There Appears to Be No Confession Tape Among O.J.'s Former Bodyguard's Recordings

It's now been decades since the murder trial of O.J. Simpson riveted the nation. In that trial, O.J. was accused of murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman, a waiter in Los Angeles. Now, new tapes have emerged that are related to O.J., and some believe that those tapes may have a confession from O.J., who was acquitted in the murder trial.

The tapes in question come from Iroc Avelli, who used to serve as O.J.'s bodyguard. Now, many want to know whether those tapes actually contain a confession, or whether that's just a rumor that's begun circulating online. Here's what we know.

According to a report from TMZ, no murder confessions were found on the recordings, which were apparently mostly Avelli talking to himself. Bloomington police said that they "did not locate any information of evidentiary value" on the tapes after they were asked to search them by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The recordings were contained on several thumb drives, and investigators believed they might contain a taped confession from the former football star.

Officer George Harms filed the petition to search the thumb drives so that "full forensics examination can be conducted on all thumb drives to try and obtain the recording."

The warrant was filed arguing that material on the thumb drives "constitutes evidence which tends to show crime has been committed, or tends to show that particular person has committed a crime."

Although they don't appear to contain a recorded confession, the reason for the warrant stems from Harms's 2022 arrest of Avelli for assault. Harms received a call in June of 2024 from the LAPD saying that Avelli and his attorney had met with detectives and claimed that a backpack seized during the initial arrest contained a thumb drive that had a recording of Simpson confessing to the murders.

Harms found the recordings, but they don't appear to have the recorded confession on them, at least according to an initial examination.

The possibility of such a confession would bring a definitive end to a saga that started more than 30 years ago, but it seems like that kind of closure might not be in the offing, at least not from these tapes.

O.J.'s murder trial captivated the entire nation, in part because it existed at the intersection of so many trends in American life. It was a story of race, class, and celebrity, and because cameras were allowed into the courtroom, America could watch every sordid detail of the trial as it unfolded in real time.

There are those who have long believed that O.J. is guilty of the murders even though he was acquitted at trial. Tapes would have provided a definitive answer if he had confessed, but O.J.'s death means that there may never be a definitive resolution to the case, as much as one would feel like a satisfying conclusion to a saga that spanned decades.