Podcast Corner: Host relives brother’s death in famous case

At the start of the 10th and final episode of Confronting: OJ Simpson, a series which has been downloaded over five million times since launching in June, host Kim Goldman is in tears, talking to her father about how strong he was through the murder of her brother, his son, Ron Goldman.

She says: “My brother’s loss was the most difficult thing for me to face. Going back and discussing it gave me pause about some things, as it related to evidence, as it related to the jury...”

Ron Goldman was stabbed to death on the same day in 1994 as Nicole Brown, in the driveway of her home. In the ‘trial of the century’ that followed, the former NFL star OJ Simpson was found not guilty of their murders. Kim Goldman sat through the whole trial, suffered through every lurid detail heard around the world. Twenty-five years later, she is the stoic host of this series.

The rise of the true crime genre in podcasts can be a strange experience for the listener — the murder mysteries have you on tenterhooks,waiting for the next gruesome detail. Confronting looks at the other side, those left behind, those still searching for justice.

Kim talks to investigators, witnesses, and members of the jury, wondering what they make of it all now,decades later, do they regret anything? Would they do things differently? Episode six, ‘Get Over It’, is the most shocking, as executive producer Nancy Glass talks to Simpson’s lawyer, the mouthy,offensive Malcolm LaVergne. It will leave you seething.

The series, not including bonus episodes, concludes by playing the messages left on Ron’s answer machine on June 12, 1994.

The phone calls move from tentative plans being made to people wanting to know he’s okay after hearing his name on the news to stricken friends just wanting to hear his voice one more time. Why did the family keep the messages? “We kept them because those were the last few things connecting us to Ron ... it just seemed like the right thing to do.” The grief is palpable.

YOU’VE GOT TO HEAR THIS:

The second episode of the nine-part Dolly Parton’s America is released today. It tells “the story of a legend at the crossroads of America’s culture wars”.