Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles police detective whose testimony, honesty and racist language became the focus of the OJ Simpson murder case, has died at the age of 74.
Fuhrman became one of the most recognized law enforcement figures in America when he found a bloody glove outside Simpson’s Brentwood estate during his investigation into the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994.
During the trial that followed in 1995, defense attorneys accused him of planting the glove as evidence, citing the detective’s confusion to argue that he was carrying out a racist conspiracy to frame the former football star.
Fuhrman later moved to Idaho, where he was still living at the time of his death. The Kootenai County Coroner’s Office confirmed that he died on May 12, but declined to provide details on the cause.
At Simpson’s trial, witness Kathleen Bell testified that Furhman told her he was going to pull interracial couples over to find reasons to arrest them, adding that black people should be “rounded up and burned.” Fuhrman denied ever using the N-word when questioned under oath, but the defense attorney later presented recorded conversations in which he repeatedly used a racial slur and described violent behavior as a police officer.
“We have women . . . and dumb n— [in the department]and all your Mexicans who can’t even write the name of the car they drive in,” Furhman can be heard speaking in the recordings.
The revelations damaged his credibility and changed the LAPD’s public image for years to come.
When called to testify, Fuhrman invoked the 5th amendment, refusing to answer questions about whether he produced evidence. From his high chair on the witness stand, Fuhrman remained silent as Simpson’s defense team peppered him with question after question.
For Carl Douglas, one of those defense attorneys, that moment is among his most vivid memories of the trial. Asked to describe Fuhrman’s legacy, he sighed.
“I’ve been a lawyer for 45 years – I’ve never heard of an investigator in the Robbery-Homicide Division who took the 5th Amendment to a homicide,” he said. “That will probably be one of the spots in his life that will always be remembered.”
Fuhrman’s involvement in the case may have been a “big factor” in Simpson’s release, Douglas said, adding that the detective’s family is “suffering from his loss.”
“As I read some of the things he said behind his back, he brings out the worst aspects of the culture of the LAPD that was worst under Chief Daryl Gates,” he said. “And it’s taken 40 years for the smell of that culture to leave that door, and it’s sad that the remains of that culture remain.”
Although no evidence ever came to light that Fuhrman planted the evidence, the controversy surrounding his testimony completely destroyed the prosecution’s case.
“This is now Fuhrman’s case,” Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman’s father, said at the time. “It’s not the case of OJ Simpson, the man accused of killing my son and Nicole.”
In 1996, Fuhrman pleaded no contest to perjury for falsely denying he used racist language. He was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $200, becoming the only person convicted in connection with the Simpson case.
In a recent interview with Diane Sawyer, Fuhrman apologized for his language, saying the voiceover was part of an effort to improve the screenplay’s material. He maintains that he is not racist and that he did not plant a glove at the scene of the incident.
Born on February 5, 1952, in Eatonville, Wash., Fuhrman served in the US Marine Corps during the Vietnam War before joining the LAPD in 1975.
After retiring from the LAPD in 1995, Fuhrman became a vigilante analyst, true crime writer and television personality.
