O. J. Simpson. He died today from prostate cancer at the age of 76. The running back turned broadcaster turned pitchman for everything was a fixture in American living rooms for over decades of his career until he went on the run. In just moments, I'm going to speak with O. J. Simpson's Ghostwriter, the man who helped him with that semi-confession book, If I Did It, and also with Gloria Allred, who represented Nicole Brown's family through both trials. But first, Simpson slow speed sprint from police wound its way through LA and unwound the myth around that man, giving the country a glimpse of a jealous domestic abuser who police immediately suspected of brutally killing his ex-wife and her friend.

Okay, I'm going to have to interrupt this call. I understand we're going to go to a live picture in Los Angeles. Is that correct? Okay, this is Interstate 5, and this is courtesy of KCAL, one of our LA affiliates. Police believe that O. J. Simpson is in that car. Police believe he is in that vehicle. Let's pick up what the KCAL broadcaster is saying. At this point, the officers would do just about whatever they do in any type of a pursuit. Now, they're telling me that they believe that this vehicle is registered to Al Kaling, one of OJ's oldest friends a teammate at Southern Cal, and they believe that Al Kauling, who's the other person they're looking for who was with OJ earlier today, they believe, again, they believe that this is the car. We do not know this is the car. Those are those cars following what is presumed to be the car containing O. J. Simpson, now a fugitive from justice. The car is traveling at normal speed. The police report reports that O. J. Simpson is in the passenger seat and apparently has a gun. California Highway Patrol has now confirmed to CNN that it is definitely Al Callen's vehicle, and they are almost certain that OJ is in the passenger seat.

Pat, we're just now crossing the 605 at the 91. California Highway Patrol is also telling so, man. So we're starting to get up in pretty long Beach area. And I'm repeating this to you as I hear it in my earphone. Actually, northeast Long Beach. But again, OJ appears to be holding a gun to his head.

I can tell you that I've seen CHP officers stopping people from getting on to the 405. The southbound 405, as you know, is a parking lot with everybody stopped and out of the cars looking, waiting for this chase to come. But the Sunset Boulevard off-ramp is open, and it appears that they think that he might get off here. The whole way going north along the four or five, it is an amazing sight. Along the right-hand shoulder, people have pulled over, many of them carrying signs, such as signs reading things like Save the Juice, Go OJ. People are literally cheering him on as he travels North down on the 405. We can only assume that he plans to get off at sunset and go towards perhaps his home.

Craig, where is OJ Simpson now?

That I cannot I tell you, I'm about a block away, and I have no monitors, but I can only assume he's inside the home. They did agree to allow him to speak with his mother, but there's one question that has been resolved here, and that is certainly that he is in police custody and unharmed, apparently.

What a day.

What a day.

One of the witnesses for the prosecution in that trial was Pablo Fénvez. He was Nicole Brown-Simson's neighbor, and he testified that he heard her barking dog the night of the murder.

I heard a very distinctive barking coming from somewhere to the south of where I live, and I was aware of it for maybe 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 minutes.

Was there something unusual about that dog barking that drew your attention to it?

It was fairly persistent. It was at a significant pitch. And as you may recall, I I described it at the time as a plaintive whale. It sounded like a very unhappy animal.

That testimony was a critical part of the prosecution's timeline. But in a bizarre twist, decades later, Fennves would then be asked to ghostwrite Simpson's hugely controversial book, If I Did It. That book was ultimately canceled by Newscourt, the parent company of the publisher, Harper Collins. The Goldman family then got the rights to the book and worked with Fennves to release And Pablo Fennves joins me now. Pablo, thanks so much for joining us. You do have so many connections to this O. J. Simpson story. Let's start with your reaction to his death today.

Well, The thing that stood out for me was that in the entire time I spent with O. J. Working on the book, he never expressed any remorse. O. J. And I spent a fair amount of time together, and it was an unusual relationship since I had testified against him, as you pointed out. But I didn't feel a great loss. I actually felt more for the Goldman family and the Brown family and for his children because of this checkered history, to put it mildly.

That testimony that we just played there was really a critical moment in this trial. But then for you to 10 years later, actually even become a ghost writer, why would you agree to do that?

Well, what happened was I got a call from the publisher, Judith Regan, and she said she had this project with OJ, and I said, I testified against him. I'm completely the wrong guy for this project. But I'd done a number of best sellers for Judith, and she trusted me, and she thought that if anybody was going to elicit an actual confession out of OJ, I might be that person. So initially, I said I didn't really want to go into business with him, and the legal team over at Harper Collins sent over documentation, and I saw that the deal was made with his children. And I figured, well, if they get a little something out of this, it's not a bad thing. So I signed on and got on a plane to Miami and flew down to meet O'Jay. The first thing he said to me was the opening words. He shook hands and he goes, Have you ever heard of a man being put away for murder by a whaling dog. So he was basically saying, I know who you are, and I remember who you are. And we sat down and had lunch and got off to a slow start, but things took off from there.

Do you think that that was maybe one of the reasons why he agreed to do it? What was in it for him to have you, someone who testified against him, as his ghostwriter?

I don't know if he gave it that much thought. That somebody presented a deal to him, and I guess he thought the terms were agreeable, and he just Let's get this done. Let's do this job. And we sat down and it became... It's a form of therapy. Ghostwriting is a lot like therapy for the client. They sit there and you walk them through their history. In this particular case, it was one chapter of his history that everyone was interested in, and so that's what we focused on.

So you said that he never expressed any remorse in the course of your working with him. Did you think he was guilty while you were writing this book?

At one point, we're in the hotel suite working together, and we'd been working for a few days, and he said, Pablo, now that you know me a little better and maybe like me a little bit, Do you still think I did it? And I said, I'm sorry, O'Jay, I thought you did it when it happened a dozen years ago, and I still think you did it. And he exploded. And it was a lot of theatrics because a few moments later, he was laughing. And he said, I know you think I'm guilty. And he thanked me for being honest with him. And as I said in the past, it wasn't like I'm a big, brave writer. It's just that we were in the middle of working on a book together. And if I had lied to him at that point, it would not have helped the project in any way. So I was just honest with him.

You describe him as someone who would explode at you in moments like that, and then minutes later, start laughing. I mean, explain to us what person, someone who spent a lot of time in book therapy with him, what person really is O. J. Simpson?

Well, for a while, thought maybe there was a lot of cognitive dissonance there, and that maybe he really didn't think he had done it. But the more time I spent with him, the more I felt that he knew he had done it, because as we got closer to that chapter on the murders, it became harder and harder for him to deal with. It was a real struggle. He never fell apart, and he didn't cry, but he was angry and worked up as we got to that chapter. He kept saying, I hate I hate this chapter. I hate this chapter. Do we have to do this chapter? And I said, That's the only reason we're doing the book. It's this chapter.

This chapter.

The chapter about the murders. The other thing that I thought was interesting is, in the book, when he talked about meeting Nicole, it was incredibly romantic. A young waitress in a coffee shop in Beverly Hills. And then as we got deeper into the marital issues and the abuse, he was just getting angrier and angrier and saying, They turned me into the poster boy for wife abuse. And he basically was murdering her character in the book. Everything that went wrong in the marriage was her fault. And there was this weird sense that he was saying, If I did it, she had it coming. And that was really chilling to me. And It just showed what I was dealing with.

He, at some point, tried to turn the public against you. Why?

Well, I thought that was... Sorry, I found it confusing. What happened was the National Enquire broke the news about the book, and suddenly there was a storm, and the Goldmans were on the TV every day decrying the people who were involved in the book. It wasn't pleasant. It didn't really affect me. I have a complete other life outside of the book business. But O'Jade decided if confession, maybe Pablo did it. I mean, he lives just 50 yards from Nicole's house, and he seems to know so much about the murder. So he basically was throwing me under the bus a little bit.