OJ Simpson died the comfortable death in old age that Nicole Brown should have had | Moira Donegan

The 1994 murders of Simpson's ex and her friend Ron Goldman are inextricable from society's failure of domestic abuse victims

OJ Simpson is dead, and Nicole Brown should still be alive. Simpson, the longtime batterer and stalker of Nicole Brown Simpson, and the man who all but confessed to her gruesome stabbing murder in June of 1994, died on Wednesday of cancer. He passed at his home in Las Vegas, surrounded by his children and grandchildren", according to a statement issued by his family. He was 76.

Simpson died in bed, receiving medical care to make him comfortable, at the end of his natural life. He had reached old age; we can infer that when he took his last breaths, he was surrounded by well wishes and love. His was a very different death from the one he allegedly inflicted on his former wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman. They did not die in bed; they probably died screaming. And for Nicole, at least, her death was the culmination of a years-long campaign of terrorism that OJ had waged against her since they met; it was the moment their whole relationship had been leading to.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist