A neighbor of Nicole Brown Simpson heard the "plaintive wail" of a dog starting around 10:20 on the night she was killed, a witness testified Friday.
Pablo Fenjves, who lives near Nicole Simpson's home, said he was watching the 10 o'clock news when, "About 15 or 20 minutes into it I heard a dog barking, sort of a plaintive wail.""This was a pretty persistent barking that wouldn't stop." He said he had heard dogs before in the neighborhood but it was unusual for one to bark so long.
The testimony came on the second day of a preliminary hearing to determine whether O.J. Simpson should be tried on murder charges in the June 12 deaths of his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
The timing of the barking could be significant because it could challenge O.J. Simpson's alibi that he was awaiting a limousine or heading for the airport for an 11:45 p.m. flight when the killings occurred. The bodies were not found until after midnight.
Another witness, Karen Lee Crawford, bartender and Sunday manager at the Brentwood restaurant Mezzaluna, told the story of how Nicole Simpson - Crawford called her Nicole Brown - dined there the night she was killed. Crawford described a telephone call in which arrangements were made for Goldman, a waiter, to return eyeglasses found in a gutter outside the restaurant.
During her testimony, bloody police photographs from the crime scene were displayed, showing an envelope lying on the ground.
Earlier Friday, O.J. Simpson's attorney, Robert Shapiro, failed to persuade the judge conducting the preliminary hearing to throw out Thursday's testimony of a salesman who described selling Simpson a knife earlier this year.
Shapiro asked Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell to reject the testimony of Jose Camacho, an employee of Ross Cutlery. He contended that "the district attorney does not believe" Camacho.
Prosecutor William Hodgman objected when Shapiro sought to refer to a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times, and the judge immediately took the issue into her chambers for a private discussion.
After a private conference, the judge said the testimony would remain on the record.
Camacho and his boss testified Thursday about how they sold the ex-football star a 15-inch folding knife about six weeks before the slayings. Camacho also admitted he sold his story to the National Enquirer.
Shapiro's move against Camacho's testimony was his second aggressive defense move this week. Shapiro filed a motion late Wednesday seeking to suppress 34 pieces of evidence found at Simpson's estate early June 13, including a bloody glove. He argued that detectives wrongly obtained the evidence before and after they got a search warrant.
Authorities have said a "substantial knife" was used in the killings, but the weapon hasn't been found.
Thursday night, cleaning workers found a carving knife handle and a small part of the blade at O'Hare International Airport in a tank that holds bathroom waste pumped from American Airlines planes, said Lisa Howard, a Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman.
Simpson flew to Chicago on an 11:45 p.m. American Airlines flight on June 12. The bodies of Nicole Simpson, 35, and Goldman, 25, were found at 12:10 a.m. on June 13 outside her condominium in Los Angeles.
Simpson, 46, has pleaded not guilty two counts of murder.
Sgt. Philip Derrig of the Chicago Police Department's O'Hare Unit Friday described a knife quite different from the one witnesses said Simpson bought. "It's a carving knife, a standard knife for a kitchen," Derrig said. Still, Chicago police said they would contact Los Angeles police about the find.
Workers found the knife fragment when equipment that grinds up the waste jammed, and they emptied the tank to fix it. The tank was last emptied a month ago, Howard said.
Chicago Police Sgt. Frank Cappitelli cautioned that the knife could have belonged to anybody.
"There is no way we can connect anything to the Simpson slayings," he said. "A stewardess could have dropped this knife. It could have come from anywhere. Dozens of planes dumped their stuff into that tank."
On Thursday, Allen Wattenberg, owner of Ross Cutlery. testified that Simpson purchased a German-made Stiletto knife on May 3 with a retractable blade and a handle made of deer antlers.
Simpson bought the knife for $81.17 while filming a TV pilot on location in front of the knife shop, Wattenberg said. Before leaving, Simpson had the knife sharpened, said Camacho.
Simpson got the only receipt for the sale, Wattenberg said.
Wattenberg acknowledged that his brother - the store's co-owner - and Camacho agreed to sell their story to the National Enquirer newspaper for $12,500.
Said Camacho: "I thought, `I'm taking all this pressure. I may as well get something for it."' He was besieged by reporters after he testified before a secret grand jury.
Simpson's lawyer stressed in cross-examination that such knives are "collectibles," suggesting he didn't buy it to kill.