Case Study #3: Sam Sheppard

Date: 1954

Location: United States

Significance: This case can claim the importance of reconsidering DNA evidence after a person was found guilty.

Marilyn Sheppard was bludgeoned to death in her home on July 4, 1954. Her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard survived what he called an attack by an intruder. He reported that he had been knocked unconscious as he tried to protect his wife and himself. The home appeared to have been ransacked, as if the murders were part of a home-invasion robbery.

Investigators noticed that Sheppard had no blood on his hands, body, or clothing, and he denied having cleaned up before summoning the police. Normally that would seem to exonerate Sheppard, but this complete absence of blood disturbed the police. Because of the brutal nature of the attack, the killer would have been covered with blood, and some of that blood should have been transferred to Sheppard during their struggle. In addition, Sheppard had no blood on his hands – impossible if he had checked for a pulse in his wife-s blood-covered neck, as he said he had. Further, Sheppard said that his watch, wallet, ring, and keys were missing and he believed that the killer must have taken them. Indeed, police found a bag with the missing items not far from the house. But the bag and wallet had no blood on them. Would they not have stains from the killer’s bloody hands? And wouldn’t Sheppard’s pants, wrists, and hands have blood transfers from the killer removing Sheppard’s wallet, keys, watch and tings? No such stains were found.

Sheppard’s watch, however, had blood spatters from flying blood droplets, indicating that the watch had been near the victim at the time the fatal blows were struck. If they had come from contact with the victim’s neck as Sheppard felt for a pulse, the stains would have been transfer smears and not spatter droplets. Police determined that most likely Sheppard bludgeoned his wife to death, cleaned the blood from his hands and body, trashed the house to make it look as though a burglary had occurred, placed his watch (without noticing the blood spatters) and other items in the bag, and tossed the bag where the police would find it. Based in large part on the blood evidence – or lack of it – Sheppard was convicted of murder.

But the story doesn’t end here. After spending 10 years in prison, Sheppard was released when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction, primarily on the grounds that the massive pre-trial publicity had made a fair trial impossible. A second trial commenced on November 1, 1966, and again the blood evidence played a crucial role, but this time it became a case of dueling experts. A representative from the coroner’s office again stated that the blood on Sheppard’s watch represented a spatter pattern and meant that Sheppard must have been present at the time the fatal blows were struck. The defense, headed by a young F. Lee Bailey, avoided the error of the first trial in which the defense had no expert to counter the prosecution’s blood expert and countered with Dr. Paul Kirk, a renowned criminalist. Kirk testified that the blood on the watch was a transfer pattern that resulted when Sheppard checked his wife’s neck for a pulse.

On November 16 the jury returned a “not guilty” verdict, and Dr. Sheppard became a free man. The controversy surrounding this case continues to this day, and the contrast between the two trials shows that expert opinions differ, and so do juries. Dr. Sheppard’s story inspired the popular television series and major motion picture The Fugitive.

“Forensics for Dummies,”2004. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana. Page 96.

Assignment

Write a three-paragraph summary of this case. Be sure to include –

· What were the major developments in the case?

· Who were the major people involved? What were their roles

· Why was this case so important to criminal science?