Mark Fuhrman, the former LAPD detective whose conduct at the center of the O.J. Simpson murder trial made him one of the most polarizing figures in American legal history, died May 12 in Kootenai County, Idaho, after a battle with an aggressive form of throat cancer. He was 74.
The Kootenai County Coroner’s Office confirmed his death to Deadline on May 18. Fuhrman had been living in North Idaho, where he had farmed, hosted local radio, and built a second career as a true crime author following his 1995 retirement from the LAPD.
Fuhrman was among the first detectives dispatched to investigate the June 1994 stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman outside her Brentwood condominium. His discovery of a bloody glove on O.J. Simpson’s estate was meant to serve as a cornerstone of the prosecution’s case. It became something else entirely.
Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testified he had not used anti-Black racial slurs in the previous decade. The defense then produced audiotaped interviews in which he used the word dozens of times. Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, in his closing argument, called Fuhrman “a lying, perjuring, genocidal racist” and drew a comparison to Adolf Hitler. Fred Goldman, father of murder victim Ronald Goldman, remarked bitterly at the time: “This is now the Fuhrman trial.” Simpson was acquitted in October 1995.
In 1996, Fuhrman pleaded no contest to perjury charges stemming from his false testimony and received three years’ probation and a $200 fine — the only criminal conviction to emerge from the case. He maintained throughout his life that he had not planted evidence, and the defense produced no evidence contradicting that claim.
Alan Dershowitz, a legal strategist on Simpson’s defense team, offered a measured assessment of Fuhrman’s legacy. “He’s very smart, and a very, very aggressive detective,” Dershowitz said. “Ultimately his actions helped us win the O.J. case because of his use of the ‘n’ word.”
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After leaving law enforcement, Fuhrman became a New York Times bestselling author, writing Murder in Brentwood about the killings, and went on to work as a television and radio commentator, including appearances on Fox News. He was portrayed by Steven Pasquale in the FX limited series American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. O.J. Simpson died in Las Vegas in 2024 at age 76.
