O.J. Simpson Detective Mark Fuhrman Dead at 74

Former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman, who discovered the bloody glove in the O.J. Simpson murder case and later torpedoed the prosecution with his use of the n-word, is dead ... TMZ has learned.

Sources tell TMZ ... Mark died from an aggressive form of throat cancer, which he was diagnosed with last year. Mark had been hospitalized for about a week before he died. He had done some cancer treatment ... but made the final decision to stop. There won't be a funeral.

Mark had been living in Idaho and the Kootenai County Coroner Office tells us Mark died May 12.

He retired from LAPD way back in August 1995 and started writing true crime books. He became a TV and radio personality and even worked as an expert for Fox News.

A year after retiring, Mark pleaded no contest in 1996 to a felony count of perjury for lying about using a racial slur when he testified during O.J.'s trial.

O.J.'s defense team infamously played a tape in court, in which Mark used the n-word. The audio contradicted his earlier testimony, specifically him denying using the slur.

With Mark as the cop who found the bloody glove, O.J.'s legal team called out Mark's credibility by resurfacing old tapes of the detective using racist language ... ultimately suggesting he might have planted the evidence.

O.J.'s defense strategy worked and he was acquitted ... and Mark's eventual felony perjury conviction made him the only person ever convicted of any crime in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

Mark was barred from returning to police work in California in May 2024 ... and the reason was because of his felony conviction as part of the O.J. case.

He was 74.