Famous football star and defendant in one of the biggest murder trials in U.S. history, OJ Simpson, died Thursday.
Simpson heavily influenced pop culture and thoughts surrounding the U.S. legal system, but he was also a part of a mystery surrounding the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Since 1985, Simpson's bust has been on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the hall has a policy where it will not remove a bust after someone is inducted.
However, in 1995, the hall didn't remove it, but someone else did.
Amidst his trial in Los Angeles in July of 1995, a thief in Canton took the 45-pound bust, placed it in a duffel bag and walked right out of the hall with it.
Two screws secured the bust to keep it from toppling over; however, the thief had cut those. The bust was taken on a busy Sunday, the one right before the start of Hall of Fame Week.
The bust was gone for about 17 hours before ODOT crew members found it in Cleveland along I-77 near the East 30th Street exit ramp, as this incident had begun to make national news.
There was no damage to the bust and it was returned to the hall and remains there to this day.
The thief who stole the bust was never caught.
Take a look at News 5's Joe Pagonakis's 1995 coverage of the stolen bust in the player below:
