Editing Sam Sheppard (section)

==Civil trial for wrongful imprisonment==
[[File:Sam and marilyn sheppard crypt - knollwood cemetery.jpg|thumb|Sam and Marilyn Sheppard crypt at Knollwood Cemetery]]
Sheppard's son, Samuel Reese Sheppard, has devoted considerable time and effort towards attempting to clear his father's reputation.<ref>[http://www.samreesesheppard.org "Seeking the Truth"], samreesesheppard.org; accessed April 29, 2017.</ref>

In 1999, Alan Davis, a lifelong friend of Sheppard<ref>{{cite web |last1=McGunagle |first1=Fred |title=The Case of Dr. Samuel Sheppard: Who Killed Marilyn? |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/sheppard/marilyn_18.html |website=CrimeLibrary|access-date=February 16, 2015}}</ref> and administrator of his estate, sued the State of Ohio in the Cuyahoga County [[Ohio Courts of Common Pleas|Court of Common Pleas]] for Sheppard's wrongful imprisonment. The case was heard before Judge [[Ron Suster]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=McGunagle|first1=Fred|title=The Case of Dr. Samuel Sheppard: The Third Trial|url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/sheppard/trial_15.html|website=CrimeLibrary|access-date=February 16, 2015}}

After Davis's death in 1999, Charles Murray, who was appointed by the Franklin County Probate Court as the new administrator for the estate, was substituted as plaintiff.  ''Davis v. State'', Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Case No. CV96-312322, [http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/sheppard_court_filings_2000/138/ Plaintiff's Motion for Substitution of Party], February 17, 2000; retrieved February 16, 2015.</ref>

By order of the court, Marilyn Sheppard's body was [[exhumation|exhumed]], in part to determine if the [[fetus]] she was carrying had been fathered by Sheppard. Terry Gilbert, an attorney retained by the Sheppard family, told the media that "the [[fetus]] in this case had previously been [[autopsy|autopsied]]", a fact that had never previously been disclosed. This, Gilbert argued, raised questions about the coroner's office in the original case possibly concealing pertinent evidence.<ref name=cnn/> Due to the passage of time on the fetus's tissues, paternity could not be established.<ref>[https://www.deseret.com/2000/1/18/19486311/fetus-dna-tests-inconclusive-in-the-fugitive-murder-case Deseret News, 18 Jan 2000]</ref>

===Richard Eberling===
During the civil trial, plaintiff attorney Terry Gilbert contended that Richard Eberling, an occasional handyman and window washer at the Sheppard home, was the likeliest suspect in Marilyn's murder. Eberling found Marilyn attractive and he was very familiar with the layout of the Sheppard home.<ref>Linder, Douglas O., [http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/sheppard/eberlinginfo.html “Dr. Sam Sheppard Trials”], University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law; accessed April 29, 2017.</ref>

In 1959, detectives were questioning Richard Eberling about various burglaries in the area. Eberling confessed to the burglaries and showed the detectives his loot, which included two rings that belonged to Marilyn Sheppard. Eberling stole the rings in 1958, a few years after the murder, from Sam Sheppard's brother's house, taken from a box marked "Personal Property of Marilyn Sheppard".<ref>{{cite journal |author=Cleveland Police Department |url=http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/plaintiff_exhibits_2000/113 |title=Plaintiff's Exhibit 0022: Eberling Statement |date=1959 |journal=Sheppard 2000 Trial Plaintiff's Exhibits. Book 113.}}</ref> In subsequent questioning, Eberling admitted his blood was at the crime scene of Marilyn Sheppard. He stated that he cut his finger while washing windows just prior to the murder and bled while on the premises.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Tompkins |first=James R. |title=Plaintiff's Exhibit 0020: Bay Village Police Report re: Eberling |date=1988 |journal=Sheppard 2000 Trial Plaintiff's Exhibits. Book 114. |url=http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/plaintiff_exhibits_2000/114}}</ref> As part of the investigation, Eberling took a polygraph test with questions about the murder of Marilyn. The polygraph examiner concluded that Eberling did not show deception in his answers, although the polygraph results were evaluated by other experts years later who found that it was either inconclusive or Eberling was deceptive.{{sfn|Neff|2001|pp=212, 352}}

In his testimony in the 2000 civil lawsuit, Bailey stated that he rejected Eberling as a suspect in 1966 because "I thought he passed a good polygraph test." When it was presented to Bailey that an independent polygraph expert said Eberling either murdered Marilyn or had knowledge of who did, Bailey stated that he probably would have presented Eberling as a suspect in the 1966 retrial.{{sfn|Neff|2001|pp=351-352}}

[[DNA]] evidence, which was not available in the two murder trials, played an important role in the civil trial. DNA analysis of blood at the crime scene showed that there was presence of blood from a third person, other than Marilyn and Dr. Sam Sheppard.<ref>Chakarborty, Ranajit, [http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/sheppard_dna/17 "Chakraborty Report on DNA Typing Involving Richard Eberling, Sam Sheppard, and Marilyn Sheppard" (2000)],. Blood Evidence and DNA – Sam Sheppard Case. Book 17.</ref>

With regard to tying the blood to Eberling, the DNA analysis that was allowed to be admitted to the trial was inconclusive. A plaintiff DNA expert was 90% confident that one of the blood spots belonged to Richard Eberling but, according to the rules of the court, this was not admissible. The defense argued that the blood evidence had been tainted in the years since it was collected, and that an important blood spot on the closet door in Marilyn Sheppard's room potentially included 83% of the adult white population. The defense also pointed out that the results in 1955 from the older blood typing technique, that the blood collected from the closet door was Type O, while Eberling's [[ABO blood group system|blood type]] was Type A.{{sfn|Neff|2001|pp=364-367}}

Throughout his life, Richard Eberling was associated with women who had suspicious deaths and he was convicted of murdering Ethel May Durkin, a wealthy, elderly widow who died without any immediate family. Durkin's 1984 murder in [[Lakewood, Ohio]], was uncovered when a court-appointed review of the woman's estate revealed that Eberling, Durkin's guardian and executor, had failed to execute her final wishes, which included stipulations on her burial.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}}

Durkin's body was exhumed and additional injuries were discovered in the autopsy that did not match Eberling's previous claims of in-house accidents, including a fall down a staircase in her home.  In subsequent legal action, both Eberling and his partner, Obie Henderson, were found guilty in Durkin's death. Coincidentally, both of Durkin's sisters, Myrtle Fray and Sarah Belle Farrow, had died under suspicious circumstances as well. Fray was killed after being "savagely" beaten about the head and face and then strangled; Farrow died following a fall down the basement steps in the home she shared with Durkin in 1970, a fall in which she broke both legs and both arms.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}}

Although Eberling denied any criminal involvement in the murder of Marilyn Sheppard,<ref>[http://columbusoh.about.com/cs/famouspeople/a/sheppard.htm Sam Sheppard Case] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050917234853/http://columbusoh.about.com/cs/famouspeople/a/sheppard.htm |date=September 17, 2005 }}, columbusoh.about.com; accessed April 29, 2017.</ref> Kathy Wagner Dyal, who worked alongside Eberling in caring for Ethel May Durkin, also testified that Eberling had confessed to her in 1983.{{sfn|Neff|2001|p=298}} A fellow convict also reported that Eberling confessed to the crime. The defense called into question the credibility of both witnesses during the 2000 civil trial. Eberling died in an Ohio prison in 1998, where he was serving a [[life sentence]] for the 1984 murder of Ethel May Durkin.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=March 9, 1995 |title=AMSEC 14 -- Ethel Durkin Murder |url=https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/sheppard_profiling/19 |access-date=July 25, 2022 |journal=Criminal Profiling Reports |publisher=Cleveland State University}}</ref>

===Verdict===
After twelve weeks of trial, 76 witnesses, and hundreds of exhibits,<ref>{{cite web |title=Sheppard 2000 Trial Defendant's Exhibits |url=https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/plaintiff_exhibits_2000/ |website=The Sam Sheppard Case, 1954-2000 |publisher=Cleveland State University |access-date=February 3, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Sheppard 2000 Trial Plaintiff's Exhibits |url=https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/defendant_exhibits_2000/ |website=The Sam Sheppard Case, 1954-2000 |publisher=Cleveland State University |access-date=February 3, 2025}}</ref> the case went to the eight-person civil jury.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Farkas |first1=Karen |title=Sam Sheppard's murder case files and exhibits are now online - and guaranteed to draw interest 60 years after his wife was brutally killed |url=https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2014/07/sam_sheppards_murder_case_file_1.html |access-date=February 3, 2025 |work=Cleveland.com |date=July 2, 2014 |language=en}}</ref> The jury deliberated just three hours on April 12, 2000, before returning a unanimous [[verdict]] that Samuel Reese Sheppard had failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that his father had been wrongfully imprisoned.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Slater |first1=Eric |title=Jury Refuses to Exonerate Sam Sheppard in '54 Killing |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-apr-13-mn-19140-story.html |access-date=February 3, 2025 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=April 13, 2000}}</ref>

===Invalidation of wrongful imprisonment claim===
On February 22, 2002, the [[Ohio District Courts of Appeals|Eighth District Court of Appeals]] ruled unanimously that the civil case should not have gone to the jury, on the grounds that the [[statute of limitations]] had expired, and that a claim for wrongful imprisonment abated with Sam Sheppard's death.<ref>''[http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/sheppard_court_filings_2000/2 Murray v. State]'', Cuyahoga App. No. 78374, 2002
Ohio 664 (February 22, 2002). Retrieved February 16, 2015.</ref>  In August 2002, the [[Supreme Court of Ohio]] declined to review the appeals court's decision.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Farkas |first1=Karen |title=Sam Sheppard's murder case files and exhibits given to Cleveland State University's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law |url=http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/09/sam_sheppards_murder_case_file.html |access-date=February 16, 2015 |work=cleveland.com |agency=Northeast Ohio Media Group |date=September 28, 2012}}</ref><ref>''Murray v. State'', Ohio S. Ct. no. 2002-0626, (August 7, 2002) ([http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/Clerk/ecms/resultsbycasenumber.asp?type=3&year=2002&number=0626&myPage=searchbypartyname.asp docket]).  Retrieved February 16, 2015.</ref>

===Additional suspect===
A 2002 book theorizes that Marilyn Sheppard was murdered by James Call, an Air Force deserter who passed through Cleveland on a multi-state crime spree at the relevant time. Pages 444-451 show multiple, comparative photographs of Major Call's [[Luger pistol]] with the blood-stained pillowcase of Marilyn Sheppard. During the original trial, the blood stain patterns were suspected of having been made by a surgical instrument, which F. Lee Bailey disproved during the 1966 retrial.<ref>Bernard F. Conners, ''Tailspin'', 2002</ref>