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Samuel Holmes Sheppard ( December 29, 1923 – April 6, 1970) was an American neurosurgeon. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant [1] wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial.
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- Samuel Holmes Sheppard, December 29, 1923, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
- Life imprisonment (overturned)
- April 6, 1970 (aged 46), Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Jan 30, 2019 · In the early hours of July 4, 1954, the wife of a respected neurosurgeon was bludgeoned to death. The first person to find her body was her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard, whose spotty alibi quickly made him the prime suspect in her murder. A media blitz and public witch-hunt turned Sheppard into a grisly pariah.
Primary documents relating to the murder of Marilyn Sheppard and subsequent trials of her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard, including chronology, maps, evidence, interviews, crime reports, essays, letters, transcript excerpts, links, and bibliography.
Dr. Sam Sheppard and Defense Counsel Fred Garmone outside the court chambers, 26 Oct. 1954. Courtesy of the Plain Dealer. On 4 July 1954, Marilyn Reese Sheppard was found murdered in her BAY VILLAGE home. Her husband, Sam, said that a bushy-haired intruder had killed his wife.
Sentence: First trial: Life imprisonment. SIGNIFICANCE: In this most sensational American murder case of the 1950s, pretrial prejudice and adverse media publicity conspired to deprive the defendant of his constitutional rights.
Samuel Holmes Sheppard, a 30-year-old physician from Cleveland, Ohio, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Sheppard, in a trial marked by extensive prejudicial media coverage.
The murder scene suggested overkill--not the act of a burglar. Various theories have been offered as a motive for the murder. For example, it was suggested that Sam went to Marilyn's bed seeking sex, and when she resisted, he flew into a rage and killed her.
