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Who Killed...?

Marilyn Reese Sheppard

Who Killed...?

Bill Huffman

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

3.8595 Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2021

⏱️ 70 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the early morning hours of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard was bludgeoned to death in her bed. Her husband Sam, a prominent Bay Village doctor, maintained that Marilyn was murdered by a bushy-haired intruder. He stood trial and was convicted for his wife’s murder amidst a media storm. The media frenzy so tainted the case that the United States Supreme Court released him and ordered a retrial in the decision Sheppard v. Maxwell. At the 1966 retrial, Sheppard was acquitted. He died just a few years later. SOURCES: https://famous-trials.com/sam-sheppard/2-sheppard law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/sheppard/sheppardchonology.html https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/sheppard/#browse Cleveland Plain Dealer Cleveland Press Associated Press NY Times https://case.edu/ech/articles/s/sheppard-murder-case https://www.thoughtco.com/the-sam-sheppard-murder-case-972179 http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/sheppard/sheppardreports.html https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sam-sheppard-dies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Slow Burn Media and Bill Huffman present Who Killed, a podcast that provides a voice for the voiceless.

0:09.2

I've been waiting for 12 years to be retried, and I wish to be retried because Mr. Bailey,

0:18.2

F. Lee Bailey of Boston is going to vindicate me and prove my innocence in court.

0:23.6

However, I fear for my wife's help for the ordeal that she must go through on top of the ordeal she's already been subjected to.

0:35.6

This has not been easy on her, and this goes for the rest of the family,

0:40.3

including our son, our daughter, our parents in Europe. This is not going to be easy on them.

0:46.3

Some of them because they're too young and others because they're too old.

0:51.3

But on the other hand, I welcome the chance to prove my innocence,

0:58.2

which I will do. I suppose I'd rather defend an innocent man because it's always more gratifying

1:04.3

to get a positive result for someone who's innocent. On the other hand, the pressure is worse,

1:10.2

because if you lose the case,

1:11.6

you've got to keep appealing it and appealing it and appealing it as long as there's any appeal to try,

1:16.6

and it's very frustrating and very depressing to know that someone who is innocent is sitting in jail despite your best efforts.

1:22.6

The unseen part of the iceberg is the preparation of the case, which involves investigation.

1:28.3

After all, if you have the evidence with you, no amount of advocacy is going to affect the result,

1:33.3

and if it's against you, the same is probably true.

1:36.3

And if the investigation establishes clearly enough the guilt or the innocence of the defendant,

1:42.3

the man representing him isn't really going to make that much difference.

1:47.0

I'm simply a functionary in the system who's obliged to give him the best defense I can.

1:52.0

It certainly doesn't bother me because the guilt is not proven to the satisfaction of the jury.

1:56.0

I have very few contemporaries, if you're talking about people who devote all of their time to the

2:01.9

defensive criminal cases there are only a handful in the country and some of them that I

...

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