Full Statement From Publisher Judith Regan:
Why I Did It
I was sitting with Howard Stern, of all people, when the verdict came down. Many of you probably remember where you were at that moment. It was a moment I, like so many others, was dreading.
Because, I knew that the “killer,” as Kim Goldman so eloquently named him, would be acquitted. I knew it from my own experience.
Conviction is what I wanted—and not just in the legal sense.
I wanted it because I had once been that young woman who loved with all of her heart and believed in the goodness of man, the trusting girl who fell for the guy, who believed in the beauty of romance, the power of love, the joy of family and the miracle of motherhood. Like Nicole Brown, I believed with all my heart . . . and then got punched in the face.
Literally.
On that day, October 3, 1995, as Howard and I sat watching the television with a conference room full of people, I said, “He’ll be acquitted.” I said it out loud, and the others in the room looked at me in a way I’d been looked at before: “Oh, God. She’s crazy.”
But I knew it, because I’d been there. I’d listened to the lies (“She hit herself’), watched him charm the police (“Sir, I don’t know why she’s saying this”), endured the ignorance of one cop who looked at me with disdain and said “You must like it,” and couldn’t understand why they didn’t believe me.
That man was tall, dark, and handsome. A great athlete. A brilliant mind. He was even a doctor, with an M.D. after his name and a degree that came with an oath: “First, do no harm.” He was one of the brightest men I’d ever met. And he could charm anyone. He charmed me. We had a child. And then he knocked me out, with a blow to my head, and sent me to the hospital.
He manipulated, lied, and broke my heart.
And then, after all but leaving me for dead in a hospital, where his daughter died a few days later, he left for good.
So as I watched this new scene play itself out, I knew that this man—the killer, as Kim calls him—would be acquitted. I’d seen it before: The men in court, dressed in their designer suits, blaming the women they attacked. I’d seen, firsthand, the “criminal injustice system,” as I called it in my twenties—the system that let him go one night after assaulting me so he could come right back and do it again.
I had my witnesses, thank God, or no one would have believed me. But he, too, had his fans, the ones who could not believe that a man that smart, that good-looking, and that successful “would ever do anything like that.”
“Why,” one of my own family members said in one of the many denials I’d heard, “would someone like him do that to you? Why? And if he did, you must have done something to provoke him.” I’d heard it all.
So when the verdict came down, I watched the faces in the room freeze in shock.
“I told you,” I said, and left the room.
The Trial of the Century, as it was called, was not just a moment for me, it was a seminal moment in American history. The curtain was pulled back on the issues of domestic violence, police corruption, and racism—on both sides. And when the final curtain fell, it fell on the killer, as he is known, providing a protective shield from the consequences of his grievous act.
Conviction, or lack thereof, is the story of the trial of the century. Where was that sense of conviction when racist police officers abused and battered their victims? Where was that sense of conviction when Nicole Brown was being battered and people stood by and let him get away with it time and time again? Where was it when NBC kept him on the air when they were sure to know? Where was it when the Browns lost custody of the children, who were sent to be raised by the narcissist who killed their mother? Where was it when Fred Goldman, who lost his beautiful son, won a civil judgment, but was unable to collect it?
Where was it?
I never lost my desire for his conviction. And if Marcia Clark couldn’t do it. I sure wanted to try.
In the past few days, since the announcement of the forthcoming book and televised interview If I Did It, it has been strange watching the media spin the story. They have all but called for my death for publishing his book and for interviewing him. A death, I might add, not called for when Katie Couric interviewed him; not called for when Barbara Walters had an exclusive with the Menendez brothers, who killed their parents in cold blood, nor when she conducted her celebrated interviews with dictator Fidel Castro or Muammar al-Gaddafi; not called for when 60 Minutes interviewed Timothy McVeigh who murdered hundreds in Oklahoma City, not called for when the U.S. government released tapes of Osama bin Laden; not called for when Geraldo Rivera interviewed his dozens of murderers, miscreants, and deviants.
Nor should it be.
“To publish” does not mean “to endorse”; it means “to make public.” If you doubt that, ask the mainstream publishers who keep Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf in print to this day. They are likely to say that there is a historical value in publishing such material, so that the public can read, and judge for themselves, the thoughts and attempted defenses of an indefensible man. There is historical value in such work; there is value for law enforcement, for students of psychology, for anyone who wants to gain insight into the mind of a sociopath.
But that is not why I did it. That is not why I wanted to face the killer. That is not why I wanted to publish his story.
I didn’t know what to expect when I got the call that the killer wanted to confess. I didn’t know what would happen. But I knew one thing. I wanted the confession for my own selfish reasons and for the symbolism of that act.
For me, it was personal.
My son is now twenty-five years old, my daughter fifteen. I wanted them, and everyone else, to have a chance to see that there are consequences to grievous acts. That the consequences of pain and suffering will ultimately be brought upon its perpetrators. And I wanted, as so many victims do, to hear him say “I did it and I am sorry.”
I didn’t know if he would. But I wanted to try. I wanted his confession.
I wanted the acknowledgment, not for me but for my son, so I could turn to him and say, “I’m sorry that he was not a father to you. I’m sorry that he could not teach you what it means to be a man. And, finally, he’s sorry too.”
When I was a girl, a young, innocent, and believing girl, my parents made me go to confession. I didn’t always like to go. It was spooky going into the dark confessional booths, where I was told to say my penance for my sins and to recite The Act of Contrition.
Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. And I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. But most of all because I offend thee my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life, amen.
To confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life, amen.
I was seven or eight years old at the time, and I had no idea what I was saying or doing. But I do now.
I made the decision to publish this book, and to sit face to face with the killer, because I wanted him, and the men who broke my heart and your hearts, to tell the truth, to confess their sins, to do penance and to amend their lives.
Amen.
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