The Trail Went Cold - Episode 420 - Marilyn Reese Sheppard, Part 2

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2025

⏱️ 83 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. On last week’s episode, we chronicled the original investigation into Marilyn Reese Sheppard’s murder and Sam Sheppard’s first trial, but this week in Part Two, we will chronicle the overturning of Sam’s conviction, his second trial, and the attempts to exonerate him at a civil trial in 2000. Part Three of this series will be released next week. 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	The
0:07.0	The Hello everyone and welcome to part two of our special nine-year anniversary episode of The Trail Went Cold.
0:42.1	I'm your host Robin Warder, and today we're going to be presenting the second of our first ever three-part series about the 1954 murder of Maryland Rees Shepard.
0:52.2	We released part one last week, which outlined the most important
0:55.4	facts of the case, and if you haven't heard that episode yet, I suggest you go back and listen to it,
1:00.3	since I shared a lot of information which will be irrelevant to what we're discussing today.
1:04.8	As a brief recap, 31-year-old Marilyn Reese Shepard was the wife of a prominent 30-year-old physician
1:10.6	named Sam Shepard.
1:12.2	The couple lived in Bay Village, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, alongside their seven-year-old son,
1:17.8	Sam Shepard Jr., who went by the nickname Chip, and Marilyn was four months pregnant at this time.
1:24.1	On the evening of July the 3rd, 1954, the Shepherds hosted a dinner party at the residence with another couple,
1:30.3	but since Sam had experienced an exhausting day, he fell asleep on the daybed in the living room, before Maryland went upstairs to sleep in the guest bedroom.
1:39.3	However, during the early morning hours of July 4th, Sam claimed that he was awakened by the sound of his wife screaming,
1:45.5	and when he ran into the bedroom, he was knocked unconscious. When Sam woke up, he discovered that
1:50.9	Marilyn had been bludgeoned to death in her bed, and what appeared to be an attempted sexual
1:54.9	assault, and when he looked downstairs, he saw what he described as a, quote-unquote,
1:59.8	bushy-haired intruder in the house.
2:02.8	Sam chased this intruder outside under the beach alongside Lake Erie and got into a scuffle with
2:07.9	them, but claimed that he was knocked unconscious again, and when he woke up, his attacker was gone.
2:13.8	Well, police did not find Sam's account to be believable and suspected that he killed Maryland
2:18.3	and fabricated his entire story about the intruder. This would evolve into a very sensational case
2:24.8	where the local newspapers flat out accused Sam of the murder and publicly pressured the police
	...

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