Prisoner Claims Convict Admitted Sheppard Slaying

An inmate is claiming that the convict some suspect of killing Dr. Sam Sheppard’s wife, in the case that inspired “The Fugitive,” confessed to the slaying before he died.

However, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Stephanie Tubbs Jones said Wednesday she does not plan to reopen the investigation, saying it is difficult to judge if the informant, convicted robber Robert Lee Parks, is believable.

Parks told a lawyer for Sheppard’s son last week in a videotaped interview that Richard Eberling claimed to be the “bushy-haired intruder” who beat Marilyn Sheppard to death in 1954. Eberling had worked as a window washer at the Sheppard home.

Sheppard always insisted that a “bushy-haired intruder” killed his wife and knocked him unconscious in a struggle. But a jury convicted Sheppard of murder in 1954.

He served 10 years in prison before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the verdict, ruling that extreme publicity had violated his rights. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial. He died in 1970.

Sam Reese Sheppard, the couple’s 50-year-old son, has been waging a court battle to have his father definitively declared innocent, and he claims that DNA and other evidence point to Eberling as the killer.

Publicly, however, Eberling denied killing Marilyn Sheppard. He died in prison last month at 68 while serving a life sentence for killing an elderly woman for whom he worked as a caretaker.

In a videotaped interview with lawyer Terry Gilbert, Parks said Eberling “told me everything Sam told the police was correct” about the attack. Eberling had gone to the Sheppards’ home to burglarize it and rape Marilyn Sheppard and was wearing a wig and makeup, Parks said. Eberling killed her because she bit him and called for help while he raped her, Parks said.

“It’s difficult to assess the credibility of Parks, or of Eberling,” said Tubbs Jones, the prosecutor.

Parks previously told prosecutors that Eberling claimed he was hired by Sam Sheppard to kill his pregnant wife for $1,500.

Parks, 37, is serving a 12- to 30-year sentence.