As OJ Simpson's former manager got closer to uncovering what he believed was the truth, OJ Simpson ordered him to stop asking questions about the infamous murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman for which the once lauded NFL and movie star stood trial.
"I said, 'Did you murder those people?' And he said, 'You don't want to know what happened, let it go,'" Norman Pardo recalled during an interview with HNGN a day after Simpson's death from cancer at age 76 was announced by his family.
Pardo, 62, first met Simpson at a bar in 1999, and the men formed a bond that withstood more than two decades. But that friendship couldn't stop Pardo from digging into what happened the night Nicole, 35, and Ron, 25, were ruthlessly murdered at her Los Angeles home in 1994.
Pardo — the then-president of internet company Spiderboy International, and Simpson's subsequent manager — said he satiated his curiosity by hiring private investigators, and found out the "Naked Gun" star was at Nicole's house hours before she was killed.
"He was there the night of the murders, but OJ left before Nicole was ever murdered. Nicole was killed two hours after Ron. And by then, OJ was already on a plane," Pardo explained.
Pardo claimed Simpson hired sunsequently convicted serial killer Glen Rogers to rough-up Goldman, but things escalated when the former Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame running back didn't pay up.
"Glen was paid by OJ to thug Ron down, scare him a little bit," said Pardo.
"The reason that he (Glen Rogers) went back to kill Nicole is he got mad because he said OJ didn't pay him," Pardo claims.
"He said, 'I wasn't paid enough for what happened.' So, he went to OJ's house and OJ already flew out of there, so he got mad and went back to Nicole to get some money."
Rogers — dubbed "The Cross Country Killer" — claimed he killed over 70 people, including Nicole and Ron, according to a 2012 documentary titled "My Brother the Serial Killer." He currently sits on death row in Florida.
Pardo suggested Simpson should have been tried for accessory to murder for allegedly orchestrating the slayings. His obsession with the killings drove a wedge between the longtime friends, and he went on to produce "Who Killed Nicole?" without OJ's blessing.
"He said, 'I don't want to talk to you anymore. I don't know you,'" Pardo recalled of their falling out in 2017.
"I like OJ, but at the same token, OJ was OJ. OJ was all about OJ, and has always been about OJ. Every one of his so-called 'friends' — he doesn't have any. Never had any. Every time he has a friend, he uses them for what he needs out of him and he discards them."
But Simpson's prostate cancer diagnosis in May 2023 motivated the men to make amends.
"One of our mutual friends got us together to talk because he said we couldn't be mad at each other forever. So we talked and OJ and I both agreed to just bury the hatchet," he said.
"We laughed about some stuff," Pardo recalled of their final conversation about a month ago. "And then he said, 'Well, talk to you later, take care of buddy,' and that was it.'"
"I knew that he wasn't going to make it very long," he said.
Simpson succumbed to cancer Wednesday, less than a year after he announced his diagnosis. He was 76.
