Nicole Brown Simpson’s Sisters Break Their Silence Over O.J.’s Death: 'It’s Very Complicated' (Exclusive)

Nicole Brown Simpson's sisters exclusively tell PEOPLE in this week's issue that they had mixed emotions when O.J. Simpson died on April 10

The three sisters of Nicole Brown Simpson are breaking their silence on the recent death of O.J. Simpson.

When O.J. died from cancer at the age of 76 on April 10, Tanya, 54, Dominique, 59, and oldest Brown sister Denise, 66, had mixed emotions.

“It’s very complicated,” says Dominique in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

Tanya adds, “This is a person who’s been in our life for a very long time, who wreaked havoc on our family. It’s like the end of a chapter.”

On June 12, 1994, Nicole, 35, and her friend Ron Goldman, 25, were found brutally stabbed to death in the courtyard of her Brentwood, Los Angeles, condominium. Though he was acquitted of the double murders in the so-called “Trial of the Century” in October 1995, O.J. was deemed liable for the deaths in 1997 in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the Brown and Goldman families.

Denise and Dominique can remember the exact day Nicole, then 18 and an aspiring model and photographer, introduced them to O.J. in 1977. She’d met the then-married football star while working at a Los Angeles restaurant. “He was just her boyfriend to us,” says Dominique.

But when Nicole invited them to upstate New York to watch the famed Buffalo Bills running back play, “he made a touchdown, and he looked up at all of us. I was like, ‘Wow, look at this guy. He’s amazing,’” she says.

But the good time turned bad, as it often did with O.J., says Denise. “All hell broke loose when we came home that night,” as O.J. “flipped out” over seeing Nicole kiss a mutual male friend on the cheek at the game. “He had her upstairs in the bathroom crying. He said, ‘You embarrassed me.’ ”

When Nicole got pregnant with O.J.'s child, she was elated, because she considered becoming a mom a crowning achievement. “It just opened her heart more,” says Dominique. “I think she thought that everything would be different having a child.” (Nicole and O.J. share two children, daughter Sydney, now 38, and son Justin, 35.)

In reality O.J. only became more volatile. “She was pregnant, and he was calling her a fat pig,” Denise recalls.

For more on the life of Nicole Brown Simpson, as shared by her three sisters, subscribe now to PEOPLE, or pick up this week's issue, on newsstands Friday.

In a new Lifetime documentary series titled The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, which airs over two nights on June 1 and 2, the sisters recount an incident during a family vacation in Hawaii when O.J. assaulted Nicole after a gay restaurant patron at a neighboring table kissed their baby son Justin on the forehead.

Still, after all that they had witnessed over the years, “I thought they were isolated incidences,” says Denise.

Tanya says she only learned the extent of O.J.’s violence during his trial for her sister’s murder. “I was looking at the pictures, and then I looked at him, and I remember saying, ‘How can you do something like this to someone you love?’ ” (The pictures of Nicole’s bruised face shown in court were taken by Denise in 1989.)

When Denise learned of her sister’s violent death, she instantly felt in her gut who was responsible.

“The moment my mom got the phone call, I heard this screaming from my parents’ bedroom,” she says. “It was gut-wrenching. I grabbed the phone, and the detective said, ‘Your sister’s been killed.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, he did it, he finally did it.’ I knew in my heart [it was O.J.].”

Tanya says it was when the DNA evidence — including blood found in O.J.’s white Bronco and at his house — was introduced at trial that she knew for sure: “DNA doesn’t lie.”

As for Dominique, she refuses to discuss her thoughts on O.J.’s culpability. “Because of the children, I’m not going to answer,” she says out of respect for her niece and nephew, who were upstairs sleeping at their mother’s home at the time of her murder.

When they think of Nicole today, the Brown sisters are grateful to remember the brief period of joy and independence she relished after her split from O.J. (Nicole filed for divorce in 1992).

“What no one knows she experienced before her death is freedom,” says Dominique. “There was this levity about her. She was glowing.”

Tanya adds, “I’m so glad that she had a good time the last two years of her life. I can’t bring her back, so why not try to look at it like that?”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson airs over two nights on June 1 and June 2 on Lifetime.

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