Despite the acquittal, Sheppard never felt vindicated. Since his death in 1970, his relatives have continued the fight to clear his name, using DNA testing to prove that some blood at the crime scene didn’t match either Marilyn’s or Sam’s–evidence that someone else was the killer. Now the Sheppards may have some fresh ammunition. A book out this month proposes a new culprit: former Air Force Maj. James Arlon Call, a war hero who turned to crime after the death of his own wife. In “Tailspin,” ex-FBI agent Bernard Conners argues that Call killed Marilyn during a burglary gone bad. Prosecutors should “acknowledge that there is plausible evidence pointing to yet another suspect in the murder of my mother,” says Sam Reese Sheppard, the couple’s son.
Conners says the crime seemed to fit Call’s burglary MO: breaking into a house while the occupants were asleep, rifling through the bedroom and using violence against anyone in his way. Forensic descriptions of the murder weapon–which was never recovered–seem to match a small crowbar later found in Call’s possession, says Conners. Marilyn probably bit her assailant; Call showed signs of a deep bite mark on his left index finger. The bushy-haired man had a limp; so did Call, who’d injured his knee in an auto accident. Several witnesses outside the Sheppard house the night of Marilyn’s murder recently picked Call out of a photo lineup (though their memories could have been clouded by the passage of time). In 1954, police were suspicious enough to question Call about the Sheppard murder, but never pursued the link. “We have very compelling direct and circumstantial evidence,” insists Conners, who spent nine years in the FBI before turning to writing, among other pursuits.
Still, the case against Call, who died in 1974, is hardly airtight. James Neff, an investigative reporter who followed the case for years, calls Conners’s theory “kind of far-fetched.” Last fall, Neff published “The Wrong Man,” which pinned blame on Richard Eberling, the Sheppards’ window washer. Neff says Eberling admitted being in Marilyn’s room the day of the murder. And while his DNA was never proved to be an exact match with the killer’s, forensic tests did not rule him out as a possibility either.
More DNA testing might unravel the mystery. Call’s DNA could be checked against existing DNA profiles from the crime scene if his family agrees. (Call’s son, Jeff, did not return calls.) Sam Reese Sheppard hopes the Call family will cooperate if authorities ask. But so far, prosecutors have shown no signs of backing away from their original suspect: Dr. Sam Sheppard. They’re still fighting the family’s wrongful-imprisonment suit, which the Sheppards lost in 2000 and are appealing. Even a new trial won’t bring much in the way of explosive testimony. Nearly a half-century after the murder, the victim, the suspects and many of the witnesses are well beyond the reach of the law.
