Unsealed 30-Year Records Reveal Informant's Key O.J. Simpson Murder Details

Q: What heavy object did Al Cowlings' mafia-linked associate discard hours after the 1994 murders, and where is it now?

It has not been established what the heavy object was, and its whereabouts are unknown. The newly unsealed records and the brother’s account only say Joseph Ippolito helped discard a bag containing a heavy object in the hours after the murders. Because the murder weapon in the Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman killings has never been recovered, the obvious inference is that the object may have been the missing knife or another piece of evidence linked to the crime. But the reporting does not confirm that identification, and no public record in the material provided shows where the bag or object ended up. So the factual answer is limited: the object was unidentified, though suspected to be related to the still-missing murder weapon, and it has never been found or publicly accounted for.

2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Oct 18

Records unsealed 30 years after the 1994 killings show a government informant gave investigators key information, including the supposed location of the missing murder weapon and details of O.J. Simpson’s efforts to evade prosecution.
The New York Times said those findings challenge the long-running narrative that Simpson alone carried out the murders and that investigators lacked meaningful leads because no weapon was ever found.
Joseph Ippolito — described in the report as an "extremely reliable" informant — was a convicted drug trafficker and mafia associate who had escaped a Florida prison a month before the murders.
Ippolito’s brother told the Times his sibling’s role went deeper and said he helped discard a bag containing a heavy object in the hours after Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed.
The account adds a new layer to one of America’s most scrutinized murder cases, whose failed 1995 prosecution has fueled decades of speculation about missing evidence and possible assistance.