OJ Simpson's lawyer F Lee Bailey dies aged 87

F Lee Bailey, one of the defence lawyers in the 1995 murder trial of OJ Simpson, has died aged 87.

Mr Bailey defended a host of notorious clients, including the Boston Strangler and the US army commander at the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

He was renowned for his dramatic style and his ability to throw reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case.

But he was banned from practising law in two states and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2016.

He died of unspecified causes at a hospice in Georgia on Thursday, his son Bendrix Bailey said.

Mr Bailey was part of the "dream team" of lawyers that defended the American football player OJ Simpson when he was charged with murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

His cross-examination of a Los Angeles detective was seen as a key factor in securing a not guilty verdict. Mr Bailey argued without success that the detective had planted a crucial piece of evidence, a bloodstained glove.

However, he undermined the detective's credibility with recordings that destroyed his claim not to have used racial slurs.

Mr Bailey first rose to prominence in 1966, when he succeeded in overturning the conviction of an Ohio osteopath, Dr Sam Sheppard, who had been jailed for the murder of his wife.

The case was the inspiration for both the film and TV series The Fugitive.

The following year he took on the case of Alberto De Salvo, an inmate in a secure hospital who had been charged with sexual assault. De Salvo confessed to being the Boston Strangler, responsible for the rape and murder of 13 women between 1962 and 1964.

De Salvo later recanted his confession but was killed in his cell in 1973.

In 1971, Mr Bailey successfully defended Capt Ernest Medina, who was court-martialled over the massacre of 104 people in the village of My Lai, in what was then South Vietnam.

He took on the case of Patricia Hearst, a newspaper heiress who was kidnapped in 1974, when she was just 19 years old, by a violent far-left group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Ms Hearst ended up taking part in armed robberies organised by the group - Mr Bailey claimed she had been brainwashed. She was convicted and jailed for 22 months before being pardoned by President Jimmy Carter.

Mr Bailey later represented families of passengers killed in the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988.

Francis Lee Bailey was born in the Massachusetts town of Waltham in 1933. He was admitted to Harvard but dropped out after his second year and became a pilot in the Marines.

He took a law degree at Boston University in 1960.

During his career, he was charged with perjury and contempt of court. He was disbarred in Florida in 2001 and in Massachusetts two years later. In 2016 he filed for bankruptcy in Maine.

Three of Mr Bailey's marriages ended in divorce and his fourth wife died in 1999. He is survived by three sons, a sister, and five grandchildren.