99 Stories of God

45. Numbers

In 1994, in Beverly Hills, California, a former football star, O. J. Simpson, was accused of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a luckless young man who had gone to her house to return a pair of sunglasses she had left at a restaurant. The murders were particularly brutal. The woman’s throat was cut from ear to ear, resulting in partial decapitation. The young waiter, Ronald Goldman, also had his throat severed.

During the course of the trial, a molecular biologist and director of the nation’s largest DNA-testing firm, Dr. Robin Cotton, testified that the blood found near the victims could have come from only one person in 170 million people. That blood matched O. J. Simpson’s blood.

Further, blood found on a sock in Simpson’s bedroom was consistent with that of only one person out of 6.8 billion— more people than there were on earth at the time — and that blood matched the blood of Nicole Brown Simpson.

O. J. Simpson was, nonetheless, found not guilty and was acquitted of murder.

Courtroom analysts have concluded that most jurors find DNA analysis “boring.”