Editing Sam Sheppard (section)

===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>