Mark Fuhrman, a former Los Angeles police detective who was convicted of lying during his testimony at the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995, died on May 12. He was 74.
Fuhrman died in Kootenai County, Idaho, according to The New York Times. The county’s coroner’s office confirmed Fuhrman’s death. His manager, Lynda Bensky said the cause of death was throat cancer, according to the newspaper.
Fuhrman discovered a bloody glove outside Simpson’s residence in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles after Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were found murdered on June 12, 1994, the Los Angeles Times reported.
During Simpson’s murder trial in 1995, defense attorneys accused Fuhrman of planting the glove as evidence, stating he was racially motivated to frame the former NFL star and Heisman Trophy winner, according to the newspaper.
Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testified that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs in the past decade, The Associated Press reported. However, a recording showed he had done so repeatedly.
Breaking News: Mark Fuhrman, whose past racist remarks turned his testimony into a liability in O.J. Simpson’s 1995 trial, has died at 74. https://t.co/sBZtpyu3Ug
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 18, 2026
Shortly after a California jury acquitted Simpson of murdering his ex-wife and Goldman, Fuhrman pleaded no contest to perjury, The New York Times reported. He was placed on probation.
He would become a television commentator and author of books about the Simpson case, according to the newspaper. His 1997 book, “Murder in Brentwood,” focused on the Simpson case.
Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was a legal strategist on Simpson’s defense “Dream Team,” said Fuhrman was a “much better detective than he was a witness,” The Associated Press reported.
In 1996, Fuhrman denied claims that he had planted evidence during the investigation at Simpson’s residence, People reported.
“There was never a shred, never a hint, never a possibility, not a remote, not a million-, not a billion-to-one possibility I could have planted anything,” Fuhrman told ABC News at the time. “Nor would I have a reason to.”
Fuhrman’s testimony during the Simpson trial was devastating to the prosecution, particularly because of racial epithets he originally denied using, The New York Times reported.
That denial was taken apart by Simpson’s attorneys, who introduced audiotapes of the former NFL star using racial slurs dozens of times, according to the newspaper.
Other trial witnesses testified that Fuhrman had indeed used the word in earnest; one of them recalled his having said that if it were up to him, Black people “would be gathered together and burned.”
The revelations devastated his credibility and altered the public image of the LAPD for many years to come, the Los Angeles Times reported.
When called back to testify, Fuhrman invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions about whether he had manufactured evidence, according to the newspaper.
For Carl Douglas, one of Simpson’s defense attorneys, that moment was a memorable moment.
“I’ve been a lawyer 45 years — never had I heard of a detective from the Robbery-Homicide Division taking the Fifth Amendment in a murder trial,” Douglas told the Los Angeles Times. “That will likely be one of the stains of his life that will always be remembered.”
Born Feb. 5, 1952, in Eatonville, Washington, Fuhrman served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War era before joining the Los Angeles Police Department in 1975, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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