The Sam Sheppard Case Collections Still a Big Hit

The Sam Sheppard Case Collections of materials from 1954-2000 is a very popular online collection from C|M|Law. Since July 1, 2014, 192,919 pages have been viewed, and 27,646 documents were downloaded. People from all 50 states plus District of Columbia accessed the website. Also, people from 102 countries accessed the website. Kudos to C|M|Law Library’s Technical Services for their hard work in making this collection accessible.

Background on the cases and the collection:

In the early morning hours of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard was bludgeoned to death in her bed. Her husband Sam, a prominent Bay Village doctor, maintained that Marilyn was murdered by a bushy-haired intruder. He stood trial and was convicted for his wife’s murder amidst a media storm.

The media frenzy so tainted his case that the United States Supreme Court released him and ordered a retrial in the decision Sheppard v. Maxwell. At the 1966 retrial, Sheppard was acquitted. He died just a few years later.

In 1999, Sam and Marilyn’s son, Sam Reese Sheppard, unsuccessfully sued the state of Ohio for the wrongful imprisonment of his father. The documents collected and used by the prosecutor’s office in this trial are the basis of the collection.

The Sam Sheppard case materials were donated to the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office. The library is busy preparing the entire collection for archiving and viewing by the public upon request. All documents will be available for viewing digitally in The Sheppard Reading Room in November, 2015, pending approval of the Prosecutor’s Office. Most of the physical documents will be available for viewing as well.