Friday, May 16, 2014

Louis B. Seltzer and The Cleveland Press


"WHY NO INQUEST? DO IT NOW, DR. GERBER."
AN EDITORIAL

Why hasn't County Coroner Sam Gerber called an inquest into the Sheppard murder case? What restrains him? Is the Sheppard murder case any different from the countless other murder              mysteries where the coroner has turned to this traditional method of investigation? An inquest empowers use of the subpoena. It puts witnesses under oath. It makes possible the examination of       every possible witness, suspect, relative, records and papers available anywhere. It puts the investigation itself into the record. And--what's most important of all-it sometimes solves crimes. What good reason is there now for Dr. Gerber to delay any longer the use of the inquest? The murder of Marilyn Sheppard is a baffling crime. Thus far it appears to have stumped everybody. It may never be solved. But, this community can never have a clear conscience until every possible method is applied to its solution. What, Coroner Gerber, is the answer to the question-Why don't you call an inquest into this murder?                                                                                                                                                            Cleveland Press, July 21, 1954, Pg. 1
This editorial, and many others like it splashed across Page 1 of The Cleveland Press after July 4, 1954 when the young, pregnant wife of a prominent Bay Village doctor turned up murdered inside her Bay Village home. Written by the editor of The Cleveland Press, Louise B. Seltzer as mainly editorials to get things to happen when he felt that the Bay Village and Cleveland Police Departments or County Coroner Samuel R. Gerber weren't doing enough to get justice, Seltzer helped ruin any good chances of Dr. Samuel Sheppard ever getting a fair trail.

An Overview of Murder
"My God, Spen, get over here quick! I think they've killed Marilyn!"
Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Sheppard on their
wedding day
     It was sometime during the early hours of July 4, 1954 that prominent Bay View Hospital doctor Samuel Holmes Sheppard's pretty four-month pregnant wife Marilyn Reese Sheppard was found brutally murdered in her bed in the family's Bay Village home. Down the hall from her room slept the couple's seven year old son Chip, as he was called, while Marilyn's husband Sam slept on a day bed in the living room, having fallen asleep earlier in the evening while he and Marilyn had entertained their friends Don and Nancy Ahern.

     On July 4, in the early morning hours, Dr. Sheppard recalled that he was woken up by Marilyn crying out his name several times. As he ran up the stairs to check on his wife (he assumed that Marilyn was having a reaction similar to convulsions that she had had in the early days of her pregnancy), he wound up being hit in the back of the head and knocked out. When he gathered his senses, he was in a sitting position next to the bed, his feet facing the hall. After checking on his wife and determining that she was dead, he went and checked on his sleeping son. Hearing a sound downstairs, he went downstairs and saw a form somewhere between the front door towards the lake and the screen door. Following the figure, they wound up down on the beach where Sam was again knocked unconscious. This time, he came to by the tide washing up on him. Going back to the house, Sam again claims that he checked again on Marilyn, for sure once, but possibly several times before calling the first number that came to his mind-Mayor and Mrs.
The Sheppard Doctors
Richard A. (Father), Steve, Richard N and Sam
Spencer Houk. After they arrived, Mayor Houk called the police as well as Sam's brothers Dr's. Richard and Steve Sheppard, who upon arriving at the house, took Sam to their family hospital, Bay View, where Sam was treated for bruises on the right side of his face, a swollen eye socket, two slightly chipped teeth, slightly elevated blood pressure and for hypothermia.

Dr. Samuel R. Gerber, MD
Cuyahoga County Coroner
     At 7:50 AM on July 4, 1954, Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Samuel R. Gerber, MD arrived on scene, and by 8:10, Cleveland detective Michael Grabowski arrived on scene, per the request of both Bay Village police department and Dr. Gerber. The crime scene was processed, Sheppard was questioned both by detectives and Dr. Gerber at Bay View.

     By 12:30 PM, Dr. Lester Adelson, Deputy Coroner for Cuyahoga County began the autopsy of Marilyn Sheppard. It is important to note, that unlike Dr. Gerber, who was trained as strictly a physician and a lawyer; Dr. Adelson had
Dr. Lester Adelson, Deputy Coroner for
Cuyahoga County examines X-Rays
of the hands, feet and head of
Mrs. Marilyn Sheppard.
been trained as a pathologist, who believed that "...in a murder case the body was the best witness. 'Unlike a living witness, a victim's body does not shade the truth, tell lies, or plead the Fifth Amendment.' he liked to say." 1 During autopsy, Adelson determined that rigor mortis was complete, allowing him to place Marilyn's death somewhere between 4:15 and 4:45 AM. Her stomach was found empty, and as a person needs five to seven hours to digest a large meal as the Sheppard's and Ahern's had had the night before, this was very important. Also found during the autopsy were fifteen crescent-shaped lacerations on the forehead and scalp, most of them about one inch long and a half-inch wide; thirty-five body wounds; a
"Death Mask" of the head injuries
of Mrs. Marilyn Sheppard. The real
death mask resides in the museum of the
Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office 
broken nose; eyelids bruised and swollen shut; two upper medial incisors snapped off; fractured skull plates from the fifteen blows; cracked skull; and her frontal blows separated; lungs and windpipe were congested with blood, but with  no blood in the stomach, she was unable to swallow suggesting she was already unconscious; cyanosis in her fingernails; four blows to her left hand and wrist; a quarter-size bruise on her left shoulder; right little finger broken; the fingernail on the left ring finger was torn off; "creamy white exudate" in her vagina; "abundant" amounts of epithelial cells and bacteria in the vagina; and a four-month gestational male in her uterus. On her death certificate, Dr. Adelson listed Marilyn's time of death "at about 4:30 AM" on July 4, 1954 due to massive head injuries, the manner being homicide.1
Marilyn Sheppard lies dead in her bedroom at her home
in Bay Village, Ohio
















The Press Coverage Begins

 
Mrs. Sam H. Sheppard, an expectant
mother, was murder victim in her
Bay Village home



    "ON MONDAY, JULY 5, it was hard to miss the news that something terrible had happened in a quiet, safe little suburb along Lake Erie. News editors at the three local daily newspapers-the Plain Dealer, the Cleveland Press, and the Cleveland News- bannered the murder story across the width of their front pages with huge headlines. DOCTOR'S WIFE MURDERED IN BAY VILLAGE, trumpeted the Cleveland Press. The subhead: "Drug Thieves Suspected in Bludgeoning." A large, flattering portrait photograph of Marilyn filled the page. She was posed in a V-necked white blouse, arms crossed, nails painted, carefully made up, her brown eyes looking directly into the camera. The caption said, "Mrs. Sam H. Sheppard, an expectant mother, was murder victim in her Bay Village home." Somehow a Press photographer had gotten into Sam's hospital room. Below Marilyn's picture was a photo of Dr. Sam in a hospital bed, eyes closed and mouth swollen, an orthopedic brace around his neck. Inside its front section, the Press ran a full broadsheet of photographs-thirteen in all-of Marilyn, Sam, Chip, the living room, the upturned medical valise. Gerber had cleared the Sheppard house the morning of the murder and had barred the Sheppard brothers from entering. But the coroner, an elected official who cultivated the press, allowed photographers and reporters to tour the home and photograph whatever they wanted once the body was removed. Rummaging around, they'd quickly found the treasures they needed in the Sheppard photo albums. They had taken photos of photographs. But since the Press, alone, had the most revealing photos and the Sheppard family said it couldn't find those pictures later, most likely a reporter stole them that first day." 1 Who knew that this was only the beginning of what could be considered one of the worse media circus saga in the history of Cleveland crime?

Samuel H. Sheppard Jr.
"Chip"
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Sheppard


Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Sheppard
Marilyn, Chip, and Sam

Sam and Marilyn Sheppard wedding day

Marilyn and Sam water-skiing 















Louis B. Seltzer and the Cleveland Press

    Louis B. Seltzer was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Chas. Alden and Ellen Albers Seltzer on September 19, 1897 and was known as the long-time editor of The Cleveland Press, one of three local daily newspaper's in Cleveland, and one of two afternoon papers. According to James Neff's book The Wrong Man, he writes,
            Seltzer's background was the near opposite of Sam Sheppard's. He had grown up impoverished, the oldest of five, the son of an out-of-work carpenter who tried to make a living writing dime novels. His mother made his clothes by cutting up discarded men's suits and shirts. Louis dropped out of sixth grade to work as an office boy at the Press and fell in love with the thrill of big-city news-papering during the Front Page Era, when cutthroat competition and entertainment trumped the need to be responsible civic force. As a police-beat reporter, he entered apartments and houses to "borrow" photographs from families of crime victims to splash on page 1, a routine practice. Firehouses' coded alarms sounded in the newsroom, and he literally ran from the newsroom to be first on the scene. He witnessed seven electrocutions and took part in circulation-building stunts, such as using magician Harry Houdini to obtain evidence in exposing phony spiritualists who were preying on unsuspecting immigrants. He even got himself locked into the huge, antiquated Ohio State Penitentiary to expose its brutal conditions. He shot up the ranks at the  Press, the flagship of the nineteen-paper Scripps Howard chain, and at only thirty years old was named editor in 1929. By 1939, he was earning seventy-five thousand dollars a year, a huge salary for an editor, as well as a bonus of 5 percent of any increases in the Press's operating profits. If the Press did well, so did he, which gave him a financial incentive to create circulation-boosting crusades. Seltzer was an astute marketeer; he preached that a newspaper had to connect with the everyday lives of its readers from womb to tomb. Among his innovations, his staff sent cards to parents of newborns and invited couples reaching their fiftieth anniversary to a free banquet. Early in his career as editor, Seltzer set aside part of each Friday to visit one of Cleveland's forty-six ethnic neighborhoods with his wife, Marion. Many days he gave two or three speeches to clubs, women's societies, or church groups, speeding from address to address, arriving at one for the first course and hitting the other by dessert. Typically, he was home for an early family dinner at around 4 PM., just after the late stock edition hit the streets, then changed suits and hit the dinner-speech circuit. Clevelanders felt they knew him and trusted him. They believed his newspaper would tell it like it is. Seltzer ran a loud, loose, profane newsroom. He encouraged practical jokes. Once he threw a firecracker under the chair of a reporter interviewing a woman on the telephone. "What was that!" the startled woman demanded. A firecracker, the reporter said calmly. "What would Mr. Seltzer think about that?" she wanted to know. "Ma'am, he's the one who threw it." By the time of the Sheppard murder, Seltzer was known as "Mr. Cleveland," the most powerful man in the region, a political kingmaker. He believed that his newspaper, with information and a loud voice, could solve the city's problems. The Press was a "fighting paper" that "fought like hell for the people" he liked to explain. When local government did not function, the Press struck with editorial might, even if it meant using the sledgehammer to crush a gnat. Overkill could be rationalized by it editors because the cause was just, for the little guy. Anyone who tried to play outside these rules or who was perceived as looking down on his mostly blue-collar readers, Seltzer enjoyed taking down a peg. The players in the Sheppard murder were perfect fodder for his audience. The Sheppard family was affluent, suburban nonveau riche, osteopaths with a hint of immortality, and they had quickly retained lawyers, one of Seltzer's favorite editorial targets. Seltzer decided that the Drs. Sheppard, with status and wealth, were impending a murder investigation and thwarting justice, thereby mocking the people's will. They needed a comeuppance. For the rest of the Sheppard murder investigation, Seltzer and Gerber worked together closely, one creating news, the other inflating it."
     Even in Seltzer's autobiography The Years Were Good, he devoted the entire 26th chapter to the Sheppard murder case. In the chapter, he attempted to answer the question of why the Press went "on a killing-spear" one could say about the case.

            "It was a calculated risk-a hazard of the kind which I believed a newspaper sometimes in the interest of law and order and the community's ultimate safety must take. I was convinced that a conspiracy existed to defeat the ends of justice, and that it would affect adversely the whole law-enforcement machinery of the County if it were permitted to succeed. It could establish a precedent that would destroy even-handed administration of justice."

     Seltzer also acknowledges that The Press had been applauded and criticized, because of how it "inflamed public opinion by its persistent and vigorous pounding away at the case." and that some believed that the Sheppard case had been "tried" in the press, rather than in the courtroom, and that he would do the same thing over again. The most noble thing that he did, was that he wrote the editorials himself, rather then having his staff taking the risk.

The Inquest
Dr. Samuel Gerber, Cuyahoga County Coroner holds an
inquest. Dr. Sam Sheppard (right) answers Gerber's questions
     On July 21, 1954, The Press  publishes an editorial with the headline "WHY NO INQUEST? DO IT NOW, DR. GERBER!" Later in the day, Dr. Gerber announces that he is calling an inquest that will begin the next day on July 22 at the Normandy High School in Bay Village. There is heavy media presence at the inquest and the inquest lasts for three-days.

     In his thesis paper, PRESSING CHARGES: The Impact of the Sam Sheppard Trials on Courtroom Coverage and Criminal Law, Tali Yahalom quotes The Press' Bill Tanner about the inquest for the Sheppard case. Tanner admits that, "If it hadn't been for the newspaper urging this, it probably wouldn't have happened."
Mug Shot of Sam Sheppard
August 2, 1954

The Trails
The media coverage of Marilyn Sheppard's murder only gets worse, and the Cleveland Press and Louis B. Seltzer continues to slaughter all involved parties of the case. His "editorials" scream of justice for Marilyn and continue to demand action in solving this brutal crime. After the Press runs an editorial asking why Sam Sheppard isn't in jail, Sam is arrested at the home of his parents. That would be the last time in ten years that Sam Sheppard would be a free man.

The Jury visits The Sheppard's Bay Village home
The start of the 1964 murder trail of Marilyn Sheppard is a nightmare the moment it begins. Despite the case having already been covered extensively in the newspapers, the judge never sequesters the jury and their names, addresses and faces are printed countless times in the press. When asked numerous times for the case to be ruled a mistrial or to be thrown out because of the 'circus like' manner the court room is being run, Judge Edward Blythin refuses and on November 3, 1954, the murder trial of Marilyn Sheppard begins with a visit to the Sheppard's home with the jury, Dr. Sheppard himself and of course, the media.  It is not until December 17, 1954, a little over a month after the trial started that the jury on the case finds themselves sequestered for the first time, but by then the damage is done. Sam Sheppard has been denied his right of a fair trial due to the media coverage. On December 21, 1954 Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard is found guilty of murder in the second degree.


Dr. Sam Sheppard, now a free man
with his son Chip and 2nd wife
Ariane Tebbenjohanns
Appeals for a new trial begin almost immediately and every time, Sam is denied his sixth amendment. For the next ten years, Sam Sheppard remains behind bars in a maximum security prison near Columbus until defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey files a petition for habeas corpus in federal court on April 13, 1963. In his petition, Bailey argues, among other things, that prejudicial publicity in the trial violated Sam's right to due process. On July 15 and 16, 1964 Judge Weinman tosses out Sheppard's conviction on what he calls "constitutional grounds" calling his trial a "mockery of justice." For the first time in ten years, Sam Sheppard is released from prison on $10,000 bond and marries Ariane Tebbenjohanns.

Between October 8, 1964 and March 4, 1965 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cleveland hears the state's appeal of Judge Weinman's decision and on a 2 to 1 vote, the decision is reversed. Sam is allowed to remain free on bail pending his appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

Sam Sheppard with F. Lee Bailey
On February 28, 1966, the United States Supreme Court begins to hear oral arguments for Sheppard V. Maxwell. Sheppard is represented by attorney F. Lee Bailey. The state is represented by Ohio Attorney General William Saxbe. On June 6, 1966, almost twelve years after the murder of Marilyn Sheppard, the Supreme Court reverses Sam's murder conviction on due process grounds on an 8 to 1 vote. They cite "virulent publicity" which might have affected the jury's verdict.

On October 24, 1966, now twelve years after a jury hears the murder trail of Marilyn Sheppard, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge Francis Talty is assigned to hear the second murder case against Sam Sheppard. Determined to avoid another 'Circus Trial' Judge Talty laid down the following rules in his court room:
  • 1. There were to be no cameras on the premises of the court building and not even sketch-makers in the courtroom. No press table inside the bar. No room for radio equipment. No freedom to move about the courtroom-nobody could leave or enter while court was in session. No statements to the press by lawyers or witnesses.
  • 2. The number of benches for spectators and reporters were cut down to three totally 42 seats, which were assigned to the media. There were four for the two Cleveland newspapers, the Plain Dealer and the Press; eight for local radio and TV stations and one each for the AP and UPI. There were none for out-of-town newspapers, for national publications or for television networks.

Naturally, the media was upset at this order, but after the Supreme Court ruling, they weren't about to challenge this.

Dr. Sam Sheppard and third wife
 Colleen Strickland
Unlike the first case, the seven men, five women and three alternates were sequestered in a downtown hotel. Phone calls home would be monitored and their only news would come from newspapers that had been clipped of the Sheppard case.

On Friday, November 16, 1966, just shy of a month after the trial started it was over. At 9:30 PM that evening Judge Talty read Sam Sheppard his verdict-"We the jury impaneled in the above case find the defendant not guilty." It was music to Sam's ears, provided that he actually heard the verdict. By now, the toll  of Marilyn's murder and three trials had drove the once promising physician to booze and pills. His family had been destroyed. Both his parents and Marilyn's father were dead, and he was on to wife number three.

The Cleveland Press headline for
April 6, 1970
 
"The Killer" 
For a while, Dr. Samuel Sheppard, DO was known as The Killer, pro wrestler with his famous 'nerve hold'. Sadly, even being a wrestler wasn't enough to keep Sam going. On April 6, 1970, just four very short years after his verdict of not guilty, Dr. Samuel H. Sheppard was found dead in his home. The cause was ruled liver failure.  He was laid to rest in a cemetery in Columbus until he was cremated in 1997 and his ashes placed in the casket of his first wife and junior-high sweetheart Marilyn Sheppard in Knollwood Cemetery.

Knollwood Cemetery-
The final resting place for Sam and Marilyn
The crypt for Sam and Marilyn Sheppard and their unborn son















Disgraced Journalist?
 Is Louis B. Seltzer a disgraced journalist? Personally, I'm in favor of labeling him one. However, there are people who lived through the era of Seltzer that would swear his the best thing since sliced bread. A disgraced journalist is one who makes up stories like Stephen Glass or Piers Morgan, but Seltzer never officially got caught making up stories. Instead, the countless headlines that splashed upon Page 1 of Cleveland Press were editorials wrote by the editor of the paper. Still considered a disgrace? In my mind, you bet. What saved him from falling under the 'made up stories' was that one little word-editorial. He could claim if ever questioned that it was his own opinion.
Headlines, like the one above, saying
SOMEBODY IS GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER
flooded The Cleveland Press when
Louis Seltzer determined that nothing was being done

But this was not the first case that Seltzer's beloved Cleveland Press went out on a limb regarding headlines in their papers. In John Bellamy's book The Maniac in the Bushes, clippings from the Press during the Torso "Kingsbury Run" Murders feature such headlines such as GHOSTLY HAND SEEN IN LAKE, BONES ON SHORE DISAPPEAR which cause numerous phone calls and tips into the police about false sightings and/or useless discovers in the case. Better yet, other headlines that splashed across Press's papers included POLICE SEEKING THRILL SLAYERS, a story they "got from unnamed police officers" and yet another "editorial" titled MADMAN OR COOL KILLER? POLICE PROBERS GROPING FOR LEADS IN COUNTY'S FIVE HEADLESS MURDERS." In 1937, BABY FARM IS TORSO DEATH CLEW, a fact that was never proven because the baby farm referred to in the story didn't exist.

Is Seltzer a disgraced journalist? Yes. He singlehandedly destroyed a man in the newspaper of Cleveland. Did he make up stories? Most likely, but then covered his trail with calling them editorials. Why did he lead the Cleveland Press into this? Seltzer called it justice. Doris O'Donnell, a reporter for Cleveland News said that "When Louise Seltzer spoke, politicians shook. [He was a] little guy [but] the king of journalism." Even Seltzer himself admitted in his autobiography, "There were risks both ways. One represented a risk to the community. The other was a risk to The Press. We chose the risk to ourselves. As Editor of The Press I would do the same thing over again under the same circumstances."

You be the judge about this one.

Epilogue
The Sam Sheppard murder case remains unsolved to this day. Marilyn and Sam's only son, Chip, continues to try and clear his father's name and find the real murder of his mother's death.

But, take this into consideration. If Seltzer wasn't a 'disgraced journalist' who singlehandedly led his paper into a witch hunt of the century with this case with all the headlines run and other comments made in the paper, would the Supreme Court of this great nation really have to vote 8 to 1 that Dr. Samuel Sheppard, a fine physician until the untimely death of his young, pregnant wife, that Sheppard didn't get a fair trail because of the media circus that had covered the case almost from the very moment it started? I doubt it. But hey, that's just my opinion...or as Seltzer would write it-An Editorial