Goldmans to Sell House, Move to Arizona
Soon the silver Jeep with the RMBR RON license plates may vanish from affluent Oak Park, along with the TV news vans that so often prowled the neighborhood’s quiet streets.
The Ventura County community’s most inadvertently famous residents--Fred and Patti Goldman--have put their house up for sale and are headed to Scottsdale, Ariz.
“I guess we fall into the category of being empty-nesters,” said Fred, who was thrust into the spotlight when his son, Ron, was killed along with former football star O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife. “The move will accomplish a couple of things at once--we’ll downsize our house now that the kids are in college and at work, we’ll do something new and different and we have friends there.”
The Goldmans’ decision to put their two-story house on the market marks a bittersweet passage for the sleepy suburb of Oak Park, adjacent to Los Angeles County’s Agoura Hills. The family’s neighbors and friends say they are both relieved and saddened by the turn of events.
“I think it’s probably a pretty wise decision to move on,” said teacher Ruth Bloom, who knows Fred, his daughter, Kim, and Patti and her two grown children. Patti’s “kids are in school in Arizona. It’s been a really tough four years, and reminders of Ron are everywhere here. I wish them well.”
Despite having experienced the odd phenomenon of instant celebrity, Fred Goldman said Wednesday that the move is not a dash away from the limelight.
Goldman, 57, is still interested in working on a television or radio show that promotes victims rights and stiffer criminal sentencing guidelines. In 1996, he left a 30-year career in sales to pursue those goals by taking a $100,000-a-year job with the nonprofit Safe Streets Coalition.
But the grieving father said the Washington, D.C.-based group has since folded after struggling with fund-raising. Although Safe Streets is still listed in Washington as an active nonprofit organization, its local phone and East Coast phone lines have been disconnected.
Since Safe Streets’ demise, the Goldmans have been living off book profits, speaking fees and Patti’s electrology. Fred said he has yet to see a penny of the $33.5 million awarded the Goldman and Brown families in civil court.
Whether in Arizona or the Los Angeles area, Goldman vowed to continue his work as a “general rabble-rouser.”
“Every year, families just like ours experience the same horrible nightmare--we just happen to be part of a case that gained national notoriety,” he said. “Maybe because we were visible, people understood that a little more.” One neighbor who lives on the Goldman’s well-tended street said the family’s departure--provided that their home sells--might bring peace to the area.
The media onslaught after each twist in the criminal and civil cases against Simpson--who was cleared in a criminal double-murder trial but held civilly responsible for the two deaths--has wearied the Goldmans’ neighbors.
Many of them grew adept at snapping out “no comments” without opening the front door.
“It’s been pretty quiet lately,” said one neighbor, who would not give her name. “But before, ugh.”
