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Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.
I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold, very cold. This is Buried Bones. Hey, Kate. Hey.
Hey, Paul. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing this time? Fine. Enough small talk. We got a big case that we're kind of talking about, right? I want to jump right into the case of Sam Shepard because I know I left you on a cliffhanger, which was this case about this neurosurgeon in 1954, Ohio, who is under suspicion by police of violently murdering his wife, Marilyn, in their lakefront home in
And Sam Shepard is a worthless witness, essentially, because he says he's been knocked out twice by a man whose only description he gives is a bushy-haired stranger, which I can't think of a more vague thing to say about anyone. Not the best description, but we'll find out a little bit more about Sam Shepard's story that night.
in just a bit, but that's kind of the quick and dirty summary of this story. He is off and on very hard narcotics in the hospital because of all the pain and injuries that he says he has. And the police are now starting to investigate a motive. That's one of the first things I want to talk about, but let me go ahead and get your impressions on some other things. So let's get started. Sounds great.
What do you want to start with here? Do you want to talk about the bloodstain pattern on the walls? Yeah, let's kind of complete the crime scene analysis. I feel like a real investigator. Is that what you would say? Let's go ahead and just don't jump ahead, Kate.
So this is the photo that we were talking about. We could see in the lower right-hand corner, Marilyn's bed and the massive bloodstain that's there. And then it looks like there's a closet door and a bedroom door. The bedroom door is open, closet door is closed, and there appears to be blood spatter primarily sort of at the same level as the bed. Are you reading it like that? Right, yeah. The photo was taken from the vantage point of, you know, standing kind of at the far side foot of the bed and
looking towards the front entry into the bedroom. And the entry door is fully open up against what appears to be a closet door. And there are numerous droplets of varying sizes distributed across both doors.
And of course, I'd love to see what's happening behind the entry door because if it's, let's say it's closed at the time some of this blood pattern was put on there and then it opens up, that would tell me that there's some sequencing information. Right now, I'm going to assume that all the blood patterns that I'm seeing is showing that that door was open at the time that these blood droplets struck it. As I look at this,
Imagine why is the blood spatter down on the lower third of these doors, really at the height of the bed or lower? Below the doorknobs is how I would describe that. Below the doorknobs and down to the floor. And some of these droplets, what ends up happening with blood spatter is there's an arcing aspect to them. So they may go up after a blow to a bloody source.
And then they end up falling down. And then you'll see somewhat of a downwards trajectory as they strike these doors. I can't discern that. But there's nothing about Marilyn's body and positioning that
to indicate that she received some blows, let's say on the floor and was moved up to the bed. So I'm gonna make an assumption that all the blows are inflicted while she's laying on the bed. What is interesting is there's no void in the spatter patterns on these doors. So imagine if an offender is standing on that side of the bed
inflicting those blows, at the time these particular blows are being inflicted, that offender is going to be receiving the droplets on him and causing a void behind him, right? Right. And there's not one there that I can see. I don't see that. And again, I don't know how many blows are represented and it may have been even impossible to determine that.
However, you told me the experts said that there was no cast off on the ceiling, correct? Right. They said, and this is 1954, no cast off on the ceiling. And what they assumed that meant was the blows were made horizontally, not vertically. Does that make any kind of a difference in the investigation at all? Does that say something about height? No, not necessarily. But it helps position the offender when he's inflicting the blows.
So if we take a look at some of the injuries to Marilyn's face, they are not up and down, like from the forehead down to the chin. Some of them are actually across her face, side to side.
And her head is turned somewhat to her right as if she's facing these doors. So I start to think, well, the offender's not on top of her inflicting these blows. He's standing on the other side of her bed, away from the front entry, actually between her bed and Sam's normal bed.
and is now striking her from that side, but the weapon is coming down while her face is turned away from him towards where these doors are. And so now when you get cast off,
because of that type of positioning of the offender and how the weapon is striking a face that's kind of turned away from him. Now I can see a spatter is going to emanate towards these doors without the offender blocking or creating a void, as well as if there is cast off, the cast off comes on the upward swing of the weapon. So now the cast off is coming up in that horizontal plane versus up
overhead towards the ceiling. With what I can see, that's going to be something that I would kind of say is, okay, I think the offender for some of the blows is standing in the middle part of the room opposite from the front entry of the bedroom in order to inflict some of the blows. I can't say all the blows.
I thought, before I saw this photo of the room from this angle, I thought, okay, she's in her bedroom. The door might be closed. How did he get all the way in between those two beds without her hearing the door open? But now that I see the door open, it looks like it was open when...
when he came in, so he didn't have to open the door quietly, that would make sense. Number one, her husband's downstairs and presumably probably coming upstairs, so she didn't want to shut the door. And when you have a seven-year-old, I don't know many parents who would shut a door when they have a seven-year-old in the hallway across the way. So my guess is that this situation made life a little easier on the killer if it's not Sam Shepard.
Because he didn't have to open a door and sneak in. The door was open, and she was really caught by surprise is what it looks like to me. Does that seem like that to you, too? Yeah, that's a possibility. And, you know, of course, we don't know how heavy of a sleeper she is. You know, I've been married twice, and both wives could sleep through a hurricane. So...
Good to know. And I'm a very light sleeper. You know, I'm the one that gets up if I hear something and check things out. I do think, you know, we don't know right now. I can't discern anything in terms of whether the door was open or closed at the time the offender enters the room. But that bedroom door is open at the time that some of the blows are being inflicted that are creating that blood spatter.
Yeah. Let's talk about the logical to me motive. And then let's talk about the police motive that they've come up with. Things that have happened in the house.
Sam mentions when he ran upstairs after this fight and he saw Marilyn, he could hear noises downstairs. So the noises are all kinds of rifling through things. The trophies were smashed that Sam had on the ground. They had been smashed on the floor. Oh, that's odd. Whoever had killed her or Sam set this up had gone through Sam's medical bag. So I'm going to show you that. Okay. Okay.
The medical bag had been turned over. Marilyn's watch had been found covered in blood. Police surmised whoever killed her, killed her, she was wearing her watch, took the watch off, and then dropped the watch. If this is a stranger, the bushy-haired stranger, dropped the watch he was planning to steal during his fight with Sam. So we've got overturned everything. Marilyn and Sam's desks had both been searched everywhere.
He knocked over Sam's medical bag. You can see, you know, his equipment on the ground. He has like, it looks like a nice bureau that three drawers have been yanked out. This, of course, can be completely staged. We know that that happens. Yes. And as I'm looking at this desk, I'm
and you have the three drawers pulled out. One of the notable things that experienced burglars do is, you know, it's this efficiency of motion. Imagine if you were to start with that top drawer to see what's in it. In order to see what's inside the next drawer, you have to close the top drawer. Mm-hmm.
to open up the next drawer and so on and so forth. Experienced burglars start from the bottom and all they do is they pull, pull, pull, pull. And that's what I'm seeing here. So that, it doesn't conclude whether or not you're dealing with a stranger and then this was a financially motivated crime because Sam could easily have done this as well. But it's something that strikes me. And when I see
that, I go, okay, from all the burglaries that I've processed in my life, I'm dealing with somebody who's knowing what they're doing. They're trying to move quick and they're doing something that many people wouldn't think to do. I didn't know that about drawers. That's really interesting. Okay. So now we are a little bit more on the side of this is a stranger who had access to the house, whether he knew the house well or not.
and knew what he was doing when he was burglarizing it. So this seems logical to me that this is a stranger or a burglar if you believe Sam Shepard. Yeah, and I don't necessarily conclude that this is a stranger based on what I am seeing. I'm kind of very curious to see what these items are on the floor in front of the desk because that looks funny to me. You've got paper that's distributed. Maybe it looks like a cash register.
I don't know if it's a calendar, but some sort of little notebook. You know, why is the offender taking the time to just do this to paper? And some of it looks like it might even be torn up. That looks odd to my eyes right now. But the photo doesn't give me enough information as to what that paperwork is, what that notepad is.
So that's odd. You know, if the offender's looking for valuables, why is he taking the time to kind of dump this paper? It doesn't even look like it's something that he needed to get out of the way in order to rifle through the desk. Well, let me tell you what was discovered. So the police are searching the house. They're looking through the house. Sam is at the hospital. They begin to search the property. So remember, this is lakefront property.
And on a bluff of the lake, which I think a bluff is just sort of the hill leading down from their house to the lakeside, to Lake Erie. On the bluff of the lake, they find a green bag that was belonging to the shepherds, and they find it the next day under a bush.
The bag itself does not have any blood on it. There were valuables from the Shepard home, which included Sam's watch, a class ring, an Onyx class ring he had, and a keychain that had some charms on it.
And the watch was stopped at 4.15 a.m., we're presuming. And the police said that it looked like it had been waterlogged around that time. They found some water under the crystal. And so, you know, the idea was that maybe someone had stolen all of this stuff
put it in the bag, and dropped it in the bush or maybe hid it later on on his escape and didn't take it with him. And later on, when the police become suspicious, they say it's actually Sam who was wearing the watch. He got in the water. There was no real fight. He staged all of this.
And when he kind of got in the water to get his pants wet to make up this story, the water got into the watch and ruined the watch, and he decided to discard it, which seems pretty elaborate. So is this all going to motive? Why are they not believing his story at this point? He's injured.
His wife's dead. What do you think the suspicion, where does that come from? Because the husband always is the one who did it? Well, not necessarily. You know, at this point, it's also just trying to reconstruct his movements and
and a stranger's movements in order for this to all add up from just an evidence standpoint. So this green bag was the shepherd's bag. It's Sam's bag. Right. These items are inside the bag. My first question is, is where in the house would these various items have been located at? It sounds like
on the bottom floor. But one of the things that's interesting is that Sam says, this stranger and I tussled. He knocked me out. He probably took the watch off my wrist at that point, but Sam's pocket had his wallet in it, and that was never taken. So the robbery thing is a little curious. I think that these items were mostly downstairs and maybe found
in the desk where he was rifling through, but there also could have been some of her jewelry could have been taken. You know, we don't know. Sam couldn't account for everything. Okay. You know, that's important information from my perspective. Was it just Sam's items? What was the value of those items? Where were they located at? Was there a very obvious source of, let's say, Marilyn's jewelry that was untouched that may have been more expensive?
Part of what I would be deconvoluting is trying to determine, you know, was this logical stuff for an offender to be able to quickly grab? Was this bag in a position, this green bag in a position where the offender would easily run across it or was it tucked in the back of a closet? That's part of the details that I think the original investigators are considering here.
In addition to maybe, you know, the scene is a little weird. Her body position on the bed is a little weird, you know, so things aren't quite adding up. And quite frankly, even though he's got the issues with the vertebrae, the blows that are being inflicted on him doesn't appear that they're leaving any obvious marks on him, at least what I can see in that photo. Yeah, I mean, this is all what the police are talking about.
They're saying, we don't believe a stranger came out here. We're saying it's a big risk for a stranger to come through. They didn't have any suspects. So they start having some discussions about what the real motive is because they're not 100% sure of what's missing and what's not. And it does seem like an odd crime scene. And then we have this husband who's useless. Let's talk about forensics. Throughout the house, there's a trail of blood drops.
leading down the stairs and outside, no telltale signs of a struggle, even with Sam, except for his injuries, or a break-in in particular. There are no telltale signs of sexual assault on Marilyn that could be easily determined. So there were no violent signs of rape. We know that that doesn't mean anything, right? Right. I will say they at least had the foresight of taking a vaginal swab, which was good. Okay.
Okay, yeah, you know, and obviously here she is, you know, she's left in a position that suggests that there is sexual interaction between the offender and her. And at autopsy, they're going to be looking for any injuries as a result of sexual interaction. You know, we have a saying, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And so that's where it is possible that sexual interaction could have occurred.
but it didn't leave telltale signs of injuries to these parts of her body. This was so violent, though, that they found pieces of her teeth in the bed. But you would expect that with the amount of blood and the amount of injuries, more than 30 injuries to her body. She has been bludgeoned to death. This is a typical bludgeoning. I'm kind of curious if they recovered...
the weapon, because then that informs me a little bit more about how I can interpret the injuries. But all the injuries are focused on her face and head. You know, there's nothing, she's not being strangled. Obviously, a knife isn't being used. It's just a bludgeoning weapon. Right, and we'll talk about the weapon in a little bit. More forensics, fingerprints that they found. There was a fingerprint on the headboard, was matched.
to Sam, I know you're going to ask, was it in blood? No, it was just a fingerprint. I actually had to ask Maren to clarify that because I know from what you would say, it would have been important if his fingerprint were in the blood, but also he could have done it just out of panic after he saw his dead wife. And that's where, you know, getting the statements early on about how she was discovered and
What did he do becomes important, you know, and most certainly if he's finding his wife dead and bludgeoned in their bed and he's coming up and checking her pulse and seeing if she's alive, he now has blood on his hands and he could be transferring her blood onto the headboard through innocent activities, if you will, not related to committing the crime.
Right. But the police are just continuing to gather all of their evidence together. We've talked about how violent the scene was. We've talked about the kind of injuries that she had and that the coroner said that this was homicide by assault. Marilyn had more than 30 injuries, struck dozens of times, broken teeth,
fractures all over her head. Very, very violent. The coroner announces that there's an inquest, which will be on July 22nd. So this is a little less than 20 days after this happened at a nearby school gymnasium. They were absolutely looking for motive.
The motive here was when they had Sam Shepard testify at this inquest at the school gymnasium, he made a big statement. There were a lot of rumors. Remember, we talked about the secret motive that police
believe they knew. There were a lot of rumors that Sam had had affairs, at least one affair. He had publicly denied those extramarital affairs. And then Gerber says he's reached a verdict that establishes that Sam is Marilyn's killer. Gerber is the coroner. So soon, Sam is charged with first-degree murder and arrested. And Sam said, I didn't have an affair with anyone. I didn't kill my wife.
You're looking at the wrong person. Still, the prosecutor ends up charging him with first-degree murder, and he is very quickly arrested. And it's important to keep in mind, for me at least, that the media coverage was, of course, unbelievable. The Cleveland Press ran nearly 400 articles on the case in six months...
A lot of the press was skewed that was either directly or implying that Sam was Marilyn's killer, and he wasn't even on trial yet. This is just leading up to the trial. And the big question is, if it's not him, then who? And I'd like to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes here when he says, when faced with competing explanations, you balance probabilities and choose the most likely. And Sam Shepard is the most likely in this case, is he not, at this point?
Well, he's suspicious. But with that Sherlock Holmes statement, you don't choose just most likely to affect an arrest and deny somebody their right to freedom. You have to develop probable cause for
So that's where I would be interested is, okay, what did the investigators or the prosecutor, you know, what did they develop to be able to say, yes, we have risen to a level of, we've got probable cause to effect an arrest. And then the DA's office says,
that has confidence that they can go to beyond a reasonable doubt. And the DA's office says, we do have probable cause, and that's why we're moving forward. The defense attorney, Sam Shepard's defense attorney, says, listen, there's way too much media attention here and very skewed media attention. We need to move this trial. And the judge says...
No, and we're not going to delay the trial either until the public clamor dies down. We're staying in Cleveland where everybody knew the story and everybody had been reading these media accounts. So can you talk a little bit about that, about the decision of whether to stay or whether to go in an area where clearly people know all about this story more than a jury should?
It's not very common for there to be a motion to change venue. It is in these high-profile cases because of the potential...
potential for contamination of the jury pool, possible prejudice due to what they've been exposed to in the media, which it sounds like the press was very slanted towards Sam Shepard is responsible for Marilyn's homicide. I am surprised at the denial for the motion of venue change in this case, based on what you've told me. Now it is predicated that
on the jury selection process to find 12, maybe more, impartial jurors. And that's where the judge is taking a little bit of a risk because this potentially opens up an avenue for appeals if there is a conviction. Right. And there are a lot of, once we see how this trial goes through, there are a lot of problems with the prosecution's case. One issue that Sam has is
is that he has been lying. So the prosecutor is framing him as an adulterer who, despite the fact that he had no history of being an abusive partner, killed his wife because he had an unhappy marriage and didn't want to have another child. Remember, she's four months pregnant.
And Sam had said, I was not having an affair. I wasn't having an affair. And now he is saying during this trial, okay, I was having an affair. So lesson learned, don't lie to the police and the public, right? Yeah, as embarrassing as the detail may be, it's in your best interest. Tell the truth.
Did they interview the person he was having an affair with? I'm assuming it's a woman. Yes, and they did. And she took the stand. So I'll tell you about that testimony. There have been accusations of many affairs. He would only admit to one. He said he had an affair with a former coworker named Susan Hayes who testified about the affair during the trial. And the defense attorney says, what did Sam say about his wife? Did he say nasty things? And she says, on the contrary, I remember him saying...
He loved his wife very much, although not so much as a wife. So this is a best friend, co-partner situation, it sounds like. And...
Is this an active affair at the time of the homicide? I believe so. So I think that this is an active affair that he's having. Okay. Or wrapped up very shortly before. Yeah, so he was just stupid at not divulging that early on. I think that's an understatement. Yes, very stupid. And why do people do that? Just because they're freaked out? They think this is all going to go away? They think somebody's never going to find this out? Police always find this stuff out.
In Sam's head, he's probably thinking, this woman is in love with me, she'll stay quiet, and it always unravels. If you are cooperating with police,
tell the truth about these types of things because when you don't, it becomes that much more suspicious. Yeah. And the defense comes in and says, listen, I know he was having an affair, but he loved his wife and he really was looking forward to having a child. He said that just days before Marilyn's murder, the Shepherds have been talking really excitedly about having this baby and
And it suggested to the brother, of course, it's Sam's brother, but it suggested to him that they were in a really good place in their marriage.
I'm not sure an affair will ever be an indicator of any kind of a good position in your marriage, but they're really trying to say that that was not a motive. I have not read whether or not Marilyn knew about this affair. And how many times have there been cases where a woman is killed, the husband or partner is found to have had an affair, and they become suspicious. And then later on, they're exonerated,
When it turns out, no, it really was a stranger who came in. You have these situations where homicides do occur because the husband is wanting to move on to a new life. Those happen, but you also have the opposite. So just this as motive can cut both ways. And there are some silly things that I think are brought in. For example, the prosecutor said that the killer had to be Sam because the family dog was not heard from neighbors barking at all. Mm-hmm.
You don't see this, but Paul just rolled his eyes. Even I can see it from here. You know, hearkening Golden State Killer again. There are so many times the victim said, our dogs always bark when there's a strange man in the house. And for some reason, they did not this time around. You know, you can't rely on that, especially to end up trying to
stack up a case against the defendant. You have to have something more substantive. I think it's a pretty weak case. It really is the who else could have possibly done it scenario. He gets on the stand. Sam Shepard literally added nothing. I mean, he just said the same thing over and over again. I was attacked by a bushy haired man and I don't remember anything else. And so I don't know if it added anything. No, outside of he's
being consistent, you know, and oftentimes when somebody does get on the stand on their own behalf, then you, you know, a good prosecutor can start ripping them apart with all the inconsistencies in evaluating his original statements. In many ways, if he is lying, but he's keeping the details minimal and vague, then
It makes it easier down the road in order to kind of stick to the same story versus providing all sorts of details. And not that I want anybody out there to kind of get a tip on how to get away with a crime, but I'm now assessing his testimony versus original statements, and he's being consistent. Now, is he being consistent because he's telling the truth, or is he consistent because he
he doesn't have to remember a whole bunch of details. Now let's talk about the forensics. You will remember the oddly shaped stain that we found on Marilyn's pillow. The prosecutor is now saying that this conclusively was caused by a weapon that had been a medical object, some sort of a medical tool. I don't know what he's thinking that is. He was very vague.
But he said based on the pattern, could you predict what kind of weapon was used from your point of view after seeing that pillow just based on the pattern? That didn't make any sense to me. There was that one within the larger blood pool, this one which appeared to be a very symmetrical, almost C-shaped or claw-like pattern.
which if I saw the proposed tool, I might be able to say yes or no to saying yes, it could cause that shape. Okay. But I'm not even sure that that is something that is...
from the weapon. You know, that could just be a coincidental phenomena that occurred within the blood pattern by just a bloody object pressing down onto this pillow. Let me ask you, I'm going to check in with you now because the jury is getting ready to issue its verdict.
Is this a first-degree murder case? Is there enough evidence from what you can hear from Sam Shepard for them to convict with a good conscience him of first-degree or second-degree murder was also on the table? No, I don't think that there's sufficient probable cause for an arrest with the information that I've been provided. He is in play for sure. Right now, in my mind, a conclusion is
as to whether this is a stranger or Sam Shepard. Both theories are in play. Okay, well, this is where things get interesting. You would think this is the end of the story, but it's really the beginning of it. The jury comes back December 21st, 1954. So this is five months, almost six months later.
And he is found guilty of second-degree murder, life in prison. So what does that mean they think happened that night? Well, if it's second-degree murder and the statutes are like the statutes in California, it was a homicide that occurred. Maybe there was a fight, a disagreement. Mm-hmm.
And in the heat of the moment, Sam Shepard bludgeoned Marilyn to death and then staged the crime scene, her body, the stolen items to make it look like a stranger had come in and also staged the injuries to himself. So this is the heat of the moment. This is not preplanned. It's something happened and he was just quick on his feet. Yes. Okay. Yes, that's what I believe that they are saying happened that night.
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Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android. Okay, so Sam Shepard is sentenced to life in prison and he goes off. He's transferred to a maximum security prison outside of Columbus, Ohio.
And then less than a month later, so this is probably January of 1955, his defense attorney reaches out to a California criminologist named Paul Kirk.
So I know, tell me, go ahead and talk about Paul Kirk because I know you are very appreciative of Paul Kirk. I am. You know, of course, he was a criminalist out in the Bay Area. I believe he was associated with UC Berkeley for part of his career, if not all of his career. I'm not sure exactly what his career path took. But...
My laboratory, Contra Costa County Sheriff's Crime Lab in Martinez, California, was founded in 1959 by Dwayne Dillon, who was formerly San Francisco PD. He came over.
But because of Paul Kirk and the academic studies that were being done at Cal Berkeley in criminalistics, the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Lab hired students of Paul Kirk. And so part of the philosophy of Kirk was passed into my lab.
And my mentor, if I will, from a CSI standpoint, a forensic philosophy standpoint, an ethics standpoint, is John Murdoch, who was chief of my lab at the time I was hired as originally as a forensic toxicologist.
And then I took crime scene investigation course from John Murdoch. And then I ultimately, when I became chief of the lab, I hired him back after he did a almost two decade stint with ATF. He's a worldwide known firearms examiner. But I am some ways, I look at myself as sort of being a forensic descendant of Paul Kirk.
Boy, he was really well-respected. And I knew about Paul Kirk because when I was doing my book, American Sherlock, Oscar Heinrich actually consulted with Kirk on Kirk's very first criminal case.
And Kirk wrote him a letter, and I found the letter. And, you know, Heinrich was giving him some advice. And among the biggest thing is you need to simplify what you say to a jury on the stand because Heinrich suffered his whole career from, I'm sure, a lot of forensic scientists, you know, who get on the stand, start spouting out phrases that are five syllables long, and you just see the jury glaze over. And Heinrich fought that, and he said, you don't do that fight.
to Paul Kirk. You need to simplify everything you say, which I thought was great advice. Well, that is fundamental to scientific testimony. Well, Heinrich was a big Paul Kirk fan, and I can see why with his work on this case. I want to take a slide aside because I know that we talk about many of Heinrich's cases just because I've had access to his archive.
And I've had a couple of inquiries about his name, which is spelled H-E-I-N-R-I-C-H. And I pronounce it Heinrich, and people have said, it's Heinrich. It's not. It's Heinrich. And the reason I know, let me tell you how I know, because I got into his archive, and I was Heinrich this, Heinrich that. And I got into his archive, and I found a letter from his assistant saying,
to a radio station that had done a really extensive piece on a train robbery. And in that letter, he ripped into that TV station about the way that they pronounced his name, and he spelled it out phonetically. He said, it is not Rick, it is Rich. And so I thought, okay, we're going to go with Heinrich then.
Because I don't need a descendant coming after me by saying his name wrong. So, yes, folks, I know. You would normally say Heinrich. It is Heinrich, though. And I am going to go to the grave saying Heinrich because I want to respect what he wanted. You validated it. You found the evidence. And this is why you go into archives when you do these kinds of projects.
So let's get to the nitty gritty of what Paul Kirk found. So he launched an investigation on his own, and this is not very long. I mean, it's not like 10 years. It's just a few months. He publishes a 19-page report titled,
for the defense attorney that gave a lot of credence to the possibility that Shepard was not Marilyn's killer. So this is, now I want to know, this is your sort of forensic hero. I want to know what you think about everything he said. Here are a list of his findings. Number one, he believed that the killer was likely left-handed. Number two,
Sam is right-handed. Is this based on, now put yourself in between the two beds, like you said, and we have the blood droplets and the spray against the doors underneath the doorknobs. Do you think that's how he came to that conclusion? And is that a reliable conclusion? It's okay if it's not, Paul. It doesn't make you less of a fan. It's okay.
There are times where the cast-off patterns, if you're able to reliably position the offender relative to the victim to be able to accomplish the wounding pattern, that's what you see. And you can see definitively where cast-off is occurring. You can say, yes, some of the blows after there is a pooled blood source occurred.
are indicating that the weapon took this pathway. But would I conclude right versus left-handed? No. You know, I might say it appears that the offender is utilizing the weapon in their right hand, but that doesn't mean that the person is capable with their offhand of committing the same types of blows.
And the dynamics of these situations as the victim is still alive really can complicate that.
So right now, I think he is relying on possible cast off, maybe the wounding patterns and where he believes the offender was standing to conclude that. I just wouldn't put it as a definitive statement at all. Okay. So that's one piece of information that seemed actually pretty convincing. I agree with you. All kinds of wacky things happen in the middle of a crime.
The next thing involves the ABO system, which we like to talk about, you know, blood types. He ran a test that inexplicably nobody else ran during this trial. Ran a test on a large blood stain on the closet door in the bedroom. Okay, so there was a blood stain on the closet door that we don't have a photo of.
And he finds that that blood stain is not a match in the ABO system for either Sam or Marilyn. And it's a big piece of evidence because it's not a tiny cut. It's a large stain. It came from somebody. Okay. You know, I've actually done ABO testing early on in my career. So I am very familiar with how Paul Kirk would have tested this to determine the ABO type from the stain. Mm-hmm.
And of course, that's part of the evidence is the blood type. But there also has to be, does the stain look like it is being deposited contemporaneously at the time of the homicide? Is this an older stain? Where is its location relative to everything else that's going on in this case?
I would need to assess that bloodstain in context with that ABO type that isn't Marilyn and Sam's. But I also want to know, well, what type is it? And what type is Marilyn? And what type is Sam? Right. And I don't have that information. I would make the assumption that...
he would be able to know, you know, in this time period, and he would because I know Heinrich did this too, he would be able to know whether this was old blood or new blood and what the context was, right? He thought it was relevant, I'm assuming. I'm going to make the assumption he does think it's relevant, you know, and of course that now is a concern is that if you have a bleeder that is shedding blood at the state and
I was meaning to bring this up earlier. You mentioned this blood trail. Right. Leading out of the house. Yep. Okay. So the evaluation of this blood trail is very important. Right.
Now, you have a bloody weapon. Okay, so as that weapon, let's say, is just being held by the offender walking out of the house, and this offender, per Sam's statement, is saying he's going through the house after the homicide. So do we see a dripped trail downstairs? Is the weapon with dripping blood, the source of the blood trail leading out of the house,
There's a finite amount of blood on this weapon. Typically, you do not see very long blood trails. As the weapon is shedding blood and creating this dripping pattern, it tails off. He's milling about downstairs and then now going out with this weapon, supposedly, that's that long of a trail. I'm now thinking, you know what? That sounds like an act of
where now you have an ongoing source of fresh blood, if you will, that can feed that trail for as long as what it sounds like this trail was. Was that trail tested by Kirk? Not that I know of. I think that this is less than a year later. I'm imagining that this was all cleaned up. They've probably sold the house, I'm assuming by then, or this had all been cleaned up because...
because they closed the case. So I'm guessing not. Yeah, and this is where there would be a failing of the CSI who's processing the scene to go, okay, I possibly have an active bleeder. I need to sample the drops of this trail just in case I have an active bleeder, the offender left with an injury.
Yeah, so I'm looking back at my notes and it says there's a trail of blood drops leading from the stairs and outside. What would be the explanation for that if Sam is the killer? If he didn't injure himself visibly? Sam doesn't appear to have any bleeding injuries. No, just some bruising. So where's the blood coming from? The only way that that trail is a
Yeah.
And you just don't see that with something where you have blood dripping off of a weapon. You'll get a trail, but it's not going to be...
you know, down the stairs and going outside, you know, that would be unusual. When I hear about theories, sometimes if I don't believe them 100%, I call them squishy theories. I think Paul Kirk has a little bit of a squishy theory here, but I could be completely wrong. He says that because he examined the fragments of Marilyn's upper front teeth,
that were found near her bed that perhaps they were broken or pulled out when she was biting her attacker, and Sam had no bite marks. So I think he's using this as a way to exclude Sam. Does that make sense? I mean, I would have thought she'd broken her teeth during this horrific fight that she was having with her attacker.
Yeah. You know, she's got blows that include her lower face. Teeth are commonly smashed. You find these teeth, you know, near the victim's head. If the teeth are actually broken, this is more consistent with a hard weapon and a forceful blow to the mouth than smacking.
somebody biting and the person pulling away. I don't buy that at all. I agree. Now, I'm going to say this word wrong. Paul Kirk believes that the weapon that was used to bludgeon Marilyn was not some heavy medical instrument, but it was something cylindrical. Did I say that right?
It was likely something cylindrical like a pipe or a flashlight. Now, is there a basis for that? Paul Kirk must be seeing that the wounding patterns are very consistent. A pipe produces a linear wounding pattern if it's being used on the side versus being poked.
And I've seen pipes being used, Poke. You see this little circular wound that can happen. But he must be seeing a uniformity in her wounding pattern, and they're all fairly linear. And of course, the overlapping part can complicate really determining a lot. But if there's some separate wounds, then he may have a point there. But it is trying to definitively say that
This is the type of weapon. You can say it's consistent with a pipe, but maybe this other proposed tool has surfaces that if it happened to strike Marilyn just the right way would produce the same type of wound. Well, what you're saying, that definitely makes sense. However, there was some evidence that for Paul Kirk was luckily popped up
A year after this happened, the attack happened, there was a swimmer who was swimming in the lake right by his house, right by Sam Shepard's house, and found a flashlight, dented flashlight, that did not belong to Sam Shepard in the water, kind of embedded in the bank near his house, that we're now presuming was the weapon. Maybe. What do you think about that? About Paul Kirk now? Yeah.
Well, it needs to be evaluated as to is it the weapon or not. Yeah. There has to be more association linking it back to the crime. With the amount of blood that would have been on this flashlight, she's being hit in the head. You could have hairs that are caught up in some of the crevices of this flashlight, you know, that would possibly survive being, you know, submerged for a year. I would need to see greater justification than just, well, the shape of the wounds is consistent with this flashlight. Yeah.
You know, that could just be a coincidental thing that was found out there. There has to be a greater level of association to conclude that that flashlight is actually the murder weapon. And I don't think they found it, or if it were there, it wouldn't have been something that in 1955 could have been detected because it's not mentioned in any of his notes.
They use this report that seems fairly convincing, and they file a motion for a new trial, but the 8th District Ohio Court denies it and says, no new trial. Sam Shepard, you're going to sit in prison for the rest of your life. So he's in maximum security prison.
And in the early 60s, he starts writing with a German woman named Ariana, and they eventually get married while he's in prison. And at the same time, The Fugitive starts its run, which was a big TV series in 63. And we can't say for sure, but it's been widely believed to have been inspired by Sam's case.
And this TV series shifted the public perception of what happened when, you know, we get word that this was based on Sam Shepard's case, which is the complete opposite effect of Jeffrey McDonald's movie, which was Final Vision, which just framed him horribly as a killer of his wife and two children. The Fugitive really shows the turmoil that Sam Shepard went through.
The media is shifting public perception of a case. Yeah, and I think we're seeing that in the current day with some of the documentaries done on cases in the true crime genre where it can be very biased towards a certain theory. I agree. We now have a suspect, and it's interesting how they get the suspect. So now you need to think back and think, okay, of all the stuff we've talked about and all of the question marks we've had about Sam Shepard,
Does this suspect make sense? So in November of 1959, police arrest a man named Richard Eberling, who I'll just call Richard from now on. He was arrested for larceny. And they search his home and they find this very pretty cocktail ring.
that they recognize as part of the inventory of things that are missing from Marilyn Shepard's home. Richard Eberling was a window washer at the Shepard's home. Oh. So he had been in the home before. Well, now the question that I have is, was that ring stolen during the homicide or was that ring stolen just by Eberling as a burglary before?
before the homicide, and can they conclusively show that this is Marilyn's ring? They can. He says that he found her ring when he was doing work at Sam's brother's house.
that he found various rings from Marilyn in a box that was labeled Marilyn's personal items. Sam doesn't know anything about this. But Sam's brother had possession of this box, right? That is what happened, but nobody remembers getting a box or not getting a box. So they can't, there's no denying or not. They can't go to Sam's brother and ask, hey, where was this box located? Can you describe the box? He didn't remember. Okay.
He didn't remember whether he had gotten... I know. It could have been a very long time, but Sam was able to say, this is my wife's ring. So he is... This man, who now has been arrested for a different charge, is in possession of Marilyn Shepard's ring. You know, I actually have a little bit of an issue with the confirmation that this is Marilyn's ring, because look at who's confirming. It's Sam, who has an interest in...
another man having his wife's ring, and then Sam's family members and possibly even Marilyn's family members
possibly have a bias to protect Sam. So at this point, I still think there's a little bit of a question mark in my head that they can conclude it's Marilyn's ring. I understand that. I mean, very much along the lines of the flashlight in the lake. There are many things I'm sure people dump in lakes all the time that we can interpret as weapons.
So the police become suspicious, of course, because he has what we presume to be Marilyn's ring. And he has a very squishy, weird explanation for it. So the police lie to Richard. They lie to him and say that they found a tremendous amount of his blood that they can conclusively say was his blood inside the Shepard home after Marilyn's murder.
And Richard, of course, clueless that the police can actually lie to him, gives them an explanation. He said that he had been cut inside that home in the days before she was killed on a, I'm assuming on a broken window.
And this could have caused a lot of blood. And of course, the police call BS on this. What do you think about that? Did they ask him to describe exactly where he cut himself, where he went into the house after he cut himself? I'd want to see, is he able to provide details that make sense and that can be corroborated correctly?
We talked a little bit about this with Kirk saying this blood stain, larger blood stain, is a different ABO type. So now is this stain deposited at the time of the homicide or
Well, if the blood is just a couple of days older than the blood that's being deposited at the time of the homicide, there's really nothing that is going to tell a forensic scientist that time difference. It will look the same, you know, unless it's, you know, you're there right after the homicide and you can see the fresh stains and an older stain.
Did they determine if Eberling had the same ABO type as this blood in the bedroom? Don't jump ahead, Paul. I have more information. I know. To me, this is the obvious. I know. I know. So let me tell you what happens. Ultimately, they can't pin it on him at all.
So he's cleared in 59. He's totally cleared. He took a polygraph test, which, you know, whatever. It is inconclusive. It doesn't say anything. Sam's legal team is constantly filing appeals and petitions. They're almost all denied. He finally gets...
a lawyer who seems to be able to do something, F. Lee Bailey. I'm sure we're familiar with F. Lee Bailey. We're Mojay Simpson fame. This is a very young F. Lee Bailey. And when I hear about Bailey in court cases in history, it always starts with Sam Shepard to me. That's when I hear the most about him.
He, like others, accused the judge in 54 of not protecting the trial and moving him out of Ohio or Columbus. And this time a court agrees. Then it gets overturned. It's just an on and on saga for Sam Shepard. Eventually, he's released from prison for posting a $10,000 bail while the case goes through the legal system.
After 11 years, so he spent 11 years in prison. He's out on bail because there's enough doubt, I suppose, that there are all these different avenues that he's going down and somebody negotiated, F. Lee Bailey negotiated for him to get out. Eventually, it makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court ends up supporting the original ruling, which said that the judge should have moved out of Columbus, that it shouldn't have been in Columbus to begin with. The Supreme Court said the judge hadn't adequately insulated the trial from the overwhelming publicity and all of that media coverage.
So there is a retrial in 66, and it wraps up in November. Basic same evidence, except now lots of reasonable doubt. Now we have a jury that is 12 years later who doesn't know as much about the case, and
And he is found not guilty. And you also have a competent defense attorney. That's an understatement, F. Lee Bailey. Yes, even at a young age, I'm sure was very competent. So he gets out of prison in 66. And in 67, he gets his medical license back. The medical board renews his license. This is where things get unfortunate for Sam Shepard. And I did not know any of this.
So he gets his medical license back after 12, 13 years. He comes out and within months of being able to perform surgeries, he is sued for several deaths, two deaths of two patients during surgery. And this makes things very hard for him. He gets a divorce in 68 from his wife.
He descends into drug and alcohol addiction, and he has a third marriage. He has a stint as a professional wrestler. - Oh, wow. That's not what I was expecting at all. - Do you know his nickname?
The killer. Oh, come on, Sam. I mean, Sam. Poor judgment. He is then found dead in his home in April 6th of 1970, and his cause of death is liver failure at 46. Wow. Does that mean alcoholism? Is that what you think that is? It would suggest that for sure, you know, based on his life patterns. Heavy drinking could be various drugs, you know, that he may be taking. I kind of...
always wondered, you know, with this Sam Shepard being exonerated and out and about, whatever happened to him? Right. Not good things happen. So we get a little bit more of information. His little Sam, I call him little Sam, I don't know if that's what they called him, but he
But Sam Reese Shepard, who was the seven-year-old at the time, always continued to work to clear his dad's name. And he co-wrote a book called Mockery of Justice that I flipped through that was pretty compelling. It argued that, of course, for Sam's innocence and said, this guy, this window washer is the one who did it.
And I don't understand why, you know, we are not looking closer at it. And I guess, you know, people, this was from 95, figured that Sam Shepard, who died in 1970, it was over, case closed, he got out, you know, let's let it drop. The problem was Richard Eberling goes on to kill someone. He's given the life sentence for the murder of a woman.
in a very similar case, and he dies in 1998 in prison. Wow, okay. But that's not the end of the story because I did promise DNA, and now I need help analyzing it. Okay. We have Sam Shepard, who's now dead from 1970. We have who I would consider to be the prime suspect for the bushy-haired stranger who died in 98. Okay.
And you have now investigators who are looking at the development of DNA evidence who are saying, let's start looking at this case again. They have both tests. One comes out in 97. I asked Maren for clarification because I knew the dates were going to be very important to you because we all know that it's like every year something new happens with DNA technology. Right.
So, two tests run. Both tests were carried out by the DNA technical manager at the Indianapolis Marion County Forensic Services Agency. Okay. They found semen, which the coroner had not found or missed or didn't acknowledge. Off the vaginal swab? Yes. Yes.
They did. This expert who ran the DNA in 97 was the first test. The result was that James Eberling, who was the window washer, shared a key genetic marker with both the blood and the semen taken from the crime scene, but it ultimately wasn't conclusive. So shared a genetic marker, what does that mean? You look frustrated. Yeah.
Yeah, that's awfully vague. So in 1997 is when the test was done? Correct. First test. There's another test. Okay. I hope so. At this point, you know, this is a transitionary time with DNA technology.
We've mentioned before, you know, DNA first really came into the public awareness here in the United States in 1995. Of course, law enforcement had been using it prior to that, but, you know, it was being presented for, you know, public consumption during the OJ trial publicity.
And you saw so many different DNA experts testifying because this was new technology. And there was also a change in the technology that was occurring in the mid-90s from this old RFLP technology, which is what Alec Jeffries used, you know, back over in Britain in 1988. And then we were seeing a transition to this PCR-based technology.
which at the time, you know, was these testing strips, DQ-alpha and maybe Polymarker at this point in time. So in 97, I believe there were labs that were still doing RFLP. If that was the test that was being done, it's possible that they got just a very, very partial RFLP profile there.
And then maybe one of the fragments happened to match Eberling. It would not, in my mind, be very strong evidence that the blood and semen was in fact Eberling's. I would want to see that revisited with modern STRs.
I agree with you. They ran another test in 98 and tested samples from Sam's body just to exclude him, and he was excluded as one of the blood donors at the scene. So I don't read that they included Eberling, but it excluded Sam from the mystery blood that was there, which again, I mean, it's helpful to exclude, but I'm not sure that really, does that tell us any new information? No.
You know, with the assumption that this blood was deposited at the time of the homicide, then it really opens up the door for somebody else present who is bleeding. Right. The DNA testing sounds like it's being done and sort of like, you know, sort of these little spurts, if you will. Yeah. You know, so at some point, and hopefully they didn't consume,
all these samples. At some point, these samples, the semen as well as the bloodstain, need to be tested with
modern DNA technology, you know, STRs. If it doesn't match Everlink, then you do genealogy on it. Let me read you more information that I got from our researcher, Marin. So based on the person, you know, whoever the expert was who pulled it, this is exactly what he said. He says in 96, he received a vaginal swab, which was taken from Marilyn's body after the murder.
and intended to try to extract DNA using the epithelial cells because there was no DNA sample for Marilyn in evidence.
Yes. Okay. I understand what he's doing. So they didn't take like a blood standard at autopsy for Marilyn. Doesn't sound like it. He said he found a tiny amount of sperm, which was a surprise because he was told that the sample didn't have any sperm. So, you know, he has a vaginal swab. It's not a surprise that he would detect sperm. And back in the day, they didn't observe the sperm. Okay.
So you have to understand at autopsy, pathologist takes a vaginal swab. And this was a practice in the 1950s all the way up, really up until mostly through my career. Well, let me tell you, this is very specific and you'll understand all of this. So this is directly from the study that he did. The DNA from the vaginal smear sperm fraction is also a mixture of DNA from at least two sources, synapses.
Since four alleles are seen in it at HLA-DQAI locus. DQ alpha. Yeah, we'll just say DQ alpha. And three alleles at each of the HEGG and GC loci. So here are the results. Okay, and maybe this is, I want to make sure that this is interpreted correctly.
Marilyn Shepard and Sam Shepard are excluded as part contributors of this DNA. All alleles at the six loci-typed
of the DNA from Richard Eberling are present in this mixture DNA, and hence, he cannot be excluded as a part contributor of this mixture DNA. There's more, but is that enough to give you an idea of what's happening? Not with this technology, but it sounds like, okay, so Marilyn and Sam are excluded from this mixture. Eberling is included, but then there's another person present. Right.
That's what he's concluding. So he says, DNA from Richard Eberling together with one or more unknown sources has to be considered to explain all alleles from this mixture. The DNA extracted from the vaginal sperm fraction is also a mixture of DNA from at least three donors because the presence of five and possibly six alleles is...
and three alleles, blah, blah. Neither Richard Eberling nor Marilyn Shepard can be excluded as part contributors of DNA of this mixed DNA sample. Since the possible presence of the 1.2 allele cannot be ruled out in this mixture, although it is not directly observed, Sam Shepard cannot be definitively excluded as a part contributor.
Nonetheless, any combination of DNA from the known subjects tested does not explain all alleles of this mixture. Locusts, blah, blah, blah, and that's it. So, you know, he's utilizing this Doppler technology. Mm-hmm.
Though better than the old technology, the ABO and the enzyme testing that we did, it had greater discrimination. It was very, very poor when it came to dealing with mixtures because you basically are just reading these dots and there's only so many dots. So to try to deconvolute, well, how many contributors do I have? Which alleles, which markers can I attribute to the known individuals in this case?
At a certain point, you're looking at a mixture and you go, I could basically include everybody. So this is where, again, they need to do this with modern STR technology on modern instrumentation. So I hope they had enough DNA left over after this testing in order to proceed with the current technology.
Let's just say we're not going to be able to find out. Let's just say that this case lies where it lies right now. Richard Eberling was convicted of killing a widow, 84-year-old woman, in 84. He was also suspected in murdering this woman who he killed. Her sister also was murdered.
about 20 years earlier. He died in prison. He had familiarity with the house. He had what we presume, what everyone says was Marilyn's ring in his possession. There seemed to be something funky happening with the DNA, with the blood or the vaginal swab. Does this line up more to you now to be a murder committed by Sam Shepard or the only real other suspect we've had, which is Richard Eberling?
You know, at least with the testing done, it's less than satisfactory to me. And it's not, I'm not criticizing the lab or the analysts who did it. It's just, you know, the limitations of this technology and very possibly the evidence. You are dealing with very old evidence in the 90s and technology that's not as sensitive as what it is today. But I do believe that this creates reasonable doubt that Sam Shepard was involved in Marilyn's homicide.
And there is the possibility to argue probable cause that Eberling
was involved. Now, does it rise to the standard of reasonable doubt? I bet in the 90s, a prosecutor might have been able to argue through circumstances as well as with the forensic testing and get a conviction. I just know from my perspective, I want to be sure and I want the modern technology done on it. And that's why the murder of Marilyn Shepard is still technically an unsolved case. There's no
satisfying definitive answer from anybody. Yeah, that's frustrating. Now, circling back with Sam Shepard, Eberling became a suspect in the late 50s, right? 59, yes. Okay, so Sam Shepard is still alive, but...
Eberling was a window washer at the house. Does Sam Shepard say that he had met with Eberling at any point? I don't know. I suspect from what I had read that it was maybe in passing, if anything. Okay. Yeah, because I was just kind of wondering if they had a close enough relationship, let's say this guy's at the house with...
on a regular basis to wash the windows. Would Sam Shepard readily recognize Everly as a former window washer? Yeah, I don't know. Sam Shepard as a neurosurgeon is probably a pretty busy guy and may be gone all the time. What I
find curious, and we can end on a little note of mystery, what I find curious is that if it is Richard Eberling, and if he stole Marilyn's ring during the murder, after the murder, whatever it was, he kept it from 54 until the police found it when they searched him. Sure. Is that a trophy? Souvenir. Souvenir. Yeah. I prefer the term souvenir. This is something that the offender has taken from
in remembrance of what they have committed, the crime they've committed of that particular victim. It signifies something to them. It also is a source of fantasy material for them. You know, they will pull out these souvenirs and relive the crime. So this sounds like here you have a thief convicted, I mean, of larceny, you know, back in the day. So...
Why is he stealing items? He's stealing them for financial gain. The only way you get financial gain out of jewelry is you pawn it, you sell it, whatever. And he didn't. Nope. He wants to keep it. That's exactly right. Yeah.
You know, his criminal history, his association with the house, the biological evidence inside the house, though I'm less than satisfied with the technology that was employed, but that's all they had back in the day. Circumstances, kind of the weakness of a case against Sam Shepard. Right now, yeah, I really do think that Eberling is likely responsible for Marilyn's homicide.
It's a mystery, and this is an enduring mystery. The case of Sam Shepard, I think I'm sure people will always be debating it. And next week, I will bring you another mystery. I promise. Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to it again. Thanks.
This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashen and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ryo Baum. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our art
work is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod. Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.