Murder of Michael Nigg

Michael Nigg
An undated photograph of Nigg
Born	(1969-04-28)April 28, 1969 Gunnison, Colorado, US
Died	September 8, 1995(1995-09-08) (aged 26) Hollywood, California, US
Cause of death	Homicide by gunshot wound
Nationality	American
Occupation	Waiter, actor, model

Michael Nigg (April 28, 1969 – September 8, 1995) was an aspiring actor who worked as a waiter at a Beverly Hills restaurant. He was shot and killed during an apparent robbery attempt in Hollywood. The Los Angeles Police Department later arrested three suspects but soon released them for lack of evidence. No other suspects have ever been identified, and the killing remains unsolved.

The case attracted some media coverage at the time, because Nigg had formerly worked at the Mezzaluna restaurant in Brentwood, where he had been a friend of Ronald Goldman's. Almost 15 months earlier, Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson had been found slain at her home near the restaurant, after he had gone there to return her mother's eyeglasses, which had been left behind at Mezzaluna. Brown Simpson's ex-husband, former football star O. J. Simpson, had been charged with the murders, and his highly publicized trial had reached closing arguments.

Simpson, who has consistently professed his innocence in the Brown and Goldman killings, was acquitted of the murder charges almost a month after Nigg's death. Alternative theories of the murders, supposedly shared by Simpson, have suggested they were related to drug trafficking in the Los Angeles area, and that Nigg's was as well; Nigg apparently lived very well for a waiter, and there were some allegations he, too, had been involved in the drug trade while working at the Mezzaluna branch in Colorado before. Nigg and Goldman, it has also been noted, were not the only waiters at Mezzaluna to be the victims of criminal activity during the mid-1990s.

Nigg was born in Gunnison, Colorado, where he grew up and attended Western State University. After graduating, he went to the Los Angeles area to try to start an acting or modeling career. He made an appearance on Liars, a syndicated television series.