LOS ANGELES — Philip Vannatter, the Los Angeles police detective who served as a lead investigator in the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, has died.
His brother, Joe, says Vannatter died Friday in Southern California of complications from cancer. He was 70.
Vannatter spent 28 years with the LAPD, mostly as a homicide detective. He later consulted on cold-case murders.
He was among the first detectives on the scene at former football star O.J. Simpson's mansion in June 1994, following the stabbing deaths of Simpson's wife Nicole and her friend, Ron Goldman. Vannatter testified at the murder trial, at which Simpson was acquitted.
In 1977, Vannatter conducted the investigation that led to the arrest of film director Roman Polanski on charges of having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.
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