Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles Police Department detective whose testimony during the OJ Simpson murder trial became one of the case’s most explosive flashpoints, has died. NPR reported his death on Monday, May 19, 2026.
Fuhrman was one of the first two LAPD detectives dispatched to investigate the June 1994 killings of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles. That investigation — and Fuhrman’s role in it — would consume the country for more than a year.
The perjury conviction
Fuhrman didn’t just testify at the trial. He became a central figure in the defense strategy. Simpson’s legal team attacked Fuhrman’s credibility, and tapes later surfaced in which he used racial slurs — contradicting his sworn testimony that he hadn’t used such language in the prior decade.
He was convicted of perjury. A felony. It’s the kind of thing that sticks to a cop’s name forever, and it did.
Simpson was acquitted of both murders in October 1995 after a trial that ran nearly nine months. The defense argued that evidence had been mishandled and that racial bias tainted the investigation. Fuhrman’s credibility became a linchpin of that argument, with attorney Johnnie Cochran hammering on the detective’s testimony throughout closing arguments.
The case split the country along racial lines. Millions watched the verdict live on television.
Simpson himself died in April 2024 of cancer at age 76, roughly two years before Fuhrman’s death.
Goldman’s family later won a $33.5 million civil judgment against Simpson in 1997 for the wrongful deaths. Whether that judgment was ever fully collected isn’t clear from available reports.
NPR didn’t immediately release details about Fuhrman’s cause of death or his age at the time he died.
Reported by NPR. Read the original report.
