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Former NFL running back OJ Simpson died Thursday, dredging up memories for millions of his Hall of Fame career, his life after football and the infamous murder trial over the death of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown. Simpson, and his friend, Ronald Goldman. .
One of the biggest moments of national intrigue involving Simpson occurred on June 17, 1994, when television shows, including Game 5 of the NBA Finals, were interrupted to broadcast the slow chase of a white Ford Bronco in the empty highways of Southern California. .
Since then, no automobile has been more associated with vehicle chases. Despite the 30-year gap since the infamous chase, the “white Ford Bronco” phase still evokes memories.
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“You get similar reactions, in terms of memory, to 9/11 and other big events,” said Ally Pennington, artifacts and programs manager at the East Alcatraz Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where the 1993 Bronco has been. on display since 2016. “It’s one of those events in history where people remember what they were doing, where they were when the orange juice chase happened.”
“It’s an iconic piece of history, regardless of the implications,” Pennington told Fox News Digital.
That June afternoon, the Bronco was being driven by Al Cowlings, a former teammate and childhood friend of Simpson’s, who was in the back seat with a gun and threatening to kill himself while on the phone with police. who begged him. surrender.
Hours earlier, authorities issued an arrest warrant for Simpson for the double murder.
Millions of viewers tuned in to watch the chase, and as spectators crowded onto freeway overpasses, they caught a glimpse of the chase in real time. The chase eventually ended at Simpson’s home in the affluent Los Angeles enclave of Brentwood, where he surrendered to police without incident.
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Cowlings later sold the Bronco, which is now parked at the Tennessee museum alongside other infamous vehicles associated with some of America’s most notorious criminals.
The Bronco sits alongside a 1993 Essex Terraplane used by notorious gangster John Dillinger, serial killer Ted Bundy’s Volkswagen Beetle and a car used in the 1967 production of “Bonnie and Clyde,” starring Warren Baetty and Faye Dunaway.
“It’s one of our most popular galleries at the museum,” Pennington said.
The museum recently shared a photo of the vehicles on social media.
An upcoming exhibit opening this summer will focus on the 30th anniversary of the murders, Pennington said. The museum previously honored Nicole Brown Simpson with an exhibit depicting her life.
Simpson was eventually acquitted of the murders in a criminal trial, but was ordered to pay the Brown and Goldman families $33.5 million following a civil trial in 1997.
On Thursday, his family announced that he died of cancer at age 76.
“Our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer,” said a publication on the official account of OJ Simpson. “He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren.”
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