LOS ANGELES - Another bombshell rocked the O.J. Simpson case Monday: a book by a friend of Nicole Brown Simpson that labels the defendant a killer and lays out a chilling tale behind her killing.
In Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted, wealthy Beverly Hills socialite Faye Resnick describes Simpson as a violent, controlling, obsessed character whose "happy public face . . . could transform itself into a terrifying, sweat-streaked mask of naked rage."
It was that side of Simpson, she writes, who was driven to murder by Nicole's decision in mid-April to cut off her relationship with him forever, telling him, "O.J., I never want to see you again. Get out of my life. Get away from me."
Even as Nicole was telling him that on the phone, Resnick says, Simpson called her on another line and said: "If she's really serious about this . . . I'll kill that bitch!" Then, "I can't take this, Faye, I can't take this. I mean it. I'll kill that bitch!"
Written with National Enquirer columnist Mike Walker, Resnick uses the 244-page book to tell her side of the personal life of Nicole - her "closest friend" - and Simpson.
It includes lurid anecdotes of Simpson's abusive history - beating Nicole, locking her in a closet, throwing her naked into a hotel hallway - and chronicles Nicole's affair with Simpson friend and pro football player Marcus Allen. Resnick says that relationship was in full bloom at the time of the murders, and she characterizes it as a potential key reason for Simpson's murderous rage.
Simpson, who has pleaded innocent to killing Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman, is on trial and in the middle of jury selection.
Nicole Simpson's mother, Juditha, said Monday she hadn't seen the book and wouldn't talk about it. Experts called the timing of its release outrageous, although some doubted its effect.
"There's just been too much," says jury consultant Robert Hirschhorn. "For a long time, we were on a feeding frenzy, but now people are pushing away dessert."
Still, with the first 700,000 copies not scheduled for sale ($14.95) until Wednesday, the media already are reeling over the book. Columnists called it "astounding" and "super hot."
Aftershocks are coming. Resnick appears on Eye to Eye With Connie Chung Thursday night on CBS and on The Maury Povich Show Friday.
And she might show up in court before it's over. A spokeswoman for her publisher said Resnick is willing to testify.
In the book, Resnick doesn't hide her problems - admitting a drug problem and a one-night sexual encounter with Nicole. But she makes it clear she wrote the book seeking justice for her dead friend.
"Faye is a very strong and very determined woman," says Walker, who appears on Larry King Live Thursday night. "One of the reasons she got close to Nicole in the past couple of years is that of all her friends, she was the only one who wasn't afraid of O.J. when he would get mad and growl."
Among the book's details:
-- During the Simpsons' marriage, beatings were constant. "I can't begin to count the times," Nicole told Resnick.
During a Las Vegas visit, Simpson said Nicole embarrassed him in front of Dean Martin. When they returned to their suite, "O.J. started beating her savagely. Nicole was naked, except for a pair of panties, but O.J. grabbed her by the hair, dragged her to the door of the suite, and flung her into the corridor. . . . Nicole lay there curled up in a fetal position for three hours."
-- After their separation, Simpson stalked Nicole as she dated other men and watched outside her condo one night while she had sex.
-- Although loyal during the marriage, Nicole displayed an enormous sexual appetite after the separation and was dissatisfied by the men she dated, Resnick writes. But that changed after she met Allen. Resnick's greatest fear was that Simpson would find out about Allen. "You don't `do' your man's best friend," she warned Nicole.
Allen, playing Monday night with the Kansas City Chiefs, would not comment. But team spokesman Bob Moore labeled the book "absolute trash. (Marcus) is not going to even acknowledge that in any way."
-- Although a post-divorce reconciliation with Simpson was Nicole's idea, she canceled it because he cheated on her and because she still feared him beating her.
-- What steeled Nicole to cut off Simpson, says Resnick, was his threat to inform the IRS she was living in her condo instead of leasing it out as she had declared in her tax returns. That $90,000 mistake could have cost her the condo.
Nicole took it as a threat to their children. "O.J. had attacked the most precious core of her being," Resnick writes; "the children she adored."
On the night of the slayings, Nicole and her family attended a dance recital for 8-year-old daughter Sydney. Resnick says a friend told her later that Simpson was there alone and "was so despondent, in such a strange state of mind. I've never seen O.J. that way, ever!"
Afterward, Resnick writes, Simpson approached Nicole, and she told him to "get away from us. Get out of my life."
Resnick says Nicole related that exchange in a 9 p.m. phone call. A few hours later, she was dead.
