Former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who was convicted of perjury in the OJ Simpson trial, has died at the age of 74. The AP agency reported on this on Tuesday. The case of OJ Simpson has become a media phenomenon and a symbol of the debate about racism in the police, the credibility of evidence and bringing justice to the so-called celebrities in the USA.
- Former detective Mark Fuhrman died on May 12 at the age of seventy-four.
- Fuhrman investigated the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.
- He claimed to have found a bloody glove in Simpson’s home as evidence.
- The screenwriter’s tape revealed his repeated racial slurs against African-Americans.
- OJ Simpson was acquitted in the criminal trial, later found civilly responsible.
Fuhrman was one of the first two detectives sent to investigate the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles. He claimed to have found a bloody glove in Simpson’s house. However, his credibility was called into question during the trial when the defense raised possible racial bias.
Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testified that he had never used racial slurs against African-Americans in the past decade, but a recording from an aspiring screenwriter showed that he used them repeatedly. Lynn Acebed, chief deputy coroner in Kootenai County, Idaho, said Fuhrman died on May 12. District authorities have not released the cause of death.
Fuhrman retired from the LAPD after the acquittal of OJ Simpson in 1995. He then moved to Idaho, where he and his family founded a farm and raised chickens, goats, sheep and llamas. In 1996, he was accused of perjury and pleaded no contest. He later worked as a television and radio commentator and wrote the book “Murder in Brentwood”.
In 1995, the criminal court recognized OJ Simpson as innocent in criminal proceedings. However, in a 1997 civil trial, he was found responsible for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and ordered to pay $33.5 million to their families. Simpson served nine years in prison in another case. He died in 2024 at the age of 76 from prostate cancer.
