Mark Fuhrman, Flawed Witness in O.J. Simpson Trial, Dies at 74

Mark Fuhrman, a Los Angeles police detective who in the 1995 murder trial of O.J.Simpson went from being the prosecution’s star witness to its disastrous liability when defense lawyers used his past racist language to discredit him, died on May 12 in Kootenai County, Idaho.

He was 74.The Kootenai County coroner’s office confirmed the death, but did not say where in the county he died.Lynda Bensky, Mr.

Fuhrman’s manager, said the cause was throat cancer.Soon after a California jury found Mr.Simpson not guilty, Mr.

Fuhrman pleaded no contest to perjury charges brought against him and was placed on probation.He went on to become a television commentator and the author of books about the Simpson case and other famous murders.Mr.

Fuhrman was among the Los Angeles police officers who across the years had responded more than once to calls for help from Nicole Brown Simpson, who said that she had been beaten by her husband, the former football star, and that she feared for her life.The Simpsons divorced in 1992.Then, on June 12, 1994, she and a friend, Ronald L.

Goldman, were stabbed to death on a walkway leading to her condominium in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.She was nearly decapitated.From the start, police investigators believed that her former husband was the killer.

Among the evidence they collected was a bloody glove found at the murder scene.But Mr.

Simpson’s lawyers asserted during his 1995 trial that the police had planted the glove, though they offered nothing to support that allegation.The knife used in the attacks was never found.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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