November 16, 1966: Dr. Sam Sheppard is finally acquitted of murdering his wife Marilyn in their home in the Cleveland suburbs in 1954. His defense attorney was F. Lee Bailey.
Sam was a 30-year-old osteopathic surgeon, living in Bay Village, Ohio with his wife, Marilyn, 31. They had a 7-year-old son, also named Samuel, and Marilyn was pregnant. On July 4, 1954, early in the morning, Marilyn was bludgeoned to death in an apparent robbery. The evidence pointed to Sam, and, after what seemed like a witch-hunt campaign by the local newspapers, he was arrested on July 30.
He was convicted on December 21, and sentenced to life in prison. Just 17 days later, on January 7, 1955, Sheppard's mother shot and killed herself. Just 11 days after that, his father died of cancer, and perhaps of a broken heart. His father-in-law would also be a suicide, in 1963, while the appeals process was underway.
On June 6, 1966, Bailey's efforts to get a new trial paid off, and his conviction was thrown out, based on apparent bias by the original trial's judge. The new trial began on October 24, and on November 16, after deliberating for 12 hours, the jury found him not guilty. He had served 10 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Sheppard didn't exactly help himself in the whole process, including having had an affair before the murder, which was cited as his motive in the original trial, and remarrying while in prison. He lived barely 3 more years before drinking himself to death in 1970.
The actual killer, whom Sheppard described as "a bushy-haired man"? Most likely, it was Richard Eberling, who was imprisoned for another woman's death. He died in prison in 1998.
Despite the denial of the series' creator, Roy Huggins, the Sheppard case is believed to have inspired the 1963-67 ABC TV show The Fugitive.
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November 16, 1966 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 3 games in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 117-108 at the Philadelphia Civic Center. Hal Greer scored 35 points. Wilt Chamberlain had 28 points and 30 rebounds.
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 124-112 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Jerry West and Rudy LaRusso each scored 36 points for the Lakers. Oscar Robertson and Happy Hairston co-led the Royals with 24 points.
* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 104-101 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.
And there was 1 game in the NHL: The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a 2-2 tie at the old Madison Square Garden.
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