Live Coverage: LAPD to comment on knife found on O.J. Simpson property

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Police Department said today that its detectives are conducting tests on a knife that was found on property once was owned by O.J. Simpson.

But details of the investigation are not being officially released at this time, according to a police spokesman.

The LAPD’s confirmation that it has retued to the O.J. Simpson case followed a report by the celebrity news website TMZ.com that a construction worker found the folding buck knife buried on the perimeter of the former O.J. Simpson estate years ago.

• PHOTOS: The O.J. Simpson case

Sources told TMZ that the construction worker took the knife to the street, where he gave it to an off-duty LAPD traffic officer who was working security for a movie shoot at a house across the street.

According to TMZ, the officer took the knife home and kept it, and in January -- after he retired from the LAPD -- he contacted a friend who worked in LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division and told his friend about the knife and said he was getting it framed to put on his wall. He wanted his friend to get the department record number for the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ronald Goldman murder case, which he plaed on engraving in the frame.

“We’re told the friend was indignant, and told his superiors,” TMZ reported. “The brass was outraged and demanded that the retired cop tu the knife over, which he did.”

The knife is being tested for hair and fingerprints, and will be moved next week to the Serology Unit, where it will be tested for DNA and other biological evidence.

“One source familiar with the investigation tells us, cops who eyeballed the knife think it could have blood residue on it, but it’s hard to know without testing because it’s extremely rusted and stained,” TMZ reported.

Since Simpson was acquitted of the murder charges, the case remains open, according to TMZ, although Simpson could not be prosecuted again since that would constitute double jeopardy.

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