By Chris Perez | Westword
It’s not often that an accused murderer and convicted felon gets treated like royalty, but that’s what happened for years in Summit County and popular mountain towns like Vail and Aspen when O.J. Simpson showed up.
“They’re exceptionally nice,” Simpson told the Summit Daily News in 2006, noting that Summit County was home to the friendliest people he had ever met.
“I don’t want to say Mayberry, but I’d say Stepford,” Simpson said. “It’s hard to believe you still get a good neighborly feel somewhere. People are happy to just say, ‘Hi, welcome.’ Normally everyone wants something — an autograph, a picture.”
Simpson, who was found not guilty of the 1994 killing of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman in one of the world’s most infamous and criticized murder trials, was announced dead by his family today, April 11, as a result of cancer. He was 76.