Fuhrman, a former Los Angeles police detective whose credibility was sharply contested during the high-profile O.J. Simpson murder trial, died at 74, according to an Idaho official who said Fuhrman passed away May 12. The Kootenai County chief deputy coroner, Lynn Acebedo, said the county does not release the cause of death as a rule.
According to the AP, Fuhrman was among the first two detectives assigned to investigate the 1994 killings of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles. Fuhrman told investigators he had found a bloody glove at Simpson’s home, but his account became a target during the trial as defense attorneys raised the prospect of racial bias.
During cross-examination, Fuhrman testified that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs in the past decade. A recording, however, showed Fuhrman had done so repeatedly, according to the AP report, intensifying questions about his testimony.
After the criminal trial ended in Simpson’s 1995 acquittal, Fuhrman retired from the Los Angeles Police Department. Fuhrman later moved to Idaho with his family, where he set up a farm and raised animals including chickens, goats, sheep and llamas, the AP said.
The AP reported that Fuhrman faced legal consequences after the trial. In 1996, he was charged with perjury and pleaded no contest, the report said. He later worked as a television and radio commentator and wrote the book “Murder in Brentwood” about the killings.
Even though Simpson was found not guilty in the criminal case, the AP said a separate civil trial jury found Simpson liable in 1997 and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to relatives of Brown and Goldman. The AP report also said Simpson served nine years in prison on unrelated charges and later died in Las Vegas of prostate cancer in 2024 at the age of 76.
Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer and law professor who was part of Simpson’s “Dream Team,” said Fuhrman was “a much better detective than he was a witness.” Dershowitz made the remarks Monday evening, and he tied his view to what he described as Fuhrman’s role in the defense’s case, saying Fuhrman’s “use of the ‘n’ word” helped them win the O.J. case, according to the AP.
Fuhrman’s death also prompted a public message from Kato Kaelin, a friend of Brown who testified in the murder trial. Kaelin wrote on X that his “lives were indelibly linked through our roles in the O.J. Simpson trial over thirty years ago,” adding that while he and Fuhrman “were never close personally,” he hoped Fuhrman’s loved ones could find peace.
This story has been updated to correct the last name of Brown’s friend who testified in the murder trial. He is Kato Kaelin, not Kaitlin.