Talk:Killing of Michael Nigg

Question about Nigg's income

his article suggests that the victim Nigg must have been involved drug sales because he appeared to live beyond his means. Has anyone actually attempted to verify this to be true? Did he have an allowance from his family? Did he have a Trust or income from an Annuity? Many starting actors don't pay rent but instead, share or house-sit expensive homes or apartments for better-off friends in the business who are frequently out of town on Location. Also, did he own or lease that Mercedes that is used to damn him as a drug dealer? Was it even his? Could it have belonged to his GF? Leasing a car, even a luxury car, is often cheaper in monthly payments than buying one. I lease a car and it permits me to drive a nicer car than I could afford if I were to have to purchase one. If you have good credit, and a younger person often does, Car dealerships bend over backwards to get such a client into a lease. My former boss was leasing an Infinity for about $180 a month at the time of the murders. Today, he'd likely have to pay $350 but still - I'm simply pointing out that Leasing is attractive to those who want to live flashy. There may be some truth to this theory of his death but the article needs more than a Pro-Simpson defense book to pass the NPOV test.LiPollis (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I tried in my wording to make clear that according to the authors of the books in question, some of Nigg'a acquaintances believed he lived beyond his means. They did not go into that level of detail, and as long as we make clear we are not stating things like these as verifiable fact, rather that some other reliable source made this claim, I think we are OK (to that end I will modify the wording of the statements in the intro and put in the sources cited in the article). To ask more from our sources, as much as I would like that level of detail myself, is essentially imposing our own editorial policies on them (see this AfD nomination for what happens when an editor makes this mistake), which we cannot do as we are really supposed to leave it up to the reader to decide whether a source's information is credible or not.

I suppose that the police report on the murder, if available, might fill in some of these details (i.e., how old was the Benz). While we generally discourage people from using police reports as sources since they are primary sources, for some statement of fact like this it might be OK. Daniel Case (talk) 05:13, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for working on the article to make as many of the asserted facts referenced. It would be nice if the sources were more than pro-Simpson defense vehicles, but we take what we can get when it comes to published sources, eh? I'll try using Google books and published articles at the time of his death. One can also look up the books written by the Prosecution team in the Simpson Case ans the Simpson Civil case coverage to see what the other side had to say about these theories. They might offer some insight. LiPollis (talk) 20:56, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

@Lisa Collison:My argument about the sources I've used is that they were published by reliable publishers ... at least as far as Killing Time goes, since that's really the best independent source (i.e., not in a book cowritten by one of O.J.'s lawyers, though of course I did use that since a) it meets our reliable sourcing guidelines and b) is the only source that attributes that theory to O.J. himself (Although I've gotten the impression from the other books that, in private, he stated this theory more explicitly and quite often) for any claim that Nigg was involved in drug trafficking, at least prior to his relocation to California, which is what I have tried to limit the article to. The other source, that states it more as if it were proven fact, I cited only to note that the killing looked more like it had been staged to look like a robbery than an actual botched robbery.

I think the argument about the books being POV is really beside the point unless there is reliable sourcing that claims the books made factual errors or were poorly sourced. The point about them being brought out by reliable established publishers is that presumably all the claims made were vetted by the publishers' legal departments. As long we take care to make sure we make it clear that this is not considered to be established fact, that a source or sources have said this, we are in the clear ourselves.

But really ... POV in the O.J. books? We'd have to discount so many more of the books due to pro-prosecution bias then (I don't know if any if our articles about the trial or anything related to it use Vince Bugliosi's Outrage as a source; it's definitely POV). There weren't really any neutral books about the trial then (I know Jeffrey Toobin said he tried to despite his own belief in Simpson's guilt, and the consensus has been that he did a reasonable job with staying neutral, although at the time it was pointed out in many reviews that he might have had sourcing problems, since alone among all accounts of the trial he depicts O.J. as some sort of doddering fool who could barely comprehend what was going on, much less help his lawyers out, and when you read that he was away from his guaranteed seat at the trial to look after his family back in Brooklyn for long stretches of time you sort of understand how he might have grown overreliant on low-level prosecution sources, and thus it's amusing that FX based that whole miniseries on his book (Wow! What a sentence!)

Someone interested in writing a more neutral book, which might happen at some point (we can only hope), might try to dig deeper into all claims by both sides (like, on the prosecution side, whether Jill Shively might have been telling the truth or not). But, for now, none of the pro-prosecution books go into the Nigg-Cantor murders; they don't care about it. So that leaves the field to the smaller number of pro-defense books. Daniel Case (talk) 03:35, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Unreliable sources

Sorry for being blunt, but much of the article sounds like a bunch of nonsense. The books are not reliable sources. I didn't find the claims about drug trading in the Mezzaluna in any reliable news or investigative source. That Michael Nigg may have been involved in drug trading is pure speculation and not backed by evidence.

I think given that this article is about a deceased person who probably still has living relatives and loved ones, it is inappropriate to use these sources and include speculation of this sort in the Wikipedia. Chaptagai (talk) 21:00, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

@Chaptagai: Nigg died well over six months ago; therefore BLP does not apply. As for your claim that the books are not reliable ... on what evidence do you base that statement? They were brought out by respectable publishers and subjected to third-party editorial oversight; it is not a requirement that information be found in more than one source. The article is worded to make it clear that this was those sources' belief, not that it was a matter of incontrovertible fact. If you believe it could be improved to make to less in Wikipedia's voice, feel free to suggest changes here. Daniel Case (talk) 21:36, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I think the entire section of the connection to the OJ Simpson case is unsubstantiated and should be deleted. Chaptagai (talk) 06:38, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

@Chaptagai: Why do you think that? Restating your opinion isn't an answer. Daniel Case (talk) 16:45, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Would you agree to ask for a Third Opinion? Chaptagai (talk) 08:55, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Not yet, because you haven't IMO stated any real basis for your argument. Daniel Case (talk) 11:58, 27 January 2018 (UTC)