Grisly Goldman Photos Jolt Juror Victim’s Family Cries As Coroner Offers Reconstruction Of Attack

Ronald Goldman’s family cried Thursday and stared across the courtroom at O.J. Simpson as a coroner described Goldman’s struggle with a killer who taunted him with knife swipes to the throat before slashing his jugular vein.

One juror, apparently overcome by the sight of the Goldman autopsy photos, rushed from the jury box, and court was cut short.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a long day,” Superior Court Judge Lance Ito said when the juror returned to the box. “We’re going to take a recess at this time.” At that, Ito adjourned 90 minutes early.

The 37-year-old black female juror appeared shaken. She had a handkerchief in her hand and was shaking slightly as she sat in her seat just inches from the color autopsy photos.

Before testimony ended, a prosecutor for the first time in the trial’s five months tried to reconstruct how Goldman was killed, eliciting from the coroner descriptions of two parallel, superficial cuts on his neck.

“These look to be some threatening cuts,” Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran said. “This is something you threaten somebody with. You threaten you’re going to do bodily harm to them.”

He said he felt Goldman was immobilized early and demonstrated on prosecutor Brian Kelberg how a killer could have grabbed the victim from behind and sliced a knife lightly across his throat.

“He was held so he couldn’t move, so these controlled cuts could be made,” the coroner said.

Eventually, he said, the killer sliced Goldman’s jugular vein and made two cuts to his aorta.

Fred Goldman, father of the 25-year-old victim, took off his glasses and wept at the description of the fatal slash. His wife, Patti, and daughter, Kim, also cried, and a court clerk brought them cups of water.

When Kelberg asked how long it would take for a killer who was 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, “in a rage, armed with a 6-inch blade” to inflict all of the wounds, Kim Goldman stared at Simpson.

Ronald Goldman was 5-foot-7 1/2 and weighed 179 pounds.

Simpson, who matches the description given by Kelberg, sat at the counsel table calmly taking notes.

In the midst of the testimony, an elderly alternate juror started coughing, took off his glasses and wiped his face with a handkerchief. He has been suffering from a cold.

Lakshmanan said all of Goldman’s wounds could have been inflicted quickly, and “without medical treatment he would have died within five minutes.”