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) — F. Lee Bailey testified Monday that while he believed Dr. Sam Sheppard was innocent, he didn't buy the 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 in their wrongful imprisonment suit against Ohio. 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 majority of Bailey's testimony was for the estate, and served to buoy their claims of Sheppard's innocence. Bailey explained to jurors how he had become involved with Sheppard's case as a young lawyer and detailed how the Supreme Court threw out the 1954 conviction because of prejudicial press.

He testified that in the early 1960s he had been at a press forum in New York City when he heard a shocking story of bias from correspondent Dorothy Kilgallen. Kilgallen told the assembly that just before the 1954 Sheppard trial, the judge, Edward Blythin, called her into his chambers and asked her why she was wasting her time covering the trial since Sheppard was "guilty as hell."

Bailey told the jury that he had secured Sheppard's acquittal in 1966 by undermining the prosecution's theory that Marilyn Sheppard was killed with a surgical instrument and by reminding the jury that Sam Sheppard himself was severely injured that night.

"The evidence was that to break his own cervical vertebra he would have to jump out of a second floor window and land on his head," Bailey recalled.

His testimony is expected to continue Tuesday morning.

Sheppard, whose story inspired the television series "The Fugitive", served a decade in prison before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction. He died in 1970, and now his estate 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.

—Harriet Ryan