Background

Mark Fuhrman was born on February 5, 1952 in Eatonville, Washington, United States. He is the son of Ralph Fuhrman, a truck driver, and Billie Fuhrman, a waitress.

Fuhrman's parents divorced when he was seven years old, and his mother remarried briefly.

Education

Mark Fuhrman attended Peninsula High School in Gig Harbor, Washington.

In 1970, aged 18, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, where he was trained as a machine gunner and military policeman. He served during the Vietnam War era, although the closest he had got to Vietnam was the USS New Orleans, an amphibious assault ship stationed offshore. Having attained the rank of sergeant, he was honorably discharged. After leaving the military, Fuhrman entered the Los Angeles Police Academy and graduated from it in 1975.

Career

Mark Fuhrman served as a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer from 1975 to 1989. He was promoted to detective in 1989 and rose to fame as a key investigator and was a witness in the O.J. Simpson trial. He was charged with perjury when it came out that his claim to have not used racial epithets in the past turned out to be false.

After retiring from the LAPD in early 1995 and receiving more than 55 official commendations, Fuhrman moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. He wrote a book about the Simpson case, called "Murder in Brentwood" (1997). In the book, Fuhrman apologized for the racist remarks on the audiotapes, terming them "immature, irresponsible ramblings" made because of a desire to make money; he contends that the tapes were merely part of a screenplay. He also argued that Lungren had charged him to garner black support for a planned campaign for governor of California, in 1998.

For his next book "Murder in Greenwich" (1998) Fuhrman investigated the then-unsolved 1975 murder of Martha Moxley and presented his theory that the murderer was Michael Skakel, nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Senator Robert Kennedy. Skakel was convicted of Moxley's murder in June 2002. The book was adapted for a 2002 television movie starring Christopher Meloni as Fuhrman.

In 2001, Fuhrman published "Murder in Spokane: Catching a Serial Killer", which investigated a serial killer's spree on the West Coast. In 2003, he published "Death and Justice: An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine", on the subject of capital punishment.

In 2005, Fuhrman published "Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death" which emphasized gaps in the medical and legal records that might allow for the possibility that Schiavo was murdered.

In 2006, he published "A Simple Act of Murder: November 22, 1963", about the John F. Kennedy assassination.

n 2009, he published "The Murder Business: How the Media Turns Crime Into Entertainment and Subverts Justice", which addressed the fine line between crime reporting and entertainment.

In addition, Fuhrman was an on-air consultant for ABC, CBS and Court TV. Currently, Fuhrman serves as a forensic and crime scene expert for FOX News Channel (FNC). Moreover, Fuhrman was also the host of the Spokane, Washington radio show "The Mark Fuhrman Show".

Currently, Mark Fuhrman lives in Idaho, United States.

Achievements

• Mark Fuhrman is best known as a former key investigator at the Los Angeles Police Department and as a witness in the O.J. Simpson trial.
  
  Besides, Fuhrman is also well-known as an established author whose books have been New York Times bestsellers. Three of his books have been optioned for film rights, and "Murder in Greenwich" was produced by Sony Pictures TV, airing on the USA Network in November 2002.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Murder Business: How the Media Turns Crime into Entertainment and Subverts Justice

    (The Murder Business presents a compelling plea for journa...)

    2009
  • Murder In Spokane: Catching a Serial Killer

    (This is a shocking account of Fuhrman's investigation of ...)

    2001
  • Death and Justice: An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine

    (Controversy rages about capital punishment as innocent me...)

    2003
  • Murder in Greenwich: Who Killed Martha Moxley?

    (Mark Fuhrman, the former LAPD homicide detective who foll...)

    1998
  • A Simple Act of Murder: November 22, 1963

    (On November 22, 1963, a murder was committed in Dallas, T...)

    2006
  • Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death

    (We all watched Terri Schiavo die. The controversy around ...)

    2005
  • Murder in Brentwood 1997

Views

Between 1985 and 1994, Mark Fuhrman, being a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer at that time, gave interviews to writer Laura McKinny who was interested in writing a screenplay and a novel about the experience of women police officers. The Fuhrman tapes are 13 hours of those taped interviews.

The tapes include many racist slurs and remarks made by Fuhrman, including uses of the word "nigger", descriptions of police brutality perpetrated on black suspects, misogynist slurs and descriptions of the harassment and intimidation of female Los Angeles police officers by male officers. In the tapes Fuhrman also made many references to the "planting of evidence" and implied that police brutality and evidence planting were common practice in the Los Angeles Police Department.

The bulk of the tapes involved Fuhrman discussing an organized group of male LAPD officers known as MAW, or Men Against Women, who reportedly engaged in sexual harassment, intimidation, discrimination and criminal activity against female LAPD police officers, often endangering the female officers' lives.

In the tapes, Fuhrman calls women "frail little objects" who "watch soap operas" and that "females lack the one ingredient that makes them an effective leader and that is testosterone, the aggressive hormone". Fuhrman also stated on the tapes that "you've got to be able to shoot people, beat people beyond recognition, and go home and hug your little kids. Women don't pack those qualities". Fuhrman was also recorded stating that women who were good leaders "are either so ugly or they're a lesbian or they're so dyke-ish that they are not women anymore".

Membership

In a taped interview with McKinney in 1985, Fuhrman bragged about his leadership in MAW (or Men Against Women), a secret organization within the LAPD that reportedly had 145 members in five of the city's 18 police divisions during its heyday in the mid-1980s.

• MAW , United States

  1985

Personality

Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman's alleged racist past sparked outrage and helped acquit O.J. Simpson. Furhman testified he found a blood-stained glove at Brown's condo and another one at O.J. Simpson's home in Brentwood, California. In addition, he said he saw blood at the football player's home and in his car. Simpson's defense team alleged Fuhrman planted the glove and raised his prior use of racist language as part of his motivation.

Fuhrman, who worked out a plea bargain after being charged with perjury for lying in court and denying he used "the N-word", was given three years probation and fined $200. He retired from the police force before the plea deal.

Interests

• collecting war memorabilia and medals

Connections

Fuhrman has married and divorced three times. His first wife was Barbara L. Koop whom he married in 1973. In 1977, the year he divorced his first wife, he married Janet Ellen Sosbee. The couple divorced in 1980. Mark then married Caroline Lody. The marriage produced two children, a daughter Haley and a son Cole. Mark and Caroline separated in 2000.

Father:

Ralph Fuhrman

Mother:

Billie Fuhrman

ex-spouse:

Barbara L. Koop

ex-spouse:

Janet Ellen Sosbee

ex-spouse:

Caroline Lody

Daughter:

Haley Fuhrman

Son:

Cole Fuhrman

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series
• Legacy of Deception: An Investigation of Mark Fuhrman and Racism in the L. A.
  2005
• Iago in Brentwood: How Mark Fuhrman got away with murder
  2000