Sam Sheppard
Samuel Holmes Sheppard was a prominent osteopathic surgeon whose life became embroiled in a notorious murder case. In 1954, his pregnant wife, Marilyn, was brutally murdered, leading to Sheppard's arrest and trial. Despite maintaining his innocence and claiming he had fought with an intruder, he was convicted of second-degree murder amid a highly publicized trial that drew significant media attention. After nearly ten years of imprisonment, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction, citing a lack of fair trial rights due to prejudicial publicity. Sheppard was retried in 1966 and acquitted. Following his release, he faced challenges in resuming his medical career and eventually became a professional wrestler. The case had a lasting impact, inspiring various media portrayals, including the television series "The Fugitive." In the years after his death, Sheppard's son sought to clear his father's name, although attempts to secure a formal apology or compensation proved unsuccessful.
Sam Sheppard
- Born: December 29, 1923
- Birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio
- Died: April 6, 1970
- Place of death: Columbus, Ohio
Surgeon and professional wrestler
Cause of notoriety: Sheppard was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese. The conviction was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court because of the proliferation of media coverage of the case.
Active: 1954-1966
Locale: Cleveland, Ohio
Early Life
Samuel Holmes Sheppard (SHEHP-puhrd) and Marilyn Reese were high school sweethearts at Cleveland Heights High School in Cleveland, Ohio. They had originally met at Roosevelt Junior High School in Cleveland. Sheppard played high school football and basketball and ran track. After high school, Sheppard moved to Los Angeles and attended the Los Angeles College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons. While in Los Angeles, he asked Marilyn to come and join him; they were married in February, 1945, and had a son, Samuel Reese Sheppard. After Sheppard’s graduation from college, the young couple returned to Cleveland.
Marilyn’s Murder
At the time that his thirty-one-year-old pregnant wife was slain, thirty-year-old Sheppard was a prominent osteopathic surgeon. He socialized with the mayor and members of the Cleveland Browns. He owned a Jaguar automobile and was a pioneer of waterskiing. On July 4, 1954, Marilyn was found brutally murdered, and Sheppard was tried for her murder. Sheppard maintained his innocence, claiming he had wrestled with Marilyn’s murderer, a bushy-haired stranger, and was knocked unconscious.
Legal Action and Outcome
Sheppard was arrested on charges of killing his wife. During the trial, it was revealed that Sheppard had had an extramarital affair with Susan Hayes, a nurse at the hospital where he was employed. The defense called eighteen character witnesses for Sheppard and two witnesses who said that they had seen a bushy-haired man near the Sheppard home the day of the murder. The defense argued that the crime scene was extremely bloody, and except for a small spot on his trousers, Sheppard had no blood on him.
The jury convicted Sheppard of second-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison. The case drew public interest, and special seating for reporters and columnists was installed in the courtroom. Each day, the local newspapers published sensational stories regarding the murder. Sheppard’s attorney filed several motions to have the trial moved to a different county, but each was denied. Sheppard’s second-degree murder conviction was affirmed on appeal. Sheppard sought review, arguing that the trial court had erred in refusing to grant a change of venue because of the widespread publicity and that the fact that jurors communicated by telephone with their families during deliberations required reversal.
After Sheppard had been confined for almost ten years, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Sheppard v. Maxwell, granted Sheppard’s petition for release. Defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, whose later fame was based partially on the result of this case, argued on Sheppard’s behalf before the Court. The Court concluded that Sheppard had not received a fair trial consistent with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It also held that the trial court judge had not fulfilled his duty to protect Sheppard from the inherently prejudicial publicity that saturated the community and had failed to control disruptive influences in the courtroom. Sheppard was retried in 1966 and was acquitted.
Only three days after his release, Sheppard married Ariane Tebbenjohanns, a German divorcée who had corresponded with him during his time in prison. They were later divorced. Because he no longer had a license to practice medicine, he became a professional wrestler. He made his wrestling debut at the Akron Armory in Ohio, teaming with wrestler Hoss Strickland; Sheppard then married (and later divorced) Strickland’s daughter. Sheppard’s nickname as a wrestler was the Killer. At the age of forty-six, Sheppard died of liver disease.
Impact
In the years following Sam Sheppard’s death, his son, Samuel Reese Sheppard, worked to clear his father’s name in the crime. In 1999, he filed a wrongful imprisonment civil suit against the state of Ohio. At the civil trial, the state argued that Sheppard had not welcomed the news that his wife was pregnant and that her murder was a textbook domestic homicide. The state also questioned why Sheppard had not called out for help and why he had neatly folded his jacket on the daybed on which he said he had fallen asleep. Evidence was also presented that indicated that the family dog did bark on the night of the murder, contrary to earlier reports. After ten weeks of trial and seventy-six witnesses, the eight-person civil jury returned a unanimous verdict that Samuel Reese Sheppard had failed to prove that his father had been wrongly imprisoned. However, in 2002, a court of appeals ruled that the younger Sheppard’s case should not have gone to jury since a wrongful imprisonment claim could be made only by the person imprisoned—in this case, the elder Sheppard—and not by a family member. Later that year, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed this decision.
A 1975 made-for-television film titled Guilty or Innocent: The Sam Sheppard Murder Case starred George Peppard as Sheppard. His case inspired a successful television series, The Fugitive, that ran between 1963 and 1967; in 1993, the series was used as the basis for a feature film of the same name starring Harrison Ford.
Bibliography
DeSario, Jack P., and William D. Mason. Dr. Sam Sheppard on Trial: The Prosecutors and the Marilyn Sheppard Murder. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2003. A discussion of how the prosecutors argued the case and their involvement with the media.
Entin, Jonathan L. “Being the Government Means (Almost) Never Having to Say You’re Sorry: The Sam Sheppard Case and the Meaning of Wrongful Imprisonment.” Akron Law Review 38, no. 139 (2005). The article discusses whether Sam Sheppard was wrongly convicted for killing his wife.
Neff, James. Wrong Man: The Final Verdict in the Dr. Sheppard Murder Case. New York: Random House, 2002. Using interviews and case documents, Neff chronicles the criminal investigation of Sheppard and discusses the historical shifts in the treatment of suspects following the Sheppard murder case.