Richard Eberling - Relationship With Ethel May Durkin

Relationship With Ethel May Durkin

Eberling also became friends with Ethel May Durkin, a wealthy, childless widow who lived in Lakewood, Ohio who had hired Eberling to do some decorating for her, and quickly became her most trusted confidante. This time it was Durkin's death, as well as the deaths of her two sisters that raised suspicions about Eberling.

Durkin's sister, Myrtle Fray, took an instant dislike to Eberling. Fray was also reportedly involved with illegal gambling. Fray was beaten savagely about her head and strangled in her secured apartment building on May 20, 1962, after she had readied herself for bed. More than twenty years later, when Eberling was questioned about the murder of Fray, he made statements that corroborated previously unpublished information in the police report. Eberling also stated that he wouldn't have been surprised if the murderer had washed up in the sink, and then donned one of Fray's dresses to use as an escape costume to avoid being filmed by the lobby security camera. According to author James Neff, thirty years following the death of Myrtle Fray, Eberling wrote that Fray was killed in the same manner as Marilyn Sheppard.

Durkin's elder sister Sarah Belle Farrow died under suspect conditions in March 1970 while living with her sister in Durkin's spacious Lakewood home. This time the death was attributed to injuries sustained in a fall down the basement steps that broke both legs and both arms. Eberling later attributed the accident to "Belle's age" and then stated that if he had wanted to kill her he would have pushed her down the basement stairs. By 1970, Eberling was regularly pulling cash out of Durkin's bank accounts.

Eberling enlisted the help of Patricia Bogar, to help forge documents that would give Eberling complete control over Durkin's finances, with Eberling guessing that estate could be worth in excess of $500,000, with Bogar to receive ten percent for her part. As Durkin's health declined, Eberling used the documents to make financial and medical care decisions for Durkin. Ethel Durkin also began having a number of accidents that resulted in serious injuries, including falls down flights of stairs. Eberling controlled her prescription regimen, and Durkin was often kept in a sedated state. Bogar, suspecting that Eberling might cheat her out of the promised $50,000 wrote a detailed letter for which she had her signature notarized, and mailed it certified mail to her attorney with instructions on placing the unopened letter in safe keeping until such a time in the future that she might require it back.

Durkin eventually came under the care of Kathy Wagner, a health aide whom Eberling hired, and eventually confided to that slitting a throat and watching someone die was exhilarating, and that he had killed Marilyn Sheppard and assaulted her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard, in the head with a steel pail, adding "You didn't hear that." (Neff, page 295-298).

On November 15, 1983 the squad was called to Ethel May Durkin's home where the paramedics found her face down on a hardwood floor. Eberling claimed that she had gotten up from her chair and fallen. Eberling told the EMS team that he thought it was a heart attack, but her vital signs, combined with wounds to her face led medical professions to think she had been attacked. X-rays revealed that Durkin's neck bone had been broken in the same spot where Marilyn Sheppard's had been broken. Durkin died from the injuries on January 3, 1984.

In Durkin's will, which had been forged by Eberling and Bogar (and two other accomplices who were being blackmailed by Eberling for insurance fraud), Durkin left the bulk of her estate to Eberling. Also in the will was the instruction that she was to be buried with her jewelry and clad in her favorite mink coat. Before the casket was sealed, Eberling removed her jewelry and her mink coat.

Jilted by Eberling and Henderson, Bogar began the process of turning on Eberling, reopening the Durkin matter. While Lakewood police moved forward with their investigation, her estate was referred to a local independent attorney for review by the Cuyahoga County Probate Court. Finding irregularities with the estate accounting and signatures, the matter was returned to the court system for additional investigation.

In July 1988 Eberling, Henderson and two others were indicted for forgery, perjury, aggravated grand theft, tampering with evidence and tampering with records. Bogar, who had simply signed a blank sheet of paper was not charged in the matter. (Neff, 304) Shortly thereafter Durkin's body was exhumed for examination, and detectives took note that Durkin was without her fur coat and her diamonds. A full autopsy revealed that Durkin was hit hard in the neck from behind. Eberling, who had claimed to have hit Durkin to one of the co-conspirators was charged with murder. Eberling and his companion Obie Henderson were found guilty of the murder of Ethel May Durkin in July 1989; the co-conspirators were convicted and received suspended sentences for their help in testifying against Eberling and Henderson.