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House Murder Scenes

Posted by Jude Buttle on Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Doctor Samuel Sheppard was found guilty of the murder of his pregnant wife in their home in 1954. Finally acquitted 10 years later, his story inspired the television series and Hollywood film, The Fugitive.

Scene of the Crime

Samuel Holmes Sheppard was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, in 1954, in their house in Ohio. Sheppard, who was an osteopathic physician at the time, served almost a decade in the Ohio Penitentiary before his conviction was overturned and declared a miscarriage of justice.

Sheppard was sentenced for killing his wife - who was pregnant with their second child - early in the morning on the 4^th July, 1954. Sheppard claimed that his wife's actual assailant attacked him and knocked him unconscious twice, in between murdering his wife.

A television series and film (both titled The Fugitive) are widely believed to have been inspired by Sheppard's story.

Crime and Punishment

Sheppard's trial started in the autumn of 1954 and was notable for its extensive publicity and carnival like atmosphere.

It was revealed during the course of the investigation and trial that Doctor Sheppard had a lengthy extramarital affair with Susan Hayes, a nurse at the hospital where Sheppard was employed. The prosecution argued that the affair was Sheppard's motive for murdering his wife.

The defence attorney, William Corrigan, stated that Sheppard had severe injuries and suggested that those injuries were inflicted by the intruder. Corrigan further argued that the crime scene was extremely bloody - Mrs Sheppard had received 27 blows to the head with a heavy instrument - yet Sheppard, apart from a small spot on his trousers, had no blood on him.

Sheppard testified that he had been dozing downstairs when he woke to his wife's screams. He said that he ran upstairs and was knocked unconscious by someone.

When he came to, he found his wife already bloodied and dead. He ran back downstairs and chased what he described as a "bushy-haired intruder," before being attacked and knocked out again.

The defence called 18 character witnesses for Sheppard, and two of them said that they had seen a bushy-haired man near the Sheppard home on the day of the crime.

The jury was not convinced and on December 21, 1954, it found Sheppard guilty of second-degree murder. The doctor was immediately sentenced to life imprisonment.

Soon after his conviction, Sheppard twice received devastating family news. In January 1955, his mother shot herself and 11 days later, his father died of cancer. In both cases, he was permitted to attend the funerals but was required to wear handcuffs.

In 1963, his late wife's father, Thomas S. Reese, committed suicide with a shotgun in an East Cleveland, Ohio motel.

Tipping the Scales

Dr. Sheppard spent nearly ten years in prison when, after several appeals were rejected, his petition for a writ of habeas corpus was granted by a United States district court judge on July 15, 1964. The State of Ohio was ordered either to free Sheppard or to grant him a new trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court finally reviewed the case and overturned the initial verdict in an important legal decision, determining that the doctor's conviction was the result of a trial in which he was denied "due process."

Defended by F. Lee Bailey in his second trial in Cleveland, Sheppard received a "not guilty" verdict on November 16, 1966.

The Verdict

Just three days after his release, Sheppard married Ariane Tebbenjohanns, a German divorcee who had corresponded with him during his time in prison. Tebbenjohanns endured her own bit of controversy when she confirmed that her half-sister was Magda Ritschel, the wife of Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. The marriage between Sheppard and Tebbenjohanns didn't last and in 1969, they divorced.

Sheppard returned briefly to medicine in Youngstown, Ohio, but was sued twice for medical malpractice by the estates of dead patients. Later, he performed as a professional wrestler, going by the ring name, The Killer.

Just six months before his death, Sheppard married the 20-year-old daughter of a close friend. He died of liver failure, having become an alcoholic, on 6^th April 1970 and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Columbus, Ohio.

His body remained there until 1997, when he was exhumed for DNA testing as part of the lawsuit brought by his son (who was seven years old at the time of his mother's murder) to clear his name. After the tests, the body was cremated, and the ashes buried in a mausoleum at Knollwood Cemetery in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, with those of his late wife, Marilyn.

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Photo by August Norman

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