On this day, Dec. 21, in 1954, Dr. Sam Sheppard was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife, a decision that was later overturned and said to have inspired a television series and movie.
Marilyn Sheppard was brutally killed in the couple’s Cleveland home on July 4, 1954. Sheppard maintained his innocence and claimed his wife was killed by a bushy-haired man who also attacked him and twice knocked him unconscious. Sheppard served 10 years in prison, only to be freed in a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
In 1966, Sheppard was retried and found not guilty. But he spent his last years battling alcohol addiction and appearing as “Killer Sheppard” in professional wrestling matches. He died of liver failure in 1970.
The Sheppard case is said to have been the inspiration for the 1960s TV show “The Fugitive,” in which the wrongly accused Dr. Richard Kimble hunted the mysterious one-armed man who killed his wife. In the 1993 movie of the same name, Kimble was played by Harrison Ford.
– Scott McCabe
