Ron Goldman

Birthday July 2, 1968

Birth Sign Cancer

Birthplace Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

DEATH DATE 1994, Los Angeles, California, U.S. (26 years old)

Nationality United States

#2676 Most Popular

1940

His parents divorced in 1974, however, when he was six years old, and after spending a brief time in the custody of his mother, Sharon Rufo (née Fohrman), he was raised by his father, Frederic Goldman (born December 6, 1940).

Goldman lived with his father and his younger sister.

Goldman was raised Jewish.

He attended high school at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois.

He was a student at Illinois State University for one semester, where he planned to major in psychology, and he also had an interest in becoming a pledge in Sigma Nu fraternity.

After his family relocated to Southern California when he was 18 years old, however, Goldman discontinued his studies and followed his family.

Prior to relocating with his family, Goldman worked as a camp counselor and had experience volunteering with children suffering from cerebral palsy.

While living in Los Angeles, Goldman took some classes at Pierce College.

He learned to surf and enjoyed playing beach volleyball, rollerblading, and nightclubbing.

Upon arriving in California, Goldman lived independently from his family and supported himself by working as an employment headhunter and tennis instructor.

He then had a string of waiter jobs.

He also occasionally worked as a model for Barry Zeldes, owner of the Z90049 store in Brentwood Gardens.

Not long before his death, he had earned an Emergency Medical Technician's license, but he did not pursue that career.

Instead, Goldman told friends that he wanted to open a bar or restaurant in the Brentwood area.

He had shared with friends his vision that this would not be known by a name, but by the ankh, an Egyptian religious symbol of life that matched the tattoo on his shoulder.

According to his friend, Jeff Keller, he wanted to learn all facets of the restaurant-bar business, and occasionally worked as a promoter at a Century City dance club called Tripps.

For Memorial Day, he participated with a group of event promoters in organizing a party at Renaissance, a club and restaurant on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

1968

Ronald Lyle Goldman (July 2, 1968 – June 12, 1994) was an American restaurant waiter and a friend of Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of the American football player O. J. Simpson.

Goldman was born on July 2, 1968.

He grew up in the community of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, near Chicago.

1992

Goldman had also expressed aspirations to act and to be on a show, and he appeared as a contestant on the short-lived game show Studs in 1992.

He had dated Jacqui Bell for nearly two years before she broke off their relationship three months before his death.

1994

He was murdered, along with Brown, at her home in Los Angeles, California, on June 12, 1994.

According to a June 15, 1994, Los Angeles Times article published three days after his death, Goldman met Brown only six weeks prior to the date they were murdered, when he borrowed her Ferrari.

The two grew increasingly friendly, occasionally meeting for coffee and dinner in the weeks before their deaths.

According to police and friends, however, the relationship between the two was platonic.

One article noted that he had borrowed her car when he met his friend, Craig Clark, for lunch.

According to Clark, he told him it was her car, but that he did not say she was his girlfriend.

Instead, Goldman said they were friends.

On the evening of Sunday, June 12, 1994, Goldman worked a server shift at Mezzaluna Trattoria, a restaurant located in Brentwood, California.

Brown called to report that her mother accidentally left her reading glasses on the table when they dined there earlier in the evening.

Goldman was not their server.

After a search turned up the glasses in the restaurant, and at Brown’s request, Goldman agreed to drop them at her home after work.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Goldman "punched out at 9:33 pm and stayed another 15 minutes to have bottled water at the bar."

Before returning the glasses, he stopped by his Brentwood apartment at 11663 Gorham Avenue.

He had made plans to go out with Mezzaluna's bartender Stewart Tanner later that evening.

Goldman then walked the approximately 10 minutes to Brown’s condominium.

Goldman and Brown were stabbed to death on the walkway leading to the condominium at 875 South Bundy Drive.

Police found their bodies shortly after midnight.

1995

Simpson was acquitted of their killings in 1995 but found liable for both deaths in a 1997 civil lawsuit.