Nicole Brown Simpson was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on May 19, 1959. Her parents, Lou Brown and his wife, Juditha, had met in West Germany, where Juditha was from, in the 1950s, while Lou was working as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for the armed forces.

The couple initially set up life in Frankfurt, where the Browns had two girls, Denise and Nicole. When their daughters were still toddlers, the family moved to the United States, settling in a home in Garden Grove, California. There, the Browns had two more daughters, Dominique and Tanya.

Nicole had no problem adjusting to California life. As a young teen, she gravitated toward the beach, a blonde beauty who was well-liked and wasn't shy about having expensive tastes.

By the age of 18, Simpson had begun working as a waitress at an upscale Beverly Hills nightclub. It was there that she first met O.J. Simpson, who was married at the time and in the waning years of a Hall of Fame football career.

By all accounts, the two quickly fell hard for each other and soon began dating. O.J. eventually divorced his first wife, Marguerite, in 1979. Six years later, O.J. and Nicole married at his large Brentwood home.

O.J., who already had two children from his first marriage, became a father twice more with Nicole. In 1985, the couple welcomed a daughter, Sydney, and three years later, they had a son named Justin.

Nicole was reportedly a devoted mother. She eschewed nannies, insisted on taking her children to dance and karate lessons herself, and loved to welcome family into her home for holiday events and birthday parties. Outside her role as a mother, Simpson started a small interior-decorating business.

Her marriage, however, was far from serene. O.J. wasn't just unfaithful, he was abusive. Friends and relatives would later recount seeing bruises on Nicole's body. There were numerous incidents, but the most ghastly came in 1991, when a beaten and battered Nicole Simpson called 911. Police arrested a belligerent O.J., but he suffered little in the way of consequences.

Finally, in 1992, after years of abuse and philandering by her husband, Nicole filed for divorce.

Newly single and on her own, Nicole Simpson relished her new life. Armed with a $433,000 settlement from her divorce and $10,000 a month in child support, she was free to live as she pleased. She paraded around Brentwood in a white Ferrari, and once a week headed to a popular Santa Monica dance club.

But her efforts to distance herself completely from ex-husband soon proved successful. A seemingly paranoid O.J. was known to follow her, reportedly even hiding out in the bushes of her yard.

"I'm scared," Nicole later told her mother, Juditha. "I go to the gas station, he's there. I'm driving, and he's behind me."

Then, in the early morning hours of June 13, 1994, Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, were found stabbed to death outside of her Los Angeles condominium. Police eventually charged O.J. with the brutal murders, setting into motion an emotional and racially charged trial that ended with a jury finding him not guilty of either murder.

In the years since Nicole Simpson's death, her family has continued to wait for justice, as no one has ever been charged with her murder. She is buried at Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest, California.

Nicole Brown simpso