This Is Where Nicole Brown Simpson Is Buried
On June 17, 1994, in a private funeral service, 35-year-old Nicole Brown Simpson was laid to rest following her brutal murder five days earlier. Among the 200 or so mourners that day was her ex-husband, the former NFL star O.J. Simpson, the Los Angeles Police Department's number one suspect for the killing. The family held her funeral at the St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Simpson hugged his two children, 9-year-old Sydney and her little brother Justin, 6, after they arrived at the church with their father that morning and held their hands as they went inside. Simpson wore a black suit to his ex-wife's funeral and openly wept during the service, per The Buffalo News. Afterward, they lowered her body into its final resting place in Ascension Cemetery, in Lake Forest, in nearby Orange County.
A white hearse
Following the hour-long service at the Catholic church in Brentwood in which O.J. Simpson did not speak, pallbearers carried Brown's light-colored wood casket covered in white roses to a waiting white hearse, per the Associated Press and the Miami Herald. A crush of press captured it all from a distance, held back by private security guards. A mile-long funeral procession followed as the mourners snaked their way south to the cemetery.
There, the Orange County Sheriff's Office handled the security that was so stringent even the reverend who officiated had to show his ID to enter the grounds, according to The Los Angeles Times. A smaller group of about 50 people attended the burial. Simpson, holding his son's hand, followed the pallbearers to the graveside canopy where Brown was buried next to her grandparents. The cemetery is near Dana Point, where the LA Times reported that Brown had grown up and gone to high school. Many of her high school friends gathered to show their love and support for the family.
The murders
Nicole Brown Simpson died before either of her parents and originally had the headstone pictured, but today the three of them now share a gravestone, as can be seen at Find a Grave. Online photos from over the years show how the stone has been changed with the passing of each of her parents, her father in 2014 and her mother in 2020. Today, the stone says "Always in our hearts" with each name engraved below.
On the same day as Nicole Brown Simpson's funeral, 20 miles away in Westlake Village, the family of Ronald Goldman and about 400 mourners gathered to honor the 25-year-old model who had been working as a waiter at an upscale restaurant, per the Miami Herald and the Associated Press. Goldman was found sprawled out in a pool of blood on the sidewalk next to Brown just steps away from her condominium, per the AP. Both victims' throats had been slashed and Goldman had defensive wounds on his hands.
Less than 24 hours after Simpson wept and comforted his children at their mother's funeral and burial service, he led the LAPD on a slow-moving chase on Interstate 405 through LA as the nation watched. Following the low-speed chase, the LAPD arrested O.J. Simpson for the murders.
The next year, in what became a monumental criminal trial that was watched by millions, a jury found Simpson not guilty of the murders in October 1995. The families of both victims sued Simpson in civil court and won a $33.5 million settlement after a jury found Simpson responsible for their deaths.