| At first, it made sense
for everybody to suspect her physician-husband, Sam. After all, his story
seemed suspect: He said he had been sleeping during the pre-dawn attack,
in a different room from his wife but seemingly close enough to have been
awakened by a struggle. He had blood on his pants. Although in many ways
a doting husband and father, the handsome, athletic physician was a ladies'
man. He and Marilyn had argued about extramarital affairs.
The murder investigation was flawed from the
start. Bay Village police, lacking experience with homicides, failed to
secure the crime scene, thus allowing physical evidence to become
contaminated as Sheppard's family and friends bustled around the house
and yard. Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Samuel Gerber arrived within hours.
His experience with homicides helped bring order out of chaos, but Gerber's
near-immediate belief that Sam was guilty skewed just about everything
he did or said.
Like most Cleveland-area residents, Neff knew
about Sheppard's December 1954 conviction, and his long-futile appeals
from prison. Neff had heard about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that led
to a new trial for Sam in 1966, his acquittal, and the downward spiral
of Sam's personal life. Sheppard died at age 46 in 1970. The continuing
belief in the popular literature was that Sheppard had been freed on a
technicality, and had indeed killed his wife.
But there was a great deal Neff did not know
about the case. In fact, Neff says, "Nearly everything I thought I knew
about the case would turn out to be wrong." In 1989, Richard Eberling had
been convicted of murdering an elderly Cuyahoga County woman named Ethel
May Durkin. Durkin had trusted the charming middle-aged Eberling, who had
become a fixture in Cleveland-area society. Few knew that before the 1984
murder of Durkin, Eberling had committed petty crimes much of his life.
In 1954, while employed part-time at the home of Marilyn and Sam Sheppard,
Eberling had stolen Marilyn's ring. Several investigators working the Marilyn
Sheppard murder had briefly considered Eberling a suspect, but eventually
dismissed that thought.
Neff knew the tenuous Eberling-Sheppard connection.
He wanted to understand Eberling better, so he requested a prison interview.
After that interview, Neff believed Eberling was hiding a secret. So Neff
pulled together everything about the murder from the public record, then
began the arduous work of locating missing police reports, court records,
lawyers' correspondence and people who might shed light on the truth.
Part Three of Neff's book explains how his
investigation unfolded, and how he concluded that Eberling murdered Marilyn
Sheppard.
For nine years, Neff stayed in touch with
the imprisoned Eberling. In July 1998, Neff and Eberling talked yet again.
During the in-person interview, Eberling "took himself back to 1954," Neff
relates.
"He described himself as snapping to alertness
and finding himself in the Sheppards' blood-splashed bedroom. He saw a
crimson mess everywhere. He was horrified. My God, I had never seen anything
like it,' he said. I got out of there.' I asked a follow-up question but
Eberling wouldn't answer. Catching himself, he wouldn't talk about it anymore.
It turned out to be as close to a confession as I could get. Richard Eberling
died before I could return."
* * *
Steve Weinberg is a writer in Columbia, Mo.
He is currently leading a nationwide study of prosecutorial
misconduct, and how it sometimes leads to wrongful convictions. |
