Ronald Lyle Goldman (July 2, 1968 – June 12, 1994) was an American restaurant waiter and aspiring actor.
A volunteer working with children suffering from cerebral palsy, Goldman appeared as a contestant on the short-lived game show Studs in early 1992.[2] In 1994, Goldman became a friend of Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of American football player O. J. Simpson.
On June 12, 1994, Goldman was murdered, along with Brown, outside her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles. Following a controversial and highly publicized criminal trial, Simpson was acquitted of all charges, though he was later found liable of the wrongful deaths in a civil lawsuit in 1997, filed by Fred Goldman, Ron's father.
Early life
Goldman in 1985
Goldman was born on July 2, 1968. He grew up in the community of Buffalo Grove, Illinois. After his parents divorced in 1974 and after spending a brief time in the custody of his mother, Sharon Rufo (née Fohrman), he was raised by his father, Frederic Goldman (born December 6, 1940). Goldman lived with his father and his younger sister, Kimberly. Goldman was raised Jewish.
Goldman attended high school at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois. He was a student at Illinois State University for one semester, where he planned to major in psychology, and he also had an interest in becoming a pledge in Sigma Nu fraternity. After his family relocated to Southern California when he was 18 years old, however, Goldman discontinued his studies and followed his family.
Prior to relocating with his family, Goldman worked as a camp counselor and had experience volunteering with children who suffered from cerebral palsy.[3][4]
In California
While living in Los Angeles, Goldman took some classes at Pierce College.[3] He learned to surf and enjoyed playing beach volleyball, rollerblading, and nightclubbing.[5]
Upon arriving in California, Goldman lived independently from his family and supported himself as an employment headhunter, tennis instructor, and waiter.[3] He worked occasionally as a model for Barry Zeldes, owner of the Z90049 store in Brentwood Gardens.[6] Not long before his death, he earned an emergency medical technician license, but he decided not to pursue that as a career.[3]
Instead, Goldman told friends that he wanted to open a bar or restaurant in the Brentwood area.[3] He planned for the venue to be known not by a name but by the ankh, an Egyptian religious symbol of life that he had tattooed on his shoulder.[6] According to his friend Jeff Keller, he wanted to learn all facets of the restaurant-bar business and occasionally worked as a promoter[6] at a Century City dance club called Tripps.[3] He had also tended a bar called Dragonfly, which co-incidentally was owned by Brett Cantor. For Memorial Day, he participated with a group of event promoters in organizing a party at Renaissance, a club and restaurant on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.[6]
Goldman also expressed aspirations to act; he appeared on an episode of the dating game show Studs (hosted by Mark DeCarlo) in early 1992.[7]
He dated Jacqui Bell for nearly two years before she broke off their relationship three months before his death.[8][9]
Death
Friendship with Nicole Brown Simpson
According to a June 15, 1994, Los Angeles Times article published three days after his death, Goldman met Brown only six weeks prior to the date they were murdered, when he borrowed her Ferrari. The two were seen together in clubs, occasionally meeting for coffee and dinner in the weeks before their deaths. According to police and friends, however, the relationship between the two was platonic. One article noted that he had borrowed her car when he met his friend, Craig Clark, for lunch. According to Clark, Goldman told him it was Brown's car, but he did not say she was his girlfriend. Instead, Goldman said they were friends.[10]
On the evening of Sunday, June 12, 1994, Goldman worked a server shift at Mezzaluna Trattoria in Brentwood. Brown called to report that her mother had inadvertently dropped her reading glasses outside by the gutter when they dined there earlier in the evening. Goldman had not been their server, but after a search at the restaurant turned up the glasses, Goldman agreed, at Brown’s request, to drop them off at her home after work. "Ron interjected he’d be happy to return them," said Tia Gavin, who waited on the Brown party.[11]
The Los Angeles Times reported that Goldman "punched out at 9:33 pm and stayed another 15 minutes to have bottled water at the bar."[6] He made plans to go out with Mezzaluna's bartender Stewart Tanner later that evening. Before returning the glasses, Goldman stopped by his Brentwood apartment at 11663 Gorham Avenue, presumably to shower and change clothes; his autopsy indicated he ate a salad, less than 40 minutes before he was killed.[12] He then drove to Brown’s condominium, using his friend Andrea Scott's car.[13]
Goldman[14] and Brown were stabbed to death on the walkway leading to the condominium at 875 South Bundy Drive; their bodies were discovered shortly after midnight. Goldman's knuckles were bruised; Simpson's defense team argued that this indicated he had fought strongly, while prosecutors argued it was probably from a fall.[15][16] Goldman seemingly had taunted wounds to his face.[17][18] During a reconstruction of events, the police theorized that Ron and Nicole were talking on the front patio of Nicole's condominium when they were attacked or that Goldman arrived while Brown was being attacked; in any case, the police believe that Brown was the intended target and that Goldman was killed in order to silence him.[19] Witness Robert Heidstra testified that while walking near Brown's condominium that night, he heard a man yelling, "Hey! Hey! Hey!" who was then shouted at by a second man. He also heard a gate slam.[20] Goldman's family came to believe that Ron was the man shouting "Hey!" and that he may have attempted to save Brown by intervening in the attack.[21][22]
Goldman was 20 days shy of his 26th birthday when he died. He is buried at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California.[6][23]
Aftermath
Simpson was tried for the killings of both Brown and Goldman. During the trial, there was some speculation as to whether Brown and Goldman were secretly dating, compounded by three facts, that Nicole was wearing a slinky, revealing cocktail dress when she was found dead, candles were lit in the master bedroom and bathroom, and the master bathroom’s tub was full of water.[24] In October 1995, after a public trial that lasted nearly nine months and despite prosecutors' arguments that Simpson was implicated by forensic evidence, he was acquitted in a controversial verdict. In the 1996 book Killing Time: The First Full Investigation into the Unsolved Murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, authors Donald Freed and Raymond P. Briggs wrote that lipstick was found on Ron's cheek after his death, and suggested that Nicole kissed Ron when he arrived and that they were together on the front porch when they were attacked.[25] In an interview on Larry King Live, Ron's father, Fred Goldman, called into the show and berated Freed about the book.[26] In 1997, Fred Goldman filed a civil lawsuit against Simpson. Fred Goldman successfully campaigned to change California’s hearsay laws to allow the testimony of a woman named Nicole (presumed to be Brown) who telephoned Sojourn House, a women's shelter.[27] The jury found Simpson liable for the wrongful deaths of Goldman and Brown and awarded the Goldman family $33 million. In an interview with Barbara Walters, Fred Goldman said that during Simpson's civil trial, he was approached by a stranger who offered to sell him an untraceable high-powered rifle to kill Simpson or to hire someone to kill Simpson for him, but the appalled Goldman refused.[28] Fred Goldman told a radio talk show host that Simpson could keep the money under one condition, stating that if Simpson "wants to write out a complete confession and publish it in newspapers around the country, we'll be glad to ignore the judgment. That will never happen".[29] In 1996 the Goldman family signed a book contract, with a guaranteed advance of $450,000 and received additional funds based on the sales of their book. Fred Goldman left a 30-year career in sales to pursue those goals by taking a $100,000-a-year job with the nonprofit Safe Streets Coalition. Since 1998 Goldman and his second wife, Patti, have been living off book profits, speaking fees.[30]
"Nicole. Jesus. I looked down and saw her on the ground in front of me,
curled up in a fetal position at the base of the stairs, not moving.
Goldman was only a few feet away, slumped against the bars of the
fence. He wasn't moving either. Both he and Nicole were lying in
giant pools of blood. I had never seen so much blood in my life. It
didn't seem real, and none of it computed."
If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, Simpson (2006), p. 81.
The rights to Simpson's book, If I Did It, a first-person account of how he would have committed the murders, were awarded to the Goldman family in August 2007.[a] They were granted the proceeds from the book as part of the multi-million dollar civil jury award against him they had been trying to collect for over a decade. They own the copyright, media rights, and movie rights.[31] They also acquired Simpson's name, likeness, life story, and right of publicity in connection with the book, according to court documents, ensuring he would not be able to profit from the book. After renaming the book If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, the Goldman family published it in September 2007 through Beaufort Books, some versions of the book having the "If" text shrunk, implying OJ's guilt. [32] Denise Brown, Nicole Brown's sister, criticized the Goldmans for publishing the book and accused them of profiting from Nicole and Ron's deaths.[33][34] In 2007, the Goldman family earned 90 percent of the proceeds from the sale of the rights to the book.[35][36]
Simpson was subsequently jailed for an unrelated armed robbery at a Las Vegas hotel in 2008.[37][38] Both Fred and Kim Goldman were present at the robbery trial, and after Simpson's conviction, Fred Goldman expressed his satisfaction and referred to it as a "bittersweet" moment.[39]
During the civil trial, Kim Goldman said that she and Michael Nigg were set-up on a blind date. After a good first date, the two went on 5 or more dates. At the time they were going out together Michael Nigg worked at a restaurant in Santa Barbara and at some point after 1992 Michael moved to Los Angeles. Kim Goldman testified that she never introduced her brother to Michael Nigg and she did not see Michael after he moved to Los Angeles. She stated she was unaware how her brother, Ron, and Michael met; she testified that the two met by happenstance. The two men apparently became good friends because, according to Ms. Goldman, Michael Nigg got her brother the job at Mezzaluna. While Kim Goldman does not have knowledge of Michael having worked at Mezzaluna, according to the Los Angeles Times Michael Nigg had been employed at Mezzaluna in Brentwood at some point. At the time of his death Michael Nigg was working at a restaurant called Sanctuary that was located in Beverly Hills. Some news reports claim that Michael Nigg “befriended Ronald Goldman when both worked at the Mezzaluna restaurant” however Ms. Goldman’s testimony establishes that the two men were friends prior to Ron being hired at Mezzaluna. It is unknown if Michael Nigg and Ron Goldman’s tenures at Mezzaluna overlapped.[40] In an interview with 20/20, Kim Goldman said that one day some time after Simpson's acquittal, she was driving in her car when she saw him in a parking lot in Los Angeles. She considered running him over to get vengeance, but decided otherwise.[41]
In 2017, Goldman family attorney David Cook claimed that Sydney and Justin Simpson, the children of Simpson and Brown had went on a real estate spending spree using money that the Goldman's believe had been hidden away by their father years ago. The attorney for the Goldman's stated that Justin and Sydney Simpson’s "loss is no greater than Fred’s, but Fred’s loss should be no greater than theirs."[42]
A 2018 article stated that Fred Goldman's second wife Patti Glass, was the ex-wife of a Mafia lawyer and drugs dealer named Marvin Glass. Goldman had married Patti Glass shortly after Marvin was jailed for his part in a huge drugs money laundering operation, and took custody of three of Glass’ children. Fred’s step son Brian said that Fred was abusive towards them. It was also reported in sealed documents that Ron Goldman had an extensive criminal file, including outstanding arrest warrants.[43]
In 2022, Fred Goldman applied for a renewal of his old judgment against Simpson, claiming Simpson still owed him $96 million.[44]
When Simpson died in 2024, Fred Goldman initially called Simpson’s death "no great loss to the world" but also said that it was "just a further reminder of how long my son has been gone...how many years, and how much he’s been missed. And the only thing that is important today are (Ron and Nicole). Nothing else is important."[45] Kim and Fred later issued a statement that read, "The hope for true accountability has ended... Thank you for keeping our family, and most importantly Ron, in your hearts".[46][47] Fred Goldman said that he will still pursue "justice" for his son after Simpson's attorney said that the Goldman family will get "nothing" from the estate. A few days later, Simpson's attorney backtracked and confirmed that Simpson's estate will settle the legal verdict with the Brown and Goldman families, and said that his statements were made out of a moment of frustration over what he felt were "insensitive" remarks about Simpson's death.[48]
Foundation
The Goldman family contributed a portion of proceeds from the If I Did It book sales to the newly founded Ron Goldman Foundation for Justice.[49] It provides grants for multiple organizations and programs that provide resources to victims and survivors of violent crimes.[50] One of the largest donors to the foundation is Las Vegas executive Mark Goldman, Fred Goldman's first cousin.
^Coincidentally, David Bender wrote a alternative history book The Confession of O.J. Simpson (1997), which depicts Simpson accepting Fred Goldman's challenge to confess to the murders of Nicole and Ron in exchange for Goldman's civil settlement.
