Mark Fuhrman, Detective Who Investigated O.J. Simpson, Dead at 74

Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles Police detective who became a controversial figure in the O.J. Simpson trial, has died at the age of 74.

The Kootenai County coroner’s office confirmed Fuhrman died on May 12 in Idaho. The cause of death was not immediately revealed, but a source tells Rolling Stone the ex-detective had been battling cancer.

Fuhrman was 42 when he vaulted to international fame as the investigator who found the bloody glove at Simpson’s estate after the former football star’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death on June 12, 1994. A key witness for prosecutors at Simpson’s so-called “Trial of the Century,” Furhman faced intense backlash when a 1985 tape surfaced of him boasting about mistreating Black people and using the n-word.

Fuhrman denied harboring racist views and said he used the slur only while helping develop dialogue for a screenplay. But the recordings contradicted his testimony that he had not used the n-word in a decade, leading to a felony perjury conviction that ended his police career.

Simpson’s lawyers, dubbed the “dream team,” used the recordings to discredit Fuhrman as they accused him of planting the glove in a racially motivated plot to frame the former NFL star.

Fuhrman’s former LAPD partner, Roberto Alaniz, tells Rolling Stone he believes Fuhrman was unfairly branded. Speaking out Monday, Alaniz says he was with Fuhrman on patrol the night they met the screenwriter Laura McKinny on a sidewalk in Westwood, near the UCLA campus. McKinny “recruited” Fuhrman as a consultant on a project, Alaniz says, and asked him to record himself delivering dialogue.

“She wanted her lines to be in the police vernacular, how a rogue cop would say them,” Alaniz says. “She gave him the scenarios, and he put them in street vernacular. We talked about it after the trial, when I went to visit him. That’s what got him to use the n-word, those tapes for the screenplay.”

Alaniz, who spent decades on the force before retiring a few years ago, said he wouldn’t have remained partners with Fuhrman if he were racist.

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“My personal experience is that he was a great police officer, despite what was portrayed in the O.J. trial. I never saw him disrespecting anyone,” Alaniz says. “He worked with me. I’m Mexican. As a police officer, he didn’t display anything negative against any minority we ran across.”

After a Los Angeles jury found Simpson not guilty of murdering Nicole Brown and Goldman, Fuhrman pleaded no contest to perjury charges brought against him and was placed on probation. He retired from the LAPD in August 1995, as the trial was ongoing, and became a true crime writer and commentator for Fox News.

“It’s always sad to learn of the passing of someone, so my thoughts go out to his family during this difficult time,” Kato Kaelin, the Simpson houseguest who also testified at trial and became a breakout star with his surfer looks and colorful testimony, said in a statement about Furhman’s death.
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“While we were never close personally, our lives were indelibly linked through our roles in the O.J. Simpson trial over 30 years ago. It was a deeply complex and painful chapter for everyone involved, but any loss of life is a time for reflection and solemnity,” Kaelin continued. “I hope his loved ones can find peace in their grief.”

A family member reached by text on Monday had “no comment.”