Her body ravaged by arthritis, her knees weak from joint-replacement surgery, Eunice Simpson was helped from her wheelchair and walked gingerly across the courtroom, supported by a cane and one of her son's attorneys.
She was helped up the steps of the witness stand and allowed to take the oath sitting down. The 73-year-old woman turned up her hearing aid, raised her right hand and swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.At the defense table sat a beaming O.J. Simpson. In the audience were two of Eunice Simpson's other children, smiling, chuckling at her hearing lapses. Sitting across the aisle were the families of the two people O.J. Simpson is accused of murdering on June 12, 1994. They were silent.
Under gentle questioning Monday from attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr., Eunice Simpson discussed her hard life, her son's humble beginnings, Sundays playing the piano for children at church - and that horrible evening when Simpson's family and friends gathered at his mansion and wondered just what had happened the night before.
Eunice Simpson's appearance was a poignant moment on the opening day of the defense case, which included testimony from O.J. Simpson's daughter, his sister, an interior decorator and a woman he encountered at a benefit dinner.
All of the witnesses described Simpson's demeanor before and after the knife murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. But none offered the drama of Eunice Simpson.
Her very presence served the defense's purposes. The same rheumatoid arthritis she suffers from afflicts Simpson, the defense says, making it impossible for him to have used a knife with such deadly efficiency.
Eunice Simpson testified that on the evening after the murders, she and her son sat next to each other on the couch in Simpson's TV room.
"We were gripping each other," she said. "At first, a hug, and then my hand."
"Did he proceed to hold your hand?" Cochran asked.
"All during the time," she said.
The prosecution wasn't about to touch her in cross-examination, even though she said prosecution witness Ronald Shipp looked "spaced" while drinking beer that night. Prosecutor Christopher Darden told the judge: "Your honor, we have no questions for Mrs. Simpson."
With that, Eunice Simpson made the long walk back to the audience, assisted by an attorney and a bailiff. She sat back in her wheelchair just behind Simpson.
Jurors kept stealing glances at her. Goldman's stepmother, Patti Goldman, leaned forward and gazed at Eunice Simpson.
The day offered other Simpson family moments as well. O.J. Simpson gazed lovingly at his daughter Arnelle Simpson and sister Carmelita Simpson-Durio as they told jurors he was distressed to the point of shock and confusion after the murders.
Arnelle Simpson, 26, was led through a point-by-point rebuttal of portions of the prosecution case, countering damaging accounts by Shipp and police detectives who went to her father's estate and woke her up early the morning the bodies were found.
She used the words "shocked," "upset," "emotional," "out of control" and "distraught" as Cochran repeatedly asked her to describe her father's demeanor when he was told his ex-wife was dead.