Research Paper On Sam Sheppard

According to the presumption of innocence,”a man is innocent until proven guilty”. Throughout the United States there are many different views by many different people and controversial court cases can display so. The controversial court case of Dr. Sam Sheppard, Sheppard was accused of killing his wife Marilyn Sheppard during the early morning of July 4, 1954. On December 24, 1954 Sheppard was guilty of murder in the second degree, but in November 16, 1966 Sheppard was found not guilty in his re-trial. In the controversial court case of Sam Sheppard, the guilty verdict initially incorrectly prosecuted Sheppard of murdering his wife Marilyn Sheppard. The physical evidence surrounding Marilyn’s hands and fingers can be one example as to why

"One finger was nearly torn off. The injuries indicated a vicious struggle. Sheppard’s hands may have held the answer of the murder, for they surely came into contact with the person who murdered her" (1). If Sam Sheppard had murdered his wife there would at least been evidence on Sheppard’s hands. Marilyn was severely beaten to death, she had been struck twenty-seven times in the head, thirty-five times in all. The only thing on Sam’s pants was one significant stain, but other than that they were blood free. After much research, Sheppard and Cooper found evidence that two of the autopsies contradicted each other. "A report read, 'Scrapings removed at autopsy from underneath the fingernails of Marilyn Sheppard: No significant hairs or fibers noticed’… but an earlier twenty-eight-page trace-evidence report described red material, blood, hair, a plant fiber, a dark blue wool fiber, a red wool fiber, fine blue fiber, and thin pieces of wood” (1). As the report had stated, there was no significant hairs or fibers noticed, but the twenty-eight-page-trace-evidence report had a long list of fibers and other significant samples. The long list of different fibers, hair, and the thin wood pieces could have been the key to solving who really killed Marilyn. Of corse, these were not tested

The evidence behind this can be a contributing factor as to why Sam Sheppard is innocent. Author of the article Did Sam Do It, Douglas Linder explains about the Eberling confession. “Kathy (Wagner) Dyal, a former nurse's aide to Ethel Durkin, who was murdered by Eberling, a former window washer for the Sheppards, testified at the civil trial that Eberling revealed to her that he killed Marilyn Sheppard… He told me that he had killed her and that he hit her husband on the head with a pail and that ‘the b**** bit the h*** out of me’ “ (2). As shown in the text, Kathy Dyal had stated that Eberling had confessed to the murder of Marilyn Sheppard. Based on all the evidence it is not that hard to believe that Eberling could have murdered Marilyn. It is shown by the evidence that Marilyn fought back so it would make sense if Eberling had injuries. His blood was found at the scene, but he said he accidentally cut himself a couple days before the murder. Eberling had a hard childhood which may have lead him to start acting out in the violent ways that he did. “[Eberling] displayed problems with stealing from childhood through time of arrest for murder of Ethel Durkin,throughout his childhood he lied… at age nine, psychologists and social workers believed that he might be schizoid and probably psychotic. They were of the opinion that he would need to be institutionalized for the rest