The Trail Went Cold - Episode 419 - Marilyn Reese Sheppard, Part 1

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

July 4, 1954. Bay Village, Ohio. 31-year old Marilyn Reese Sheppard is bludgeoned to death inside her bedroom and her 30-year old husband, Sam Sheppard, is injured after claiming he was attacked by an intruder. Since Sam was known for conducting extramarital affairs, police believe that he fabricated the story and was responsible for killing his wife, so he is charged with Marilyn’s murder. After being convicted at what is described as “The Trial of the Century”, Sam receives a sentence of life imprisonment, but there is great concern about the sensationalistic and biased media coverage surrounding the case. Sam spends nearly ten years in prison before his conviction is overturned and after the case makes it all the way to the United States Supreme Court, he is granted a second trial and winds up being acquitted. Decades later, Sam’s supporters attempt to posthumously exonerate him by presenting evidence that points towards another suspect, but the crime remains shrouded in mystery. To commemorate the nine-year anniversary of “The Trail Went Cold”, we will be releasing our very first special three-part episode about one of the most controversial murder cases of all time. This episode will chronicle the original investigation and trial for the murder of Marilyn Reese Sheppard and Parts Two and Three will be released over the course of the next two weeks. Join us on Saturday, February 22 at 8:00pm ET for an online streaming marathon where we will be watching classic segments from “Unsolved Mysteries”. You can enter our screening room by clicking on this link. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sheppard https://famous-trials.com/sam-sheppard/ "The Wrong Man: The Final Verdict on the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case" by James Neff "Dr. Sam Sheppard on Trial: The Prosecutors and the Marilyn Sheppard Murder" by Jack DeSario and William Mason https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/sheppard/ https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetailpre1989.aspx?caseid=300 “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the AdvocacyCon, taking place at the Indianapolis Marriott East in Indianapolis on March 28-30, 2025. To get a 10 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL10”, by visiting https://www.advocacycon.com/. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	July 4th,
0:01.0	1954
0:03.0	Bay Village, Ohio
0:05.0	31-year-old Marilyn Reese Shepard is bludgeoned to death inside her bedroom,
0:10.0	and her 30-year-old husband Sam Shepard is injured after claiming he was attacked by an intruder.
0:16.0	Police believe that Sam fabricated this story and was responsible for killing his wife,
0:20.0	so he's charged and convicted of Maryland's murder.
0:23.6	After spending nearly 10 years in prison, Sam's conviction is overturned and he is acquitted at his retrial,
0:29.6	but even though attempts are made to posthumously exonerate him decades later, the crime remained shrouded in mystery.
0:36.6	After that, the trail went cold. The
0:57.0	The Hello everyone and welcome to another special milestone for The Trail Went Cold, our nine-year anniversary show. I'm your host Robin Warder, and whenever we commemorate our podcast's anniversary each year,
1:28.0	I like to make it a tradition to go the extra mile and put together a special multi-part episode.
1:33.8	And this time around, we'll be doing a deep dive into a crime which led to one of the most
1:37.9	sensational trials of the 20th century, the 1954 murder of Marilyn Rees Shepard.
1:47.4	This is an extremely controversial and convoluted story and since there is so much to discuss here, this will be our podcast's very first three-part episode.
1:55.0	Marilyn Rees Shepard was the wife of a prominent physician named Sam Shepard, and they lived
1:59.4	together in a lakefront home in Bay Village,
2:01.3	Ohio, with their seven-year-old son. At the time, Marilyn was four months pregnant, but the family's
2:07.7	world would be shattered when she was bludgeon to death inside her bedroom in the middle of the night.
2:13.1	Since Sam had fallen asleep in the den, he claimed that he was woken up by his wife's screams
2:17.8	and ran upstairs to help her, but wound up being attacked and knocked out by someone whom
2:22.1	he described as a, quote-unquote, bushy-haired intruder.
	...

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