Mark Fuhrman was one of the first two police detectives sent to investigate the 1994 killings of OJ Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles.

A close friend of Fuhrman told TMZ that the former detective had been privately battling an aggressive form of throat cancer.

Fuhrman later shouldered some of the blame for Simpson’s acquittal in 1995. The detective was later convicted of lying on the witness stand.