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SAN FRANCISCO — O.J. Simpson’s mother, Eunice Simpson, was found dead in her home of natural causes Friday morning, the medical examiner’s office said. She was 80. 

Simpson, a longtime resident of the city’s Bayview District, was discovered dead at about 8 a.m., according to Richard Vetterli, a spokesman for the medical examiner. 

The home was purchased by O.J. Simpson, a native San Franciscan who gained fame as a pro football player and broadcaster and later was acquitted in 1995 in the killing of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. 

Eunice Simpson, a former nurse’s aide at San Francisco General Hospital, raised O.J. and her three other children in the city’s Potrero Hill housing projects, a cluster of apartments that overlook the old shipyards on San Francisco Bay. 

She was divorced from O.J. Simpson’s father, Jimmy Lee Simpson, who died in 1986. 

In recent years, Eunice Simpson was plagued by arthritis and had joint replacement surgery, making it difficult for her to walk. She appeared at her son’s murder trial in a wheelchair, and used a cane when called to testify for the defense. 

O.J. Simpson bought the house for his mother in the 1970s when he was playing for the San Francisco 49ers. 

She nearly lost the home this year. But a Southern California attorney who sought the sale of the home to satisfy a legal debt owed by the former football star canceled an auction planned for January, allowing the woman to stay in the house. 

O.J. Simpson, a Heisman Trophy winner and Hall of Famer, reportedly owed Orange County attorney Marjorie Fuller $148,300. Fuller represented Simpson’s two children in the custody battle that followed his acquittal on murder charges.