Obsessed with OJ: Local private eye claims he's cracked the case
NORTH TEXAS - It was a murder case that captivated the world: the grisly stabbing deaths of OJ Simpson's ex-wife and her boyfriend. It happened in 1994 and while the case remains officially unsolved, a man in North Texas has spent the last 30 years trying to prove who he thinks the killer is.
William Dear has made headlines for decades as an obsessive private detective. Forty years ago, he had an office in DeSoto; now he's moved south to Mount Calm, Texas, a tiny speck on the map with a population of just 290.
At 86, he says he is nowhere near retiring. His office is like a museum to crime-solving, with some bizarre touches inside and out. Dear says he's investigated many crimes over the decades, but the one case that takes up more room than any other is that of the OJ Simpson case.
"I listened to what was being said about what happened, and it really didn't make much sense to me," Dear said.
In the days after the killings, Dear says he and an associate flew to California to see what they could learn for themselves. Ever since then, he has conducted countless interviews and collected what he says is plenty of evidence of the killer. In 2012, Dear published a book on his theories, which led to a documentary series called "Is OJ Innocent? The Missing Evidence."
Dear has dedicated the better part of his life, and his living, to the mystery. It's even a part of his home, with a large building he calls a crime lab sitting on his sprawling ranch. Inside, on one long wall are blown-up, graphic photographs of the crime scene and autopsy photos. The images are so graphic we cannot show them on television.
Dear has prescription bottles, blood vials, and clothing that he says belongs to his suspect: OJ Simpson's oldest son, Jason. Dear even has a Jeep that he claims belonged to Jason Simpson at the time Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered.
But Dear's biggest claim has to be that here, in Mount Calm, Texas, he has the murder weapon. He says the knife, which he believes matches some of the wounds on Nicole Brown Simpson, was inside a box that was left inside a storage unit. The unit was later auctioned off, says Dear, which is how the items ended up in his possession.
Jason Simpson has never been named a suspect in the murders, and he has - as far as we know - never responded to Dear's claims. Some of his theories are now decades old, but Dear is hoping that advances in technology and DNA detection could lead to an arrest.
Even with all the publicity over the years, Dear says he has never been called by the LAPD or the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, nor has he met with anyone from OJ Simpson's defense team. At one point lead prosecutor Marcia Clark called Dear's allegations against Jason Simpson "offensive" and with "no real logic."
None of it has stopped Dear from hoping that one day, his obsession with the case will lead to some sort of conclusion.
