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Hotline shut down as 'tips' plummet

2008-04-15

Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada)

August 25, 1994 Thursday Final Edition

 

SOURCE: FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS 

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A8

LENGTH: 320 words 

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES 

Calls to a hot line created for tipsters with possible leads in the O.J. Simpson murder case have dropped off so precipitously in recent weeks that his attorneys have decided for now to pull the plug on the highly publicized effort, members of Mr. Simpson's defence camp said yesterday.

"Like anything, the initial impact was the biggest," said Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson's attorneys. "Since then, it's worn off some."

In its first week of operation, the toll-free number generated thousands of calls -- Mr. Simpson's attorneys say they logged more than 250,000 tips within days, a rush so intense that they were forced to install extra lines to capture the recorded comments deluging the hot line.

Many of the calls came from people sympathetic to the football star charged with murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. Others sought to cash in on Mr. Simpson's offer of a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the "real killer or killers."

But in the weeks since that first burst of phone calls, members of Mr. Simpson's team say the quantity and quality of calls have tapered off dramatically. In recent weeks, tantalizing tips mostly have been replaced by wackier offerings and meddlesome wanna-be investigators, Mr. Simpson's representatives say.

"Initially, it was a very good idea," said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant working with the Simpson team who recommended that the hot line be shut down. "We got a lot of good leads. But the calls lately have not been as good. We get people who want to tell us how to do things, not people who have information."

Because of that, the service was temporarily disconnected, and Mr. Shapiro said Mr. Simpson's attorneys expect to decide later this week whether to leave it off permanently. Tuesday, callers to the number got a recorded message saying that the number was "temporarily out of service."

 

LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2002 

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH 

GRAPHIC: Shapiro 

TYPE: News

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