OJ Simpson befriended killer Menendez brothers Erik and Lyle in jail, book claims

Birds of a feather were in a cellblock together.

While he was in jail awaiting trial for the murder of his ex-wife, disgraced NFL star OJ Simpson found allies in Lyle and Erik Menedez, who were also awaiting proceedings for the shooting deaths of their parents.

“I didn’t see him cry, but I believe he was. I could hear him moaning,” Erik Menendez told journalist Robert Rand of the first night Simpson — who died Wednesday at age 76 — spent in the Los Angeles County Men’s Jail, according to Rand’s 2018 book, “The Menendez Murders,” which was excerpted by A+E.

It was June 17, 1994. Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and her friend Ron Goldman, 25, had been brutally knifed to death a few days earlier, and Simpson had just been arrested following a slow-speed car chase.

“It was very depressing, very sad. I almost cried when his suicide letter was read on TV,” Erik, who was 23 at the time, said of the dramatic pursuit, which he watched on the jailhouse television, according to the book.

Erik and his older brother, Lyle, were being held at the jail while awaiting trial for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, Rand explained.

The brothers claimed that they shot their parents following years of sexual abuse by their entertainment exec father, which their mother allegedly knew about but ignored.

After Simpson was arrested, the authorities placed him in the cell next to Erik, Rand wrote.

“Hey, Erik, it’s OJ!” Erik recalled the former Buffalo Bills player calling out to him.

Erik claimed that he tried to clue Simpson in on how to get by behind bars.

“I told him not to talk to the deputies or inmates about his case. I told him not to worry — just calm down and relax. After that long chase, you can imagine what shape he was in,” he recalled to Rand.

“He wasn’t happy to be in jail like anyone else,” Erik added. “He wasn’t any worse than I was or Lyle was. He was real delusional, thinking that he was going to get out in three weeks.” 

Within a few days, he said, all the police officers were asking for Simpson’s autograph.

“They were giving him good food — the officer’s food (roast beef, pork chops, burritos), and they were letting him use the phone all day. They kept his cell open all the time,” Erik told Rand. 

“They were treating him like royalty. Everyone was in awe of him. Everyone wanted to talk to him.”

Simpson’s work in Hollywood following his NFL retirement was actually how Erik and Lyle first met him, Rand said: 10 years earlier, the young brothers ran into Simpson when their dad was an executive at Hertz, and Simpson was a spokesperson.

Although Erik and Simpson chatted through the flaps in their cell doors, the only times Erik actually saw his famous neighbor was when they went back and forth to the showers.

“It was sad to see OJ Simpson on the other side of that wall. I told him to be courageous. Every time he walked by my cell, he smiled and gave me a wink,” he remembered.

Once, Erik even left Simpson a letter in the shower stall.

“I told him a lot of things. ‘This is his life,’ I said. ‘When you cry — remember those tears. Hold them because you’re crying for your children, you’re crying for everything you’re losing.’ I said remember who’s doing it to you and fight — continue to fight. I told him you’ve got to start worrying about your life, not your reputation,” he said of the missive.

Simpson was particularly upset about his career plummeting in the wake of the charges against him, Erik noted.

“I guess I won’t be working for NBC anymore,” he supposedly huffed at one point.

Eventually, Lyle Menendez also wrote Simpson a letter.

The pair were not in cells near each other, but they talked frequently while waiting to meet their lawyers in the jail’s attorney’s room, Lyle told Rand.

“I told him I thought the public would understand,” Lyle claimed. “I expressed my concern that [defense lawyer] Robert Shapiro wouldn’t let him tell the truth. I said I knew it obviously wasn’t planned, and that he had snapped in the heat of passion.” 

When Rand asked Lyle if he thought Simpson did kill Brown and Goldman, Lyle replied “absolutely.”

“He knew Erik and I and trusted us,” he added.

Simpson was ultimately acquitted of the murders in October 1995 — a verdict that is still remembered as perhaps the most shocking in the history of the American justice system.

The Menendez brothers’ first trial started in 1993, but ended six months later in a mistrial. 

Following a second trial in 1996, they were both convicted of murdering their parents and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.