O.J. SIMPSON . . . IF ONLY THE DOG COULD TALK

Prosecutors today cited the howls of Nicole Brown Simpson’s dog to fix the time of the double murder. Neighbors testified that they heard the barking or saw the dog, an Akita named Kato, between 10:15 and 11 p.m. the night of the murders. Eva Stein, Nicole’s next-door neighbor, said she was awakened at around 10:15 by the “very loud barking of dogs.” Another neighbor, Steven Schwab, said that while walking his dog at about 10:55 pm, he came across the Akita, which had bloody paws. As Schwab headed home, the dog followed him, he said. “It would howl at every house we passed. It would stop and bark down the path,” he said. When he examined the Akita, he found no injuries that would account for the blood. Sukru Boztepe, another neighbor, followed Kato to Nicole’s home, discovering the bodies of O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman. Prosecutors claim that according to the times cited by witnesses today, O.J. Simpson would have been able to commit the murders, clean up and still board a limousine for the airport a little after 11 p.m.In another development, Judge Lance Ito ruled that O.J. Simpson’s first wife, Marquerite Simpson Thomas, must testify at the trial. Her lawyer had testified that she had received the subpoena improperly. Prosecutors want her to testify because, they say, Simpson had two telephone conversations with his first wife the day of his arrest, including one call made from his Bronco as police pursued him on a California freeway.