Nicole Brown Simpson's throat was so severely slashed that her head was severed to the spinal column and Ronald Goldman's right ear was nearly cut off in the attack that killed them, KABC-TV in Los Angeles reported.
In the first detailed account of how Goldman, 25, and Simpson, 35, were killed, the station reported that a Los Angeles coroner's source said Nicole Simpson probably was knocked down from the first blow. She suffered a large gash on her head and several slashes across her neck.
The assailant also repeatedly stabbed her in the chest.
Goldman had a deep laceration on the back of his head, slash wounds on his neck, and more than 20 other knife wounds, indicating a fierce struggle. The cuts were described as jagged, not clean.
Police continue to hunt today for the murder weapon they think O.J. Simpson might have carried to Chicago on a flight from Los Angeles the night of the murders.
"It isn't a sword, and it isn't an entrenching tool," Los Angeles detective Bert Luper says. Police say they know, but won't reveal, what was used.
Other reports are out:
-- NBC said an attendant aboard the flight Simpson took to Chicago noticed he held his hand in a bag for the entire flight.
-- CBS reported that police believe the knife used in the murders may have been a prop used in Simpson's recently finished action movie.
-- ABC said the search for the weapon has led authorities to the Ross Cutlery, a Los Angeles knife store, where Simpson visited several times last month while filming a TV series in the area.
But a clerk at the store says Simpson didn't buy anything.
"He was just looking," says clerk Jose Camacho, who waited on Simpson and asked about his football days. "He was happy, smiling, very friendly."
And two detectives went to the store last week but could not find receipts that showed Simpson bought anything, said Ross Cutlery owner Richard Wattenberg.
Luper says he's looking for a "particular type of instrument, and I know what it looks like." He says his "gut feeling" is that the weapon is in Chicago.
Defense lawyers say Simpson is innocent.
Local and Los Angeles police Tuesday ended a two-day weapon search in a 20,000-acre trash-strewn field near a Chicago hotel where Simpson briefly stayed the morning after the slayings. Monday, dogs searching the lot found a duffel bag and socks, which police say may be evidence.
Police also are looking for an unidentified person who reportedly saw Simpson emerge from woods in the field.
Experts say while murder weapons can be telling, they're not always needed in a case.
"It's not critical," says Paul Rothstein, professor at Georgetown University Law Center. "Its importance here has been overstated."
But "if they came up with a weapon that matched the wounds in the possession of some stranger, that could be . . . exculpating for O.J.," he says.
A single piece of evidence rarely decides a case, says Ron Beaton of Forensic Technologies International, a jury research and consulting firm. "The importance is how the prosecutor characterizes it. In this case, they certainly can point to the fact that the weapon is missing as evidence of O.J. Simpson's mental intent."
