Police Testing Knife Possibly Buried At O.J. Simpson Home For DNA Evidence

(CBS) -- Authorities in Los Angeles are testing a knife purportedly buried on the property of O.J. Simpson's former estate for DNA evidence to determine if it might be connected to one of the most infamous murders in U.S. history.

Margaret Carrero of CBS Newsradio station KNX, confirmed the existence of the knife and that it was being tested.

TMZ first reported that a construction worker found the folding knife in the late 1990s while Simpson's home was being demolished.

The worker gave it to a police officer, who was in uniform while working across the street as security detail for a movie set, according to LAPD Capt. Andy Neiman.

"Apparently he was approached by an individual who claimed to have found a knife from the Rockingham property. That motor officer hung on to the knife," Neiman told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO.

Neiman says the officer, who was either off duty or already retired at the time, kept the knife at home for years. He would not provide the officer's name, who retired sometime in the late 1990s.

"According to him, he thought the case was closed, since the case was no longer being prosecuted," Neiman said. "(He) did not realize the legalities that a case like this remains open until there is a conviction."

Neiman, at a news conference on Friday, would not describe the knife. He said investigators were working to confirm the legitimacy of the story that led to the discovery.

Last month, the officer told a friend in LAPD's robbery homicide division about the knife, KNX reported. Supervisors then retrieved the weapon.

Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman were found murdered outside of her townhouse in Los Angeles in June of 1994.

What ensued was thought by many to be the trial of the century.

Right after the murders, Simpson traveled to Chicago for a golf outing. At the time, he explained a cut on his finger came from a broken glass in his O'Hare hotel room. Prosecutors argued the cut came from the knife used to kill Brown and Goldman.

Simpson was ultimately found not guilty of the double murder in 1995, despite existing DNA evidence that linked him to the  crime. A civil jury later declared him liable for wrongful death, ordering him to pay $33 million to the victim's families.

Simpson was sentenced to at least nine years in prison in 2008 in a case involving the gunpoint robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in 2007 in a Las Vegas hotel room.