Sister of Nicole Brown Simpson on release date of Ford Bronco: 'Are you kidding me?'

Tanya Brown didn't know whether to laugh or cry when she learned that Ford Motor Co. planned to reveal the all-new Ford Bronco July 9.

"Is that on purpose?" she asked. "My first reaction was, 'are you kidding me? This is funny?' "

The Brown family is surprised the world premiere of the popular SUV falls on the birthday of former football star Orenthal James "O.J." Simpson, who led police on a slow-speed chase in a Ford Bronco through Los Angeles after the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.

"I just don't know if it's a good marketing twist," Tanya Brown, Nicole's sister, told the Free Press.

The timing was "purely coincidental," a Ford spokesman said.

The painful trauma of an 11-month trial still feels fresh even today, she said. It's especially hard for Juditha Brown, now a widow, who buried her eldest daughter all those years ago.

She and Tanya combed through old family photo albums in Laguna Niguel, California, late Tuesday. It was the eve of the 26th anniversary of the infamous police chase.

"She’s one who has remained very private, very quiet," said Tanya Brown, 50, the youngest of the four Brown girls, said of her mother. "She asked me, 'Why is it that I'm reflecting on the past? Why am I thinking about the trial?' "

"We have moved on but you don't forget. You learn to live without that person. It gets easier with time. I think that's a defense we've all been given anytime somebody dies."

Over the years, the Brown family has grown used to seeing their name in headlines associated with the so-called trial of the century that ended with the acquittal of Simpson. He later lost a wrongful death civil case.

During the chase, the driver of the Bronco, former football player Al Cowlings, called 911 and reported Simpson had a gun and threatened to kill himself in the backseat. The whole thing was captured live on TV as media helicopters hovered overhead.

"That whole event changed us," Tanya Brown said. "Nicole was 10 years older than me. I was 8 when she moved out of the house. My grief was that her candle was blown out right when our lives were kind of intersecting. I was in college, at UC-San Diego. I was getting to know her as a woman and a big sister."

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