Mark Fuhrman, the former LAPD detective who gained notoriety for making racist comments during the murder trial of Hall of Fame football star O.J. Simpson, has died. He is 74 years old.
Kootenai County, Idaho Chief Deputy Coroner Lynette Acebedo confirmed Furman’s death but said the office would not provide additional information. TMZ reports that Foreman died on May 12 from an aggressive form of throat cancer.
Forman’s testimony at the 1995 Simpson trial turned the sensational murder case into a case about racial injustice and law enforcement, as the LAPD’s practices and culture were called into question.
“The Trial of the Century”
Simpson, a former NFL and college football star, went on trial in January 1995 for the murders of his ex-wife, 35-year-old Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman, 26. Just after midnight on June 12, 1994, days after the pair’s bloodied bodies were discovered, spectators watching Game 5 of the NBA Finals were interrupted by live footage of Simpson leading the way in a white Ford Mustang. Police conducted a low-speed pursuit along 60 miles of Los Angeles freeways and city streets.
Former Los Angeles police detective Mark Foreman (left) and his attorney Daryl Munger (right) testify in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial on September 6, 1995. Forman invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, saying “I want to uphold my Fifth Amendment” in response to all questions from defense attorney Gerald Ullman.
The so-called “trial of the century” became a source of cultural reference and Los Angeles glamor, with ongoing commentary focusing on prosecutor Marcia Clark’s hairstyle. Simpson was known to apparently struggle to put on the bloody leather gloves that prosecutors said meant he was involved in the murder, leading to defense attorney Johnnie Cochran’s famous closing argument: “If it doesn’t fit, you have to acquit.”
During the course of the lawsuit, there were accusations that Furman, a former LAPD detective, planted or manufactured evidence. Audio recordings played during the case also showed Forman using a racial epithet, although his testimony claimed he never did so.
Ultimately, on October 3, 1995, a jury found Simpson not guilty of all charges, and the revelations about Furman were considered key to the outcome. The controversial verdict sparked mixed emotions across the country and raised questions about law enforcement’s treatment of minorities.
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In 1977, a civil jury found Simpson responsible for the murder and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to his ex-wife and Goldman’s family.
Furman later served as a forensic and crime scene expert for Fox News and served as an analyst for the network during coverage of Simpson’s parole hearings in 2017, when Simpson was serving nine years of a possible 33-year sentence at Nevada’s Lovelock Correctional Center for armed robbery and kidnapping.
Thirty years after the “trial of the century” began, “American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson” on Netflix is ​​a four-part documentary series (now streaming) that looks back at the brutal assassination of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. OJ Simpson, who died last April, was acquitted of the June 12, 1994, murder of Brown Simpson at his Los Angeles home, a verdict that shocked the world. https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2025/01/29/oj-simpson-new-docuseries-netflix-manhunt/77969480007/
Simpson died in April 2024 at the age of 76.
Foreman has lived in Idaho, where he also worked as a radio host and wrote several books about crime.
Contributors: Kevin Spain, USA TODAY; Brad Wadlow, USA TODAY Network New Jersey
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: O.J. Simpson trial detective Mark Fuhrman dies at 74