Gadgetory

now for one of the most advanced recreations ever made for what some people have called the trial of the century the OJ Simpson trial it was commissioned by CNET and created by one of the country's leading teams of legal and scientific experts to demonstrate some of the awesome power of today's computers and some of the social implications of that power even though it's in animation some moments of violence may be too graphic for some audiences here now shown for the first time ever our recreation of the murders of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson at the night of the murder it's very dark in this dirt area very dark at the steps there's almost no illumination through an exciting new technology called forensic animation you will become a silent witness to the brutal murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman a scene at Central exclusive these images were created through a marriage of computer-generated animation motion capture technology and good detective work the data came from court records scientific measurements taken at the scene by engineers and special photography attorneys in this courtroom have said it's likely the jury will be shown in animation that means a computer could help determine the verdict the moment we're going to show you our dramatic recreation in its entirety but first we'd like to introduce you to the people CNET commissioned to create our groundbreaking animation failure analysis Associates of Menlo Park California dr. Roger McCarthy failure analysis chief executive officer is an engineer and one of the few experts in the world on the subject of recreating events using computer animation it's very significant to us as an organization just because of the notoriety and I think also the degree of misinformation that has grown up surrounding the murders dr. McCarthy is on the board of several national safety advisory councils and serves as a consultant to the army science board it was failure analysis that exposed the attempts by the NBC News program Dateline to rig a gas tank explosion for an investigative report from the Exxon Valdez disaster to the collapse of a hotel lobby walkway in Kansas City failure analysis and its engineers have used cutting-edge technology to solve the mysteries behind some of the biggest disasters in the world to create this animation failure analysis engineers had to write a script based on their scientific investigation of what happened high-speed motion capture cameras and computers were then used to log actors movements finally powerful SGI video and animation computers were put to work to render this animation it's about as close to time travel as we're ever going to get you can go back in time and see things as they would have been seen from any vantage point at that time limited only by the accuracy of the physical objects you build in an animation for years computer-generated images have been used to recreate car and plane crashes and industrial accidents for civil cases but in a criminal court especially in a murder trial their use is rare and controversial but enough would be something laughable would be something usable I had no idea what it would work out or not or whether I can do it criminal investigator Alexander Jason created the first forensic animation in the country to be used in a murder trial in 1992 Jim Mitchell was accused of murdering his brother Artie in Corte Madera just north of San Francisco here's a man trapped in the bedroom no gun doesn't know what's really what's going on so he finally sticks his head to look super but he's still there and gets shot through the head that was a fatal shot now all this is very very clear when you see it but when you try to communicate this verbally it's very confusing a Marin County jury eventually convicted Mitchell engineers and forensics experts who were given unprecedented access to the Simpson Goldman murder scene have assembled this scenario you're seeing an overhead aerial shot of the Bundy Drive geometry of this section of town where you can see there's a number of condos side by side this area is where the murder occurs in reality it's covered up with trees there are steps in a gate in a dirt area beside the front entryway in a patio but we took the tree out so you can see that now we're going to put the tree in because the night of the murder the tree provides incredible shade and it's extremely dark in this area at this point mr. Goldman comes up to the gate punches it and rings the doorbell Nicole Simpson leaves her condo and she actually needs a front door ajar to come down and open the gate there's obviously a speakerphone and she knows who her visitor is literally the assailant has to come from the patio area or the physical arrangements of the subjects make no sense the way he attacks them it mobilizes them both he hits the right side of mr. Goldman's face with his left hand and does so very hard there's a substantial bruise on the right side of his face simultaneously are very soon thereafter we believe the assailant hits Nicole Simpson on the left side of her face with the butt of his knife the palmer and that knocks her right side of her head into the wall we believe that knocks her out which enables the assailant now to come down and deal with the number one threat which is the young able and in pretty good shape mr. Goldman we postulate that he puts the point of the knife behind mr. Goldman's head and actually uses the knife like a fork with his hand over the mouth to raise mr. Goldman to his feet the medical examiner has testified that that wound alone would have been sufficient to kill mr. Goldman if nothing else had been done to him it's obvious from the medical evidence that the assailant has a hand over mr. Goldman's mouth is having a talk with mr. Coleman and is emphasizing his points with the knife the next fatal blow received by mr. Goldman is a plunge right over his heart hitting him in the left side of his torso another thrust again from the back upwards under the ribcage which is also a fatal thrust and he takes a final knife blow in this side another fatal wound and we postulate he falls away into the fence we see abrasion marks down the back of his scalp which we believe as a result of falling down the fence and then he falls over and that is literally the position he is found by the police the next morning with mr. Goldman dealt with the assailant is now free to turn his attention to Nicole the assailant uses the same technique to lift her as he does mr. Goldman hand over mouth it's clear again that the assailant is talking to Nicole Simpson the reason we know this is before the final fatal cut of her throat there are three other small cuts on her throat parallel to where the fatal blow is going to be administered it's clearly again torture the final cut across her throat is going to be delivered with her head cocked substantially back and the strength in that cut is enormous and by that I mean she is going to receive a single slice to the front of the throat that is going to be slow deep it is going to Knick her spinal cord that requires tremendous strength for a single cut I don't care how sharp your knife is the assailant notices he has lost his wool cap and in the animation he touches his head unlike our animation which has got enough light level for you to see what's going on in the real scene this was very very dark and it's a dark wool cap he's trying to feel for the wool cap can't feel anything through the gloves he has to take the gloves off to feel for the wool cap by taking off both gloves and not being careful about it he actually ends up leaving a glove behind and not retrieving the wool cap we speculate that something disturbed him in his search and cut it short whether it be a dog barking or some neighbors voice or something when the investigators arrived they're going to find Nicole's body in this position mr. Goldman's and this one they're going to find the net skull cap here they're going to find a glove very close by it mr. Goldman's pager and his keys are all going to be found in these relative physicians we believe this to be the most detailed reconstruction done to date we hope it remains the standard by which all other reconstructions are judged by even the prosecution's of course an animation from the OJ Simpson defense team would show a different conclusion but for this animation failure investigators used evidence presented in court autopsy reports and detailed data they gathered from the scene of the murders the medical evidence is literally the most important to establishing this scenario of the crime the choreography the movement of the characters to the scene has been driven by the medical evidence because the choreography has to produce the wounds and they have to be produced in a certain order the Hat is found with I believe the number is 26 african-american hairs in it there doesn't seem to be any contrary testimony or even dispute over the Hat as belonging to the assailant so we merely followed the physical evidence at the scene you