Feb. 17--The morning of June 12, 1994, Ron Goldman played softball with a group of friends. Hours later, the waiter from Buffalo Grove was found murdered with Nicole Brown Simpson outside her California home, his friend David Chokachi recalled.
"We had this little pact of guys. We had just all arrived in L.A., you know, just total idiots, whatever. We all hung around in Brentwood and we were friends with Nicole and we didn't know. We were so naive and innocent," Chokachi told E! News in a story posted online Wednesday. "Ron was a good friend of ours and the day that he was murdered, we played softball together that morning ... and it happened that night."
Goldman, who attended Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, was reportedly returning a pair of forgotten eyeglasses to Brown's home when he was stabbed to death. Her ex-husband O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in what was dubbed the "trial of the century," which is the subject of the new FX miniseries "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story."
Chokachi, who starred on "Baywatch" and appears in the new film "Black Files," said he hasn't seen the show because "it touches a nerve." Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Simpson, Sarah Paulson portrays prosecutor Marcia Clark and Northwestern University alumnus David Schwimmer plays Simpson attorney Robert Kardashian.
"Mostly I feel, you know, for his family because he never had a chance to go on and have his own family or anything like that," Chokachi said. "I just feel for his family. That's got to be brutal because you've lost your son or your brother and there's so much life that has happened beyond when this happened."
"The People v. O.J. Simpson" airs 9 p.m. Tuesdays.
