Simpson Defense Team Studies Police Evidence : Court: There is no bloody ski mask, a prosecutor says. 911 tapes tell of tumultuous relationship with ex-wife.

As police released new details of a stormy encounter between a jealous O.J. Simpson and his ex-wife late last year, lawyers defending the football legend were allowed to examine detailed evidence in the double murder case against him, including coroner’s photos, tissue and blood samples and tapes of an unusual three-hour interview he gave investigators the day after the killings.

The Los Angeles Police Department released tapes of 911 telephone calls involving an October, 1993, incident in which Simpson allegedly kicked in the door at the home of his ex-wife. Police said Nicole Simpson told them that he had been at her house earlier in the evening and became upset over a picture of an ex-boyfriend in her photo album. A breathless Nicole Simpson is heard saying on one tape: “My ex-husband just broke in and he’s ranting and raving. . . . He’s crazy.”

The tapes provide new details of the tumultuous union between the former high school homecoming princess and the Heisman Trophy winner--a relationship that prosecutors contend ended brutally when he killed Nicole and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman eleven days ago.

The high drama also spilled into the courtroom Wednesday, as the prosecutor shot down one of the more sensational reports in the torrent of coverage of the slayings: that investigators had recovered a bloody ski mask and booked it into evidence. “There is no ski mask,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Marcia Clark said.

Millions of Americans, already drawn to the strange, twisting saga via the unrelenting eye of the news media, were zoomed into the courtroom and inadvertently allowed to eavesdrop on a private exchange between the jailed sports hero and the bailiffs. “I’ll do anything to stay out of that cell,” Simpson said in a plaintive, personal aside picked up by a television microphone that the judge later sternly ordered removed. The comment--the first personal reaction by Simpson broadcast since the sensational case exploded 10 days ago--came as the officers tried to usher him from the courtroom during a break in the proceedings.

In a dark, pin-striped suit and tie-less shirt open at the collar, Simpson appeared more attentive and relaxed than during his first court appearance Monday. He said little, but no longer seemed dazed and groggy as his eyes scanned the spectators and reporters packed into the courtroom of Municipal Judge Patti Jo McKay.

Immediately after the procedural hearing, the defense team, including two forensic pathologists, descended on the coroner’s office to examine evidence under the supervision of the coroner, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran. The coroner looked on but declined to answer any defense team questions about the evidence, said his spokesman, Scott Carrier.

After a four-hour review of material in a secured, subterranean area of the coroner’s complex, the lead pathologist for the defense team, Dr. Michael Baden, emerged and immediately disputed chilling reports that Nicole Simpson had been nearly decapitated.

“No, no. There is none,” Baden said of the near-decapitation reports as he made his way to a waiting cab.

Joining the defense team at the coroner’s office and in the courtroom was a new co-counsel, retiring Santa Clara University School of Law Dean Gerald Uelmen. Lead attorney Robert Shapiro described Uelmen, 53, as “the foremost constitutional scholar in California” and said Uelmen would explore “statements that could prejudice or preclude a fair trial” for his client.

Uelmen, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who is considered an expert on the death penalty, has known Shapiro for 20 years and the two worked together on the high-profile slaying involving Marlon Brando’s son. “I’m probably more of a scholar than an advocate,” Uelmen said. “That can be a useful perspective in terms of some of the legal issues that might emerge.”

In other developments:

* The Los Angeles judge widely criticized for giving Simpson allegedly lenient treatment in a 1989 domestic battery case involving Nicole Simpson called a news conference to defend his handling of the case, saying that the athlete had received no special treatment. Judge Ronald R. Schoenberg said the city attorney’s office agreed with a sentence that included no jail time.

* More than a dozen black activists held a news conference in Watts to urge the media to focus on everyday African American heroes, rather than celebrities, and to bring balance to the coverage of O.J. Simpson.

* A Los Angeles detective wrapped up an unsuccessful hunt for the murder weapon in Chicago, saying he had recovered useful evidence and witness statements, leaving open the possibility that investigators could return to the city where Simpson headed after the slayings. Among the items collected by investigators were a broken glass and bloodstained washcloth. Simpson has maintained that a cut on his hand came from a glass that broke in the hotel room where he briefly stayed.

* Divorce court records offered new details about the financial and personal relationship between Nicole and O.J. Simpson. Nicole began dating the former sports star when she was 18 and just out of high school and moved in with him when she was 19, according to papers filed by her attorneys in the 1992 divorce case. Seeking large alimony payments to maintain a lavish, bi-coastal lifestyle, her attorneys portrayed Nicole Simpson as a community college dropout who sacrificed her own career to be a devoted companion to her high-profile husband who “required that she be with him.”

* The Los Angeles County Grand Jury on Wednesday continued--for a fourth day--hearing evidence in the O.J. Simpson case in secret. Jurors are due to return today to hear more testimony that prosecutors apparently hope will lead to an indictment against Simpson and eliminate a preliminary hearing June 30, the day the grand jury’s term expires.

* In Washington, women’s rights advocates and several lawmakers, citing the Simpson case, urged Congress to pass legislation requiring training on domestic violence for police officers and judges. National Organization for Women President Patricia Ireland said men who beat their wives are often treated leniently by the criminal justice system.

In court, the most significant development was the acknowledgment that a bloody ski mask is not among the evidence against Simpson gathered by police.

Shapiro extracted the information when he said in court that the ski mask was among two items that had been reported as evidence by some journalists, but which were not on the list of evidence given to him by the prosecution.

Later, when asked, he would not say what the second item is.

In her remarks to McKay, Clark noted that statements that Simpson gave police the day after the slayings were made voluntarily and that he had waived his right to remain silent.

She said she would turn over a tape-recording of those statements to the defense team along with any other evidence or reports that the defense requested, including some raw notes.

Clark lost her bid, however, to videotape the defense team as it examined physical evidence gathered from the autopsies. But McKay ordered that someone from the coroner’s office be on hand during the examination. In other rulings, McKay ordered that Simpson be provided with a cervical pillow to ease his discomfort from what his lawyer said is an old football injury.

On Monday, Shapiro was given a set of autopsy reports and a still-sealed written narrative of the department’s findings, he said.

At the coroner’s office Wednesday, Carrier would not comment on much-publicized television reports detailing gruesome crime scene theories, and attributed to a coroner’s office source. “I think we heard all kinds of reports. There’s been a lot of speculation. . . . We are saddened by it. . . . As far as we’re concerned, they are rumors. We can’t substantiate it anyway.”

Carrier said the doctor who performed the autopsy on both victims was Dr. Irwin Golden, who also was the forensic pathologist for the autopsies in the Menendez killings.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Rich Connell, Tina Daunt, Rich Simon, Carla Rivera and Leslie Berger.