Former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who was convicted of lying during testimony at the OJ Simpson murder trial, has died.
Fuhrman was one of the first two police detectives sent to investigate the 1994 killings of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles. He reported finding a bloody glove at Simpson’s home but his credibility came under withering attack during the trial as the defense raised the prospect of racial bias.
Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testified that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs over the previous 10 years, but a recording made by an aspiring screenwriter showed he had done so repeatedly.
Lynn Acebedo, the chief deputy coroner in Kootenai County, Idaho, said that Fuhrman died May 12. The county does not release the cause of death as a rule.
Fuhrman retired from the Los Angeles Police Department after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal. He subsequently moved to Idaho with his wife Caroline and their young daughter and son.
In 1996, Fuhrman was charged with perjury and pleaded no contest. He later became a TV and radio commentator and wrote the book “Murder in Brentwood” about the killings.
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Golden reported from Seattle.
