A doctor convicted of his wife’s murder and suspected after 50 years and three trials: the story that inspired The Fugitive

Almost all of us over 50 have probably seen the series. The wantedHits of the 60s with David JensenWhich ended up being a movie in the 90s Harrison Ford as a leader. The inspiration for this plot, with some variations, came from that A real caseSo we can consider them part of the true crime genre.

via infobae.com

A neurosurgeon’s pregnant wife in 1954 Sam Shepard She was murdered in the mansion while they both slept in different environments. A well-known professional was charged with murder And sent to jail. Although the alleged murderer in the fiction, Dr. Richard Kimble, escapes from a train on which he is being transported and evades the law while searching for the real culprit, The royal doctor’s life was more tragic. And, of course, far away from Hollywood claptrap and colorful neon marquees.

Samuel “Sam” Holmes Shepard He was born on December 29, 1923 in Cleveland, Ohio and was the son of Dr. Richard Allan was the youngest of Shepard’s three children. During high school, Sam was an excellent student and excelled in football, basketball, and track and field. During those years he met who would become his wife, Marilyn Rees, a year older than him. After graduation, due to his good performance in sports, he received several sports scholarships for studies and chose the same path as his father and his older brothers: the world of medicine. He finished his career at the Los Angeles School of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons (now known as the University of California Irvine) where he earned a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree. He continued his training and completed a residency in neurosurgery at the Hospital de Los Angeles.

On February 21, 1945, aged 22, He married his longtime girlfriend, Marilyn.. Marilyn had an extreme fear of pregnancy and childbirth because her mother died during the birth of one of her sisters when she was only six years old. Unfortunately, the couple’s first pregnancy ended badly: she lost the baby. Two years later they gave birth to their first child, Sam Jr. The labor lasted sixteen hours and Marilyn was traumatized by the experience.

At the same time, Sam began working with his father at Bay View Hospital. Success in his business and family stability promised solid bricks of happiness. However, the skeleton of this whole story was to turn to dust.

On the night of Saturday, July 3, 1954, in Bay Village, Cleveland, United States, Marilyn Reese (age 31, four months pregnant with her second child) and Sam Shepard receive a neighboring couple for lunch at their lakefront mansion. Dinner ends around 8:30 pm. The Hawks (Spencer and Esther) say goodbye and leave. Marilyn puts her son Sam Jr. (7) to bed and stays with Sam watching the movie on television: Strange Holiday (in English Strange Holiday, but translated as Strange Waking Up). Prognosis about awareness. Because when they see him, Sam is fast asleep on the couch. Marilyn prefers to leave him there and go to her room, located on the first floor and next to her son, to sleep. During the early hours of the 4th Sunday, Around 4:30 Sam was interrupted by his wife’s screams. which comes from the upper floor. He runs up the stairs and as he enters the bedroom sees a “white bipedal shape”, but immediately A blow knocks him unconscious. Moments later he recovers, walks over to his bleeding wife and takes her pulse. Marilyn is dead. He hears noises coming from downstairs and looks down the stairs. Observe the silhouette of the furry figure exiting the front door. Desperate, he follows her to a hut on the beach. He loses his shirt in hand-to-hand combat and another blow knocks him unconscious a second time. The assailant escapes. Sam wakes up disoriented, but manages to return home. Call your neighbors first. It is 5:40 when he tells them to go home. A neighboring couple arrives quickly and finds Shepard shirtless, his pants wet and some blood stains on his knees. He is in shock, as if lost. They call the police.

When the officers inspect the crime scene, they are shocked by the amount of blood spread throughout the house. The victim is in bed, with her legs apart, her pajama bottoms pulled down to her thighs and the top pulled up toward her neck. The bedroom (which has two single beds) is completely splashed with red paint. There are drops of blood on the walls, on the dressing room door, on the stairs and even on the ceiling. The murder weapon that killed Marilyn was nowhere to be found.

Sam notices that he’s missing a few things: His wristwatch, his keys, his college fraternity ring. These items would later be found inside a duffel bag behind some bushes in the back of the house.

Homicide detectives find out Neither doors nor windows are mandatory. Nothing seems too mixed to steal. There are other inconsistencies that draw your attention. Neighbors claim that They haven’t heard the family dog ​​barking. In front of the intruder and Sam Jr., although he was sleeping a few meters away from his mother, did not wake up and scream during the fierce attack. Besides, Dr. Where is the shirt Shepard is wearing? Why did Sam call his friends before the police? Homicide officers don’t like these details.

At 10:30 Coroner Gerber takes Marilyn’s body and the autopsy begins at 12:30 PM. The rest of the experts begin studying the blood trail patterns. The police already have their first conclusion: they cannot swallow the story of the “hairy” “biped” and, as the hours pass, they become convinced that everything is a great invention by the surgeon. That he actually killed his wife For some reason they still don’t know.

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