Recent Witnesses Gregg O. McCrary Criminalist McCrary, a retired FBI agent, testified April 3 that Mrs. Sheppard's murder was a domestic homicide, not a sadistic attack by an intruder. He told jurors an intruder would not spend time staging a burglary while a family member who felt comfortable in the home might. On cross examination, McCrary admitted he had never led a homicide investigation and had only been an advisor to investigations headed by law enforcement agencies. Gerhardt, a part-time repairman, testified March 30 that he fixed and installed a table lamp, now unaccounted for, in the Sheppards' bedroom two days before Mrs. Sheppard's murder. The state used Gerhardt's testimony to suggest investigators never found the lamp because Sam Sheppard discarded it after bludgeoning his wife with it. Gerhard told the jury he mentioned the lamp to the first police officer at the crime scene. That patrolman later testified that when he questioned the doctor about the lamp, he denied its existence.   Paul Gerhardt Jane Reese Reese, the 92-year-old stepmother of Mrs. Sheppard, testified March 29, that the doctor's family barred her from seeing him and Sam Reese Sheppard in the hours after the murder. Reese, now blind, told jurors that her husband, Tom Reese, did get to visit with the doctor at the hospital, but she was kept away. She also described the 1954 trial, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, as "normal" and "well ordered." Columbus beautician Moretti testified March 27 that Dr. Sheppard wrote a one-word "confession" in his book after she asked him to sign it at a 1969 party. Moretti told jurors that she asked Sheppard to autograph "Endure and Conquer," which is subtitled "Did Sam do it?," and when she later looked at the book, she found not only his autograph, but also the word "Yes" written under the subtitle. On cross examination by the Sheppard estate, which has ridiculed the "confession" as ludicrous given Sheppard's life-long claims of innocence, Moretti admitted any one of the party guests could have tampered with the book.   Phyllis Moretti Colleen Strickland Sheppard's third wife, Strickland, testified March 24 that she never asked the doctor about his wife's murder. However, Strickland, who was just 19 when she married the 46-year-old Sheppard, then a professional wrestler, said she assumed from conversations he had with others in her presence that there were two assailants. This assumption, Ohio prosecutors suggested, is at odds with the estate's theory that Richard Eberling killed Mrs. Sheppard. Former Bay View Hospital intern Bailey testified March 24 that an angry Marilyn Sheppard told him a few months before her murder that she planned to divorce her husband. Bailey told the jury his wife, Donna, who was Dr. Sheppard's secretary, opened a letter of the doctor's bearing a postmark from California, where his mistress Susan Hayes lived. He said Mrs. Sheppard came to the Bailey home, demanding the letter and saying she planned to divorce her husband and "drag the Sheppard name through the mud."   Dr. Robert Bailey Dr. Roger W. Marsters Biochemist Marsters, now retired as head of Cleveland's blood bank, testified March 15 that after the crime, he observed tiny droplets of blood on Dr. Sheppard's wrist watch. Bolstered by Marsters' testimony about the watch, which was recovered in a bag outside the family home, Ohio prosecutors suggested the watch and by extension, Dr. Sheppard were near enough to Mrs. Sheppard's fatal attack to be splattered by blood. On cross examination, Marsters acknowledged that he is not a forensic scientist and has no training in blood splatter testing. Forensic biologist Wolson testified March 14 that DNA evidence the Sheppard estate says proves a third person was present for the murder is contaminated and unreliable. On cross examination, Wolson acknowledged he had never reviewed the lab notes from estate DNA expert Tahir. Wolson also disputed Sheppard estate testimony that dried blood cannot be accurately typed after 48 hours.   Toby Wolson Dr. Lowell J. Levine Forensic dentist Levine told jurors March 14 that Mrs. Sheppard's broken teeth came not from biting her attacker, as Sheppard attorneys argued at the 1966 trial, but from blows to her head. On cross examination, Levine admitted that Mrs. Sheppard could have bitten her attacker without breaking teeth. Levine also disputed a Sheppard estate expert's testimony that a scar on Eberling's wrist could be scientifically linked to Mrs. Sheppard's broken nail. On cross examination, Levine admitted that Mrs. Sheppard could have bitten her attacker without breaking teeth. Cuyahoga County Coroner Balraj testified March 10 that Marilyn Sheppard's broken fingernail resulted from a blow to her hand, not from gouging her assailant as the Sheppard estate suggested. She told the jury that she could not detect any scar in a photograph of Eberling's wrist, but that even if the window washer had one, there is no scientific way to tell the origin of an old scar. She also said Mrs. Sheppard's position on the bed as well as the lack of physical evidence indicated she had not been raped.   Dr. Elizabeth Balraj Dr. Ranajit Chakraborty Population geneticist Chakraborty, elaborating on previous DNA evidence, testified March 3 that the most likely contributors to the closet door bloodstain were Marilyn Sheppard and Eberling. He scored a big point for the Sheppard family when he told the jury that over time Type A blood can turn into Type O blood. Ohio prosecutors had argued Eberling, who had Type A blood, could not be responsible for the stain since it was Type O blood. On cross examination, the prosecution attacked Chakraborty's statistical analyses as vague and useless, arguing that 40,000 Americans have the same DNA profile as Eberling. DNA expert Tahir testified March 3 that tests on crime scene bloodstains indicate a third person, perhaps Eberling, was in the Sheppard home during the murder. He said stains on a wood chip from the Sheppard's basement staircase and from a closet door in the murder room contain DNA that does not belong to the Sheppards, but could belong to Eberling. On cross examination, Ohio prosecutors argued that Eberling was only one of thousands of people who fit the stain's DNA profile. They also suggested the 46-year-old samples passed through many hands over the years and could have been contaminated.   Dr. Mohammad Tahir Barton Epstein Bloodstain expert Epstein testified March 1 that Dr. Sheppard could not have killed his wife because the killer would have been covered in blood and Sheppard was not. On cross, Epstein acknowledged that Dr. Sheppard could have changed out of blood-soaked clothes before summoning help. Epstein also testified that a large bloodstain on a closet door in the couple's bedroom contained blood belonging neither to Sheppard nor his wife. This stain, Epstein told the jury, indicates the presence of an intruder during the murder. On cross, Ohio prosecutors scored a damaging blow to the Sheppard estate's theory that handyman Eberling was the murderous intruder by pointing out that the blood in the stain was Type O and Eberling was Type A. Sobel, a forensic odontologist or dental records expert, described to the jury Feb. 29 a murder scenario consistent with an attack by Eberling. Sobel theorized that Marilyn, on her back being beaten by her attacker, tried to grab his arm, scratching his wrist and tearing her own nail. Eberling, Sobel noted, had a scar on his wrist. Sobel also said Mrs. Sheppard's broken tooth resulted from blunt force trauma and not from biting her assailant. On cross examination, Sobel denied prosecution suggestions that he had concocted the murder scenario to fit the Sheppard theory, but he did acknowledge that his theory was not scientifically based.   Michael Sobel Dr. Cyril Wecht Forensic pathologist Wecht told the jury Feb. 28 that the original coroner in the case, Dr. Samuel Gerber, conducted an overreaching and irresponsible investigation into Marilyn Sheppard's death. He testified Gerber acted inappropriately by concluding Dr. Sheppard was guilty prior to an inquest, by failing to preserve evidence correctly, and by acting as a criminalist and pathologist, specialties beyond his expertise. On cross examination, the prosecution got Wecht to agree to their theory that the murder was a "rage killing" that could have been staged to look like a sexual assault. Forensic psychiatrist Tanay testified Feb. 25 that the nature of the Marilyn Sheppard's murder pointed to a psychopathic intruder and not her husband. He said the killing, which he termed a classic sexual sadistic homicide, was committed by an anti-social individual who derived a great deal of pleasure from Mrs. Sheppard's pain. He told the jury that this "mutilation of a helpless pregnant woman" was not a "typical" spousal homicide, and in fact, in 40 years of practice, he'd never seen a domestic homicide of this nature.   Dr. Emanuel Tanay James Tompkins Retired Bay Village police officer Tompkins testified Feb. 24 that just because Eberling's 1956 police record card didn't refer to a scar on his wrist didn't mean he didn't have one. Tompkins said the scar, which the estate suggests Eberling sustained during the murder of Marilyn Sheppard, might have been missed if Eberling was questioned, but not arrested. Tompkins also read jurors Eberling's 1959 statement to police in which he tells officers unprompted that he bled in the Sheppard's home just four days before the killing. Lowers, former chair of the AMSEC investigative agency, testified Feb. 24 that Sam Reese Sheppard and author Cynthia Cooper hired his firm to look into the murder. He said that while the investigation was open ended and meant primarily to spur prosecutors to reactivate the case, the evidence assembled by AMSEC pointed to Eberling. On cross examination, Lowers admitted he had little first hand knowledge of the evidence, but he denied that the agency was out solely for fame and money.   Dorsey "Don" Lowers Kathie Dyal Dyal, a Florida nurse who briefly worked for Richard Eberling, told the jury Feb. 23 that Eberling confessed to Marilyn Sheppard's murder in 1983. She said Eberling, who the Sheppard estate holds responsible for the murder, referred to Marilyn as a "bitch" and said she had bitten him during the attack. She testified that he told her someone else was "paying the bill" for the murder. Retired police officer Jindra told the jury Feb. 23 that when he arrested Eberling for grand larceny in 1959, Eberling had a ring that had belonged to Marilyn Sheppard. He testified Eberling was well known to police as a suburban "sneak thief" who often sported wigs. Jindra said Eberling's 1956 booking card did not note a scar on his left wrist while his 1959 card did, an indication according to the state that Eberling did not suffer the wound during Marilyn Sheppard's 1954 murder.   George Jindra Sam Reese Sheppard The only child of the Sheppards testified Feb. 22 that his father's life had been "destroyed" when the state wrongfully accused him of murder. He described the Sheppard family's life before the murder as happy and loving. He told the jury he "knew" rather than just believed in his father's innocence. He denied making money on his father's legacy, pointing out that he hadn't earned a dime from "The Fugitive" series. Famed attorney Bailey described for the jury Feb. 14 how he took Sheppard's case as a young lawyer and helped him win acquittal in 1966. He testified that while he didn't think Sheppard killed his wife, he did not buy the estate's theory that handyman Eberling killed the doctor's wife. He theorized that Sheppard neighbor Esther Houk committed the murder after she discovered her husband, Mayor Spencer Houk, in bed with Marilyn Sheppard.   F. Lee Bailey

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