Bill Pavelic | William Bill Pavelic | Zvonko Bill Pavelic

August 25, 1994 Thursday Final Edition

Calls drop off : Lawyers pull plug on Simpson hot-line

SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES

SECTION: FRONT; Pg. A8

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

Calls to a hot ine created for tipsters with possible leads in the O.J. Simp-son murder case have dropped off so precipitously in recent weeks that his at-torneys have decided for now to pull the plug on the highly publicized effort, members of Simpson’s defense camp said Wednesday.
“Like anything, the initial impact was the biggest,” said Robert L. Shapiro, one of Simpson’s attorneys. “Since then, it’s worn off some.”
In its first week of operation, the toll-free number generated thousands of calls — Simpson’s attorneys say they logged more than 250,000 tips within days, a rush so intense that they were forced to install extra lines to capture the recorded comments deluging the hot line.
Many of the calls came from people sympathetic to the football star charged with murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. Others sought to cash in on Simpson’s offer of a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the “real killer or killers.”
But in the weeks since that first burst of phone calls, members of Simpson’s team say the quantity and quality of calls have tapered off dramatically. In re-cent weeks, tantalizing tips mostly have been replaced by wackier offerings and meddlesome wanna-be investigators, Simpson’s representatives say.
“Initially, it was a very good idea,” said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant working with the Simpson team who recommended that the hot line be shut down. “We got a lot of good leads. But the calls lately have not been as good. We get people who want to tell us how to do things, not people who have information.”
Because of that, the service was temporarily disconnected, and Shapiro said Simpson’s attorneys expect to decide later this week whether to leave it off permanently. Tuesday, callers to the number got a recorded message saying that the number was “temporarily out of service.”
Police and prosecutors say they too have seen a drop off in credible tips. Calls and letters continue to arrive from assorted psychics and others who are bothered by dreams or visions, but new clues are becoming harder to come by. Where several letters once arrived each day, now investigators are lucky to get one or two.
Investigators continue to work with the clues they have, however, simultane-ously moving against Simpson and investigating possible charges against his friend Al Cowlings.