Sam Sheppard Will Be Exhumed For Dna Tests

Dr. Sam Sheppard’s body will be exhumed to provide DNA material that his son hopes will clear Sheppard’s name in the 1954 murder that inspired the movie and television series, “The Fugitive.”

Sheppard was convicted in the death of his wife, Marilyn, and imprisoned for 10 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a retrial because of extensive pretrial publicity. Sheppard was acquitted in the 1966 retrial.

The doctor’s son, Sam Reese Sheppard, has been working for years to vindicate his father.

His lawyer, Terry Gilbert, said the purpose of the exhumation is to compare Sheppard’s DNA to the genetic makeup of blood found in his suburban Bay Village home after Marilyn Sheppard was dead.