Dr. Sam Sheppard Wrongful Imprisonment Trial
				Witness testimony Background Case document file Chronology Aug 2 '99 Update Nov 22 '99 Update Oct 7 Update Jan 31 Update Feb 1 Update Feb 2 Update Feb 7 Update Feb 14: Openings Feb 14: Bailey testifies Feb. 16 Update Feb. 17 Update Feb. 22 Update: Son testifies Feb. 28 Update March 2 Update Discuss the trial on message board

CLEVELAND (Court TV) —Was Sam Sheppard a cruel, lecherous husband who brutally killed his wife or an innocent, grieving husband victimized by the criminal justice system? During opening statements Monday in the wrongful imprisonment suit brought against Ohio by the Sheppard estate, the two sides promised to get to the truth.

"We are here today to prove once and for all that Dr. Sheppard was innocent of the crime of murder of his wife, Marilyn Sheppard. Finally, finally, after 45 and a half years, the truth will be told to you in this courtroom," Sheppard estate lawyer Terry Gilbert promised the five men and three women who will decide the case.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William D. Mason followed Gilbert by telling the jury, "We too have been eager to get into this courthouse and this courtroom to present our evidence."

What that evidence shows and what the truth actually is were the subject of dramatic and conflicting opening statements. Using family photographs and old news film, the Sheppard estate painted the couple as loving partners whose lives were destroyed July 5, 1954 by a murderous intruder. The state, meanwhile, portrayed Sam Sheppard as a cad whose affairs created a "powder keg" of tension which exploded when the doctor bludgeoned his wife to death.

F. Lee Bailey testifies Famed criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey testified Monday that he didn't believe the Sheppard estate's theory that a handyman killed the doctor's wife. Bailey, who represented Dr. Sam Sheppard at his 1966 acquittal, was the first witness called by the Sheppard estate. Bailey told the jury that while he did not believe the doctor bludgeoned Marilyn Sheppard to death in July 1954, he had never accepted Richard Eberling, a local window washer, as the murderer. Eberling died in jail in 1998 where he was serving time for the 1984 murder of an elderly woman. The Sheppard estate, led by the couple's only child, Sam Reese Sheppard, contends Eberling killed Marilyn Sheppard. Terry Gilbert, who represents the estate, told the jury during opening statements Monday that Eberling had confessed to the crime. Bailey said that during years of investigation, he never found Eberling a credible suspect and instead, favored two other suspects. Bailey told jurors that he believed the Sheppard's neighbors, local mayor Spencer Houk and his wife, Esther, killed Marilyn. Bailey theorized that Mayor Houk and Marilyn Sheppard were engaged in a tryst the night of the murder when Esther Houk discovered them and attacked Marilyn. Under questioning from Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Steve Dever, Bailey asserted the Houks, both now deceased, remained the strongest suspects. "I bought (that theory) initially and it got stronger over the years even until today," said Bailey. "And you bought that theory even after you evaluated Richard Eberling and the possible window washer as the suspect who killed Marilyn Sheppard?" Dever asked. "I did not or at any time since form a belief that Richard Eberling killed Marilyn Sheppard," Bailey said.

The jury empaneled Friday will be the third to sort through evidence in Marilyn Sheppard's death. A well-respected surgeon until the murder, the doctor was initially found guilty of the beating death of his pregnant wife. Sheppard, whose story inspired the television series "The Fugitive", served a decade in prison before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction. At a new trial in 1966 trial, he was acquitted.

He died in 1970, and now his estate, led by his son Sam Reese Sheppard, is seeking a declaration of innocence from a Cleveland jury. Armed with that declaration, the estate could be awarded millions in compensation for the years Sheppard spent in jail.

In openings, Gilbert told the jury that Sam Sheppard was twice victimized, first by an intruder who killed his wife and then by a prosecution "based on suspicion and speculation." He pointed to headlines from 1954 reading "Quit Stalling and Bring Him In" and "Somebody Is Getting Away With Murder" to illustrate the rush to blame Sheppard.

"When the powerful forces of law enforcement, politicians, and the newspapers point their finger at a solitary individual and accuse that individual of a heinous crime his fate will be a foregone conclusion," Gilbert told the jury.

He ticked off a list of evidence, including crime scene blood, the doctor's statements, and Marilyn Sheppard's injuries, that he said indicated another assailant. Perhaps, Gilbert told the jury, that assailant was the couple's window washer, Richard Eberling, a convict who at one time confessed to the murder.

The prosecution countered by painting Sheppard as a cad "totally indifferent to his wedding vows" and his wife as embittered by his affairs. He said the state's evidence would prove not only that Sheppard committed the crime, but that he had a strong motive to do so. Mason told the jury Marilyn Sheppard has suffered indignity after indignity as her husband carried on open affairs. The doctor wanted to divorce her, but could not because of his father's views on divorce, Mason argued.

"We don't know what lit the match, but something caused the powder keg of marital conflict to blow in the early morning of July 4 when both Sam and Marilyn felt trapped in an unsatisfactory marriage," Mason told the jury. "The powder key of emotion and conflict exploded and Marilyn was bludgeoned to death by her husband."

The prosecution asked jurors to use their common sense knowledge of human behavior to evaluate evidence. At one point, he pounded his fist into his hand 27 times, the number of blows Marilyn Sheppard suffered and asked the jury, "What kind of a man would go into a woman's bedroom in the middle of the night and strike her violently 27 times? Is it a burglar or is it an enraged husband? That's the question you have before you."

Sam Sheppard's one-time lawyer F. Lee Bailey took the stand Monday afternoon as the first witness for the estate.

—Harriet Ryan

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