Dr. Sam Sheppard, Guilty or Not?

 Down in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1954,

A murder of a wife took place, now folklore,

A wealthy doctor, Sam Sheppard by name

Was said by everyone and all, to be to blame

And although his guilt he vehemently denied,

This his measured defence and calm tone belied,

And even though the evidence simply was not there,

The prosecution plucked a guilty verdict from thin air

It seems his rival, Dr Gerber, had an axe to grind,

And it wasn’t the noble truth he wished to find,

Said it was a scalpel that did the horrible deed

And the suspicious public quickly agreed

Missing fingerprints and far more beside,

A multitude of errors serving to hide

The innocence of the besieged Doctor Sam,

Who tried to tell all of the bushy-haired man

All to no avail, and the ensuing clamour,

And off went Sam to the cold, dark slammer,

And most then thought the case clear-cut,

No need for any doubt, closed and shut

But to some a gnawing and nagging need,

To show poor Sam Sheppard some heed,

And so a second trial was to begin,

To again scrutinise this mortal sin

And in 1964 the trial and all came to pass,

The search to find the real snake in the grass,

The alleged murder weapon was not to be found,

And Gerber’s faulty testimony not at all sound

But all too little and too late for Sam,

Who died six years later, a broken man,

And on the years rolled, a mystery still,

Speculation and conjecture fed its fill

And then in 1997, possibly the truth at last,

DNA evidence helping to unlock the past,

And it would seem that poor Sam may have been right,

Of the murderous stranger in the dark, shadowy night