Sam Sheppard - Acquittal and Later Life

Acquittal and Later Life

Sheppard served ten years of his sentence. After several appeals were rejected, his petition for a writ of habeas corpus was granted by a United States district court judge on July 15, 1964. The State of Ohio was ordered either to free Sheppard or to grant him a new trial. The case was reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sheppard v. Maxwell. The Court held that Sheppard's conviction was the result of a trial in which he was denied due process. The decision noted, among other factors, that a "carnival atmosphere" had permeated the trial, and that Edward J. Blythin, the trial judge, had refused to sequester the jury, had not ordered the jury to ignore and disregard media reports of the case, and when speaking to newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen shortly before the trial started said, "Well, he's guilty as hell. There's no question about it."

Just three days after his release, Sheppard married Ariane Tebbenjohanns, a German divorcee who had corresponded with him during his time in prison. The two had been engaged since January 1963. Tebbenjohanns endured her own bit of controversy shortly after the engagement had been announced, confirming that her half-sister was Magda Ritschel, the wife of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. However, Tebbenjohanns emphasized that she held no Nazi views. On October 7, 1969, Sheppard and Tebbenjohanns divorced.

At his new arraignment on September 8, 1966, Sheppard loudly pleaded "not guilty" with his attorney, F. Lee Bailey, by his side. Jury selection got under way on October 24, and opening statements began eight days later. Unlike in the original trial, neither Sheppard nor Susan Hayes took the stand, a strategy that proved to be successful when a "not guilty" verdict was returned on November 16. The trial was very important to Bailey's rise to prominence among American criminal defense lawyers. It was during this trial that Paul Kirk presented the bloodspatter evidence he collected in Sheppard's home in 1955 which proved crucial to his acquittal.

Just three weeks later, Sheppard appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 1975, Carson told guest George Peppard (who played Sheppard in a TV movie), that Sheppard had told him during this conversation that had he been found guilty, he would have shot himself in court.

After his acquittal, Sheppard helped write the book Endure and Conquer, which presented his side of the case and gave insight into his years in prison. He also returned briefly to medicine in Youngstown, Ohio, but was sued twice for medical malpractice by the estates of dead patients.

Later, Sheppard was briefly a professional wrestler, going by the ring name The Killer, and teaming with partner George Strickland in matches across the United States. In Mick Foley's book, Foley recounts Jim Cornette's telling him about Sheppard inventing the mandible claw, a submission hold Foley later made famous.