave long letters attached to bouquets. One ended, "I'm sorry I never got to know you."

Louis and Juditha Brown plan to mark the first anniversary of their 35-year-old daughter's death with a public candlelight vigil at a nearby beach. "There is no excuse for abuse," reads the flier announcing it.

Since these two people died together June 12, 1994, life has changed dramatically, and not just for the families left behind.

A stylish enclave called Brentwood is now a tourist mecca, an unemployed house guest named Kato Kaelin has a national fan club and tell-all books reap fortunes for first-time authors.

Seemingly everyone, everywhere knows far more than is necessary about an avalanche of surreal events leading to "The Trial" - a proceeding that limps, on national television, toward no visible end.

Meanwhile, the cause of all this fades further and further from view.

On a quiet Sunday night, at the front gate to her Brentwood condominium, the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson and a friend were stabbed at least 36 times and left to die, their blood cascading across terra cotta tiles and soaking into closely cropped grass.

Orenthal James Simpson, winner of college football's Heisman Trophy in 1968, former star running back of the Buffalo Bills, a man with an easy public smile and a raging private temper, is charged with wielding the knife.

In public, her blond hair swept to one side, her toned body in form-fitting evening wear, Nicole Brown Simpson certainly didn't look abused. At movie premieres and sporting events, on the arm of her famous spouse, she smiled broadly, her beautiful face tilted at a saucy angle.

But battered she was. After her death, authorities released tape recordings of Nicole Simpson's previous calls for police help.

The couple's children, Sydney, 9, and Justin, 6, who were asleep in second-floor rear bedrooms in Nicole Simpson's condo the night she was killed, now live with the Browns.

Sydney knows Daddy is accused of killing Mommy. Justin doesn't, say the Browns, who spent much of the past year keeping the children from public view.

The shrieking and pleading on the police tapes seared the reality of domestic violence onto the nation's conscience - for a time, at least.

-- The Browns, who say they didn't recognize signs of their daughter's abuse, founded the Nicole Brown Simpson Charitable Foundation.

-- President Clinton spoke out, describing domestic violence as "a crisis occurring all around us. . . . We can no longer ignore the pleas of those in desperate need."

-- Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act as part of the 1994 crime bill, ordering stiff punishments for attacks on women, making restraining orders valid across state lines and providing a civil-rights remedy for women who are targeted for violence because they are women.

-- In Los Angeles, the murders' notoriety helped push the District Attorney's Office to open a Family Violence Unit to prosecute abuse and murder cases.

"The number of calls we got skyrocketed," said Marlene Sanchez, assistant head deputy of the unit. "I can't tell you the number of reports we had where the man said, `I'm going to do an O.J. on you.' "

In 1993, the District Attorney's Office filed 1,500 felony spousal abuse cases. Last year, the number rose to 2,064. Other areas of the country report similar trends.

It's not clear whether batterings and other abuse are really on the rise or whether women and their friends or relatives are simply recognizing the violence for what it is and seeking help rather than hiding the truth.

Some of the past year's most noticeable swings of fortune involve lawyers, the media and public opinion.

Celebrity attorney Robert Shapiro, now relegated to the sidelines of Simpson's so-called legal "Dream Team," used to get hounded for autographs at the downtown Criminal Courts Building. Recently, he was booed at a Lakers game.

Television ratings, which soared during Simpson's infamous freeway chase and in the early court days, have fallen off.

Last month, an Associated Press poll found that only 7 percent of Americans were still following the case "very closely," one-third the audience that identified itself that way 10 months ago in an ABC News survey.

Tourists still flock, however, to Nicole Simpson's now-empty condo, to the nearby estate of her ex-husband and to Mezzaluna restaurant, where Goldman was a waiter and Nicole Simpson ate dinner with her family hours before the murders.

Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of Southern California, where Simpson won the Heisman in 1968, sees good in most things, this case included.

"More people will learn about the legal system from this case than ever before," said Chemerinsky, who now gets stopped by strangers because of his televised trial commentary.

"My hope is that it will cause society to rethink who we make celebrities and who we make heroes."