IF I DID IT
PROLOGUE BY PABLO F. FENJVES
AFTERWORD BY DOMINICK DUNNE
EPILOGUE BY PETER AVEN, ESQ.
IF I DID IT
CONFESSIONS OF THE KILLER
WITH EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
BY
THE GOLDMAN FAMILY
IF I DID IT Copyright © 2007 by Ron Goldman, LLC
“He Did It” Copyright © 2007 by Kim Goldman
“Prologue” Copyright © 2007 by Pablo F. Fenjves
“Afterword” Copyright © 2007 by Dominick Dunne
“Introduction” Copyright © 2008 by The Goldman Family
“Following the Law” Copyright © 2008 by Peter Haven Esq.
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
ISBN 978-0-8253-0593-1
Published in the United States by Beaufort Books, New York www.beaufortbooks.com
Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books, New York www.midpointtrade.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
WE DEDICATE THIS BOOK
To Ron
You brought lasting joy to our lives, pride and love to our hearts.
Your bravery gives us strength and courage
and will always be our inspiration.
You are in our thoughts every minute of every day.
Loving You Now, Missing You Always
To All Victims of Crime
We know your road is long and painful.
We wish you peace and justice as you travel.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION by the Goldman Family
“HE DID IT” by the Goldman Family
PROLOGUE by Pablo F. Fenjves
1: THE LUCKIEST GUY IN THE WORLD
2: SO HAPPY TOGETHER
3: PERIOD OF CONFUSION
4: THE TWO NICOLES
5: THINGS FALL APART
6: THE NIGHT IN QUESTION
7: THE INTERROGATION
8: THE FIGHT OF MY LIFE
AFTERWORD by Dominick Dunne
EPILOGUE by Peter T. Haven
RESOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
OUR FAMILY IS so important. Without our deep bond, we would not be where we are today.
Patti, your unwavering love and support have been amazing. Thank you for believing in what we are doing and encouraging us to keep going.
Lauren, Jason, Samantha, and Michael, thank you for your love and support, and for always being in our corner.
Sammy, we wish you could have known your Uncle Ron. You have his eyes and his sweet-natured spirit. You will always be Mommy’s inspiration.
Our friends who get angry when we do, who let us cry when it can’t be contained, and who always step in to lend a hand, your support, encouragement, laughter, and warmth will always be remembered.
Kim wanted to specifically acknowledge just a few people in her life who help her find balance and offer comfort: The Woodgerd Family, The Whitecrow Family, The Repovich Family, The Iacopetti Family, Christine Buckley, Michele Azenzer, John Ziegler, Sharyn Rosenblum, Todd Greenfield, and The Board of Directors for the SCV Youth Project, that gives her the time she needs away from her work to fight the good fight.
Our incredible team of attorneys whose passion and commitment to our family has been overwhelming: Expressing gratitude doesn’t seem to be enough. We have always told you that your choosing to join our efforts to help us get justice for Ron means the world to us. Your vision, encouragement, patience, personal sacrifices, and business and legal sense balanced beautifully with your compassion, warmth, humor, and sensitivity. You made this happen. You make us proud.
Jonathan Polak, if we hadn’t taken your call a year ago, where would we be today? Your willingness to think outside the box and your tenacity are contagious. Thank you for giving us room to feel our way through this painful process.
Peter Haven, for always reminding us to “just follow the law.” Thank you for your integrity, loyalty, and for always being the voice of reason.
David “Admiral” Cook, your relentless and “crazy” approach was just what we needed. You are a force with which to reckon. We are so glad you are on our side.
Paul Battista, you handled yourself with grace under tremendous pressure; your ability to jump in and get the job done was incredible.
Eric Kampmann and the staff at Beaufort Books, you took an enormous risk and we appreciate that more than you will ever understand. You saw an opportunity to make a difference and stepped up to make it happen. Your professionalism, kindness, and bravery speak volumes.
Michael Wright, you got it from the get go. Thank you for keeping us on the right path and for never missing a beat or missing the point. Thank you for making this process manageable. And thank you for keeping a muzzle on this crazy bunch!
Pablo F. Fenjves, our family appreciates your willingness to contribute and share your insight. Thank you.
Dominick Dunne, we are in awe of you. You have an incredible ability to be eloquent in the darkest of moments. Your friendship, support, and empathy over the last thirteen years have been such a gift to us. Thank you for taking time to contribute your heartfelt words; there is no one else who could have said it quite like you. We love you.
Thirteen years ago, across this country, the public wrapped its collective arms around us and helped us navigate our way through an incredibly difficult time. You continue to offer us that same support today. Your warmth and constant encouragement have been overwhelming and touch us deeply.
To the countless number of families impacted by crime, your pain is all too real to us. We take this journey with you, embarking upon a never-ending search for peace, calm, and justice. We continue to give each other strength and hope. You inspire us to keep going. Thank you for your courage and steadfast determination. We are proud to be in your presence.
INTRODUCTION
The Goldman Family
If I Did It, a book so controversial that HarperCollins canceled it and destroyed 400,000 copies, was published on September 13, 2007 with our names on the cover. In the wake of its publication, we received daily, sometimes hourly, updates about how the book was moving up the bestseller list. Between Amazon, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, we were steadily climbing at a rapid pace, hot on the heels of Bill Clinton’s book, Giving. And each time we received an email with the subject line “#4 on …” we hit delete.
A year after its initial publication, we are still not able to fully embrace the success of this book. We continue to struggle with the notion that our name is attached to a book written by the beast that killed Ron and Nicole, so to have the book be successful, for whatever reason, provokes an internal conflict. This book project had so many twists and turns, enmeshed with so many different personalities, emotions, issues, and goals. In a weird morbid way, the only person really dictating the outcome was the killer himself. Not knowing that would be the case at the outset, we entered into a world that was like nothing that we had ever experienced before.
Producers from the Oprah Winfrey talk show began calling Kim months before we ever obtained the rights to the If I Did It book. Having been on the show before, she had a relationship with some of the staff, so the initial conversations were casual and informative. At some point, the producers threw out the idea of having Kim on the show
with Denise Brown, sort of a “sister vs. sister” show to talk about the issues percolating just below the surface between the two families that now shared very little except having lost a family member to the killer’s rampage. It was no surprise that there was tension. After all, Denise made no effort to disguise her negative feelings towards our family. It was very difficult to endure her comments, and despite wanting to share our side of the story, that particular show was one that we were not eager to do. The discussion was tabled.
Once we acquired the book, Oprah’s producers called again and wanted to know our decision. By this point, Denise had agreed to appear and now it was up to us. The show format would change slightly from the previous idea: now the show would include both of us and Denise and the focus would be how two families that were victims of the same tragedy could want such different endings regarding the book and the killer’s confession.
When we told the publisher, the agent, and everyone in our camp about the potential Oprah opportunity, they were over the moon. However, we were not. Everyone knows that Oprah’s show is an incredible platform to sell books, but the producers were very clear that they would not be promoting the book, they wanted the families to “talk it out” and Oprah wanted to moderate that discussion. We were concerned as to how the show would ultimately play out, and whether it would be worth it in the end. We decided to take the risk and continued discussing a future show.
Our publicist, Michael Wright, came on board right when Oprah’s people were putting a little more pressure on us to give them a final decision. We had never met Michael but immediately liked him after one five minute conversation. After a few back and forth phone calls between our family and the producers, within a week, we had agreed to do the show as discussed with us and Denise, and it would air on or around September 13th. The publisher decided to print and distribute the book to coincide with the Oprah show, and now we were on the fast track to get there. With just a few weeks to write, edit, and print the book, there would be no rest for the weary.
We knew when we started working with the publisher that we all shared the understanding that we would not change the content of the killer’s book; we agreed that his words were powerful in the book’s “confession” format and that we should not change it. We decided to add to the book, to make it our own and to introduce some sense of integrity to what was deemed, by almost everyone, a horrific and disgusting piece of profiteering from the double murderer. The question for us now was how to make this book something we could live with?
We realized that we would have to attach our family name to a book written by a killer who was confessing to Ron’s and Nicole’s murders, and then we would be asked to endorse it. We knew that, in order to honor our commitment to the court, it needed to be done, but we resented having to participate. We resolved that including our own chapter, a victim’s resource section, a piece from our dear friend Dominick Dunne, and an additional chapter by the ghostwriter, Pablo Fenjves, would put us back in the driver’s seat. Making those decisions gave us some control and empowered us to get behind the project slightly more than when we started. Now we needed to figure out how to stay focused on the true mission while navigating the unfamiliar worlds of publishing, legalese, bankruptcy, media, and public support or disdain.
The weeks leading up to the release of the book were trying at best. We battled conflicting views with all the parties involved, from the artwork on the cover to the title to the jacket … people butted heads every step of the way. Each of us wanted to make the project the best it could be under the circumstances. Balancing all of our opinions and strong wills made the time incredibly stressful, not to mention we were still facing criticism from Denise Brown and the public.
We appreciated the expertise of the publisher and the publicist but we were not focused on making a bestseller out of this book; for us, it was about justice, honoring Ron and Nicole, and preserving our dignity. The more we repeated that mantra, the more trite it sounded.
The triumph for our family was taking this asset from the killer: his work, his words, his ego, and snatching it from his tight grasp—that was our real victory, that was our #1. Watching the book climb the bestseller list before it was even released didn’t really have an impact on us because we had already achieved our end result; the rest of the road ahead was just a matter of obligation to the court.
Eric Kampmann, the publisher, is a good man with a deep respect for doing what was right for our family. His need to balance our emotion with the business side of things must have been extremely difficult for him. We could never get on board with the business component, it felt contradictory for us, and although we understood it was necessary to think from that standpoint, it just felt foreign. From the publisher’s point of view, and rightly so, he was focused on making a good book that would hit #1 on the major lists and sell hundreds of thousands of copies. Who wouldn’t want to be the publisher that could take this taboo book and turn it into a success story in the publishing world? However, we were just focused on telling our story and condemning the killer.
When the book was done and ready for release, the tension was at its highest peak. We were anticipating a less than favorable response and were gearing up for the next phase. Having written a book before, we remembered how proud we had felt when the first batch of books was hot off the press. We were elated that our family’s book, His Name is Ron, was received with such kindness and warmth, and watching that book linger on the New York Times bestseller list gave us a feeling of such immense pride and accomplishment; we would never have that same feeling with If I Did It. There was never a moment of true satisfaction with what we had accomplished in such a short time. That is not to say that we were not proud of what we had contributed or the amazing teamwork demonstrated by all those involved and the trust that was established among a group of virtual strangers. Those things were in place then and still remain. But to see our name below a title that is reflective of a killer’s actions, and to then have to promote this book to satisfy our own judgment, has been grueling.
We tried to separate the pride we felt for receiving a small measure of justice for Ron from being connected to killer, but the lines get crossed and at some point, we were forced to see the project from the business side, because we would be answering to a bankruptcy court. And no matter how close we come to feeling a sense of reprieve and victory, we recognize that we will always be attached to him and we will never be able to shake completely free.
Leading up to the Oprah interview, Denise had gone against the agreement with the show that we would not speak publicly until it aired. She had been very vocal, accusing us of taking blood money, hurting the kids, being hypocrites, and being just like our last name, “out for gold.” She was relentless. Listening to her attacks, which were blatant distortions of the truth, was gut wrenching. We didn’t respond, we knew our time would come; but her momentum was building and with us saying nothing, all the public heard was Denise’s attack after attack after attack.
At the end of August, just two weeks before the book’s publication date, Denise Brown made a startling announcement. In a press conference, she unexpectedly backed out of the Oprah show. During her speech, she promoted her website, never missing the opportunity to criticize us for being flip floppers and for “turning the world upside down.” She said she was still committed to boycotting the book, but that she needed to be there for her niece and nephew to protect them from the harm that we had created. She also mentioned that she was still in communication with Oprah’s show, but just not for this show.
This news came to us as we spent the day at Disneyland for Kim’s son Sammy’s fourth birthday. Having limited cell phone reception, we were unable to determine the impact of her decision. However, we did feel let down and disappointed, as we realized we had actually been excited to go head to head with Denise. After all that we had endured, it was finally our time to set the record straight and then she backed out. We put the news behind us and went
on to enjoy the rest of the day.
Despite Denise’s decision not to appear, the show was still going forward. On September 11th, we boarded the plane for the long-awaited trip to Chicago to tape the Oprah show. We all met at the airport, including Michael Wright, our publicist, and Peter Haven, one of our attorneys. Prior to our departure, we were told by producers that Oprah would be reading the book on her flight home from California. We felt better knowing that she would read it herself, as opposed to just relying on rumor or on a summary from her staff. A moment of relief came when we hung up that phone call. The comfort of that feeling would fade quickly.
We got to the hotel and shortly after we checked in, we participated in a “pre-interview” with the show’s producers. We were on separate phones, in two different rooms, as we answered questions and went through the format for the following day. The questions were fairly standard and were easy to respond to, but at some point, the mood changed and we felt strangely uneasy. There was a hint of combativeness and based on previous conversations, it felt out of place. We hung up and immediately expressed our sentiments to each other, and ultimately to Michael. Concerned about what we had experienced, Michael spent the next few hours behind closed doors, while we retired to the dining room for dinner.
We had been joined by another of our attorneys, Jonathan Polak, and a few of our friends who lived in the city. It was nice to sit, relax, and catch up, without the stress of the book hanging over heads. Even though we were getting up early to do the show the following day, we were finally at peace with what we had accomplished and felt strong and prepared to face the “public,” so to speak. This night would be about quiet, calm, and resolve. It was not that at all. No more than twenty minutes into our glass of wine, we received a call from Michael asking us to come back to the room immediately.
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