Chapter 26
Marilyn Sheppard, 1954
By mid-2012 Cameron made the decision to tell the story of Ed Edwards in a different manner. Writing a book was not something he was known for. Writing police reports and affidavits was something he knew inside and out. Edwards had killed in every decade of his life since he was a teen and the story would only get convoluted if every murder were talked about. The decision was made to stick to the murders he placed as a puzzle in the book for now.
Cameron proceeded backwards, to before April of 1955. Edwards was free to kill from October of 1953 until his capture in April, 1955. The next murder of recognition he committed was in the book and fell right into place.
On July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard, the wife of Dr. Sam Sheppard, was brutally murdered in the bedroom of their home in Bay Village, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie. Dr. Sheppard, a prominent Cleveland doctor, was asleep in another room at the time. Marilyn was 4 months pregnant. The two had spent the night entertaining friends. Around 3:30 a.m., an intruder snuck into the house and savagely beat Marilyn to death while Sam slept on the couch. Sam heard his wife scream and ran to help, only to be knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he saw a male running through the yard. He gave chase, but was attacked by the suspect. Three hours later he came to on the shores of Lake Erie. He returned to his house and found Marilyn lying in bed, face mauled and her legs spread open. Sam Jr. was still asleep in his own bed.
Sam Sheppard became the prime suspect. He denied any involvement in the murder, describing the killer as a man with puffy hair on top, as if it stuck up in front.
Composite of suspect
Edward Edwards, 1955
The similarities in this case to Edwards and the Zodiac were undeniable. Marilyn had curved wounds on her mauled face. Months later, an anonymous tip led police to a mysterious flashlight found in Lake Erie near the Sheppard home. The flashlight was thought to be the murder weapon. A flashlight was used by the Zodiac, a flashlight was left at JonBenet’s, and a flashlight was suggested as a murder weapon in the Chicago triple slaying. The July 4th date is the anniversary day of the Zodiac killing in Vallejo in 1969. Flamboyant young defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, represented Sam Sheppard in his appeal in 1966, after his conviction for killing his wife. The Zodiac demanded in a phone call to talk to F. Lee Bailey in 1969.
“This is the Zodiac speaking. I want you to get in touch with F. Lee Bailey. If you can’t come up with Bailey, I’ll settle for Mel Belli. I want one or the other to appear on the Channel Seven talk show. I’ll make contact by telephone.” (Ed Edwards, 1969.)
The Sheppard murder had become a national obsession and was particularly exploited in the Cleveland newspapers. As in the Zodiac, the editor of the paper played a large role in Sheppard’s conviction, claiming him guilty even before his arrest.
Edwards had just been released from Chillicothe Prison 9 months before he killed Marilyn Sheppard. He detailed his release date in this letter he sent to the FBI in 1993.
Edwards was released from Chillicothe on October 4th 1953 and moved to Medina, just a few miles from Cleveland just before the killing. He wrote about meeting Marilyn Sheppard, placing it at the right time of the murder. “Barbara” is Marilyn Sheppard.
“Although I never really understood what love was, I was engaged many times in my life, especially after my release from Chillicothe. I found engagement rings opened doors to bedrooms. I purchased several engagement rings on time, and repeatedly presented them as tokens of my love, only to demand them back when I tired of the girl. One ring had been worn by four different girls. I enjoyed playing Casanova. Lying was easy for me. At a cafeteria two doors away from the store, I met a girl named Barbara. She was a well-built, auburn-haired girl, with a lovely personality. I truly liked her. She was the mother of an eight-month-old girl. She was a challenge. I set my sights on persuading her to leave town with me, something a girl in her position shouldn’t have even considered. One night, I awakened from a sound sleep to find her missing. ‘Barbara, where are you? Barbara! Are you in the bathroom?’ No answer. I waited anxiously with the lights out, until about 3:30 in the morning when a taxi drove up. Barbara tiptoed silently into the house and slipped smoothly into bed. I waited silently for 30 seconds. Then I said:’ Why are you being so careful?’”
Barbara: “Oh, my God, you certainly scared me!”
Ed: “While I was worrying over how to get rid of Barbara, she had provided the perfect excuse. I pulled her over to me and put my hand between her legs. She was damp.”
Marilyn Sheppard, July 4th 1954
“I’ll tell you something right now, Barbara. In the morning, when you get up, you can pack your things and the child’s. I was talking loudly and roughing her up, but I really didn’t want to hurt her. We’d been close, and I had enjoyed her baby. I was mad but in control. The next morning I wasted no time in putting her on the bus to Denver.”
Every detail of her murder was put in the book, but he changed it to make it appear she was the one sneaking in. Marilyn Sheppard had been killed at 3:30 in the morning on a Sunday. She had been pulled by her legs, just like Edwards had described in his book. Edwards went on to describe the day of the week he had his last conversation with Barbara after he “put her on the bus.”
Ed: “Around 11 the following evening, I received a long distance call from Denver.”
Barb: “Ed, what are you doing?”
Ed: “I’m just sitting here, Barb.”
Barbara: “Ed, are you really mad at me?”
Ed: “Yes, I am. I think you did me wrong.”
Barbara: “Why don’t you come to Denver, and let’s start all over again?”
Ed: “I tell you what, Barb. Let me think about it for a couple of days. Give me a call Sunday afternoon.”
Barbara: “Will you think about it, Ed?”
Ed: “Yes, I promise. You call me back Sunday afternoon and I’ll give you my answer.”
Barbara: “Okay, I’ll call Sunday. I love you, darling.”
Ed: “I put Barbara out of my mind and went about the business at hand.”
M.O.A.C.
Edwards had detailed the killing of Marilyn Sheppard in his book. He placed the correct day and time of death as a clue. By repeating the word Sunday three times, it was a hint. He had done the same type of hint in the chapter titled, “Juggling Women,” when he repeated the phrase, “on the third day.” Everything in the book is a puzzle of murder.
Neal stated, “John, it’s amazing you found all of this in the book. Did you get the doctor connection? Dr. Sheppard’s medical bag was discovered in the hallway ransacked and scalpels missing.”
“Neal, a scalpel was used on the three boys in Chicago to remove the skin from the inner thigh. That happened a year after Marilyn! Ed would have had the scalpel.”
Cameron contacted Sam Sheppard Jr. to inform him of his findings. He was 4 years old when his mother was killed; he is 66 today. He remembers it like yesterday. His father was destroyed by it and died shortly after his release. Dr. Sheppard had served 10 years by the time F. Lee Bailey got him out of jail. It was one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in U.S. history.”
“John,” Neal said, “you got it! This is incredible. We have to go back in his book and research every one of the women. It looks like Ed started killing long before 1954! Aren’t the cops interested in this? Shouldn’t they be forming a task force or something? He has killed dozens over a 50-year-period and nobody seems to care!”
“Neal,” Cameron said with frustration, “they haven’t cared since we began. I think we now know why. I know cops and I know when they ‘circle the wagons.’ Edwards pulled it over their eyes repeatedly, in every jurisdiction. There is no way a cop is going to come forward and say, ‘Yup, we were wrong.’ It doesn’t happen. They don’t want to open up Pandora’s Box.”
“Maybe we can be like Woodward and Bernstein with Watergate, and the press will force the issue,” projected Neal.
“Don’t count on the press,” Cameron said. “He pulled it over their eyes, too. We are going to have to break it. Like I said, it will take years to decipher what he has done. No pun intended. Psychiatrists will be studying Edwards for decades. There’s never been anyone like him. I swear he is the 2013 revelation of Satan. What’s crazy is how we’ve been led. We could have stopped last year when we knew he was the Zodiac. He is so much more than that. No one yet has had even a glimpse of the entire picture.”
“Ed kept telling you in the letters ‘Don’t write your book, John. You don’t know the whole story. I have lots more to say. Just hold off.’”
“Every letter was a puzzle, Neal. I am sick of this. How many more murders do we have to delve into?”
“We should take one more look at Ed’s beginning,” Neal said. “It looks like I might have been right about him shooting his own mother at age 5.”
“I never wanted to go there, but you were right. We need to go back to his birth and track every year in his book. I was looking at unsolved murders in the 40’s, and found a peculiar one in Chicago, 1945.”
“Let me know what you find out,” muttered Neal.
Cameron knew how to find the bodies, but the stories were heart-wrenching. He wasn’t sure if Neal could take another. He decided they needed a break. “Neal, I gotta take care of some stuff, let’s meet again tomorrow.”