Mark Fuhrman, the detective who upended the O.J. Simpson murder prosecution after recordings surfaced in which he used the N-word, has died at 74.
Fuhrman, the LAPD detective who discovered the bloody glove purportedly linking Simpson to the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in Los Angeles, died from an aggressive form of throat cancer on May 12, sources told TMZ.
Fuhrman, who had been living in Idaho, was diagnosed last year and spent a week in the hospital before his death, according to TMZ. The Kootenai County Coroner’s Office confirmed Fuhrman’s death to the outlet.
The coroner’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
The Washington native’s testimony was supposed to be a crucial element in the prosecution’s case against Simpson, but his credibility was later cast into doubt by the defense, which produced recordings of Fuhrman using the N-word, contradicting his sworn claim that he had never used the slur.
A defining moment of Simpson’s trial came when the former NFL star appeared to have difficulty putting on the black leather glove in court, which defense attorney Johnnie Cochran leveraged to call out the prosecution’s case, saying, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
The defense suggested that Fuhrman had planted the glove, though the disgraced ex-detective has vehemently denied doing so.
“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. Nor would I have a reason to,” he said in a 1996 interview with ABC.
Fuhrman’s role in the trial was seen as one factor in Simpson’s acquittal by a majority-Black jury in October 1995, two months after he retired from the LAPD.
The next year, Fuhrman pleaded no contest to a felony count of perjury for lying on the witness stand, becoming the only person convicted of a crime in relation to the trial.
Fuhrman moved to Idaho after the trial and worked as a TV and radio commentator, including serving as a crime-scene expert for Fox News.
He authored several books, including Murder in Brentwood, about the Simpson trial. Simpson died in April 2024 at age 76.
Actor Steven Pasquale portrayed Fuhrman on the Fox limited series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
