By the time school started, Uncle Sam had been in jail over a month for the murder of Aunt Marilyn. I was in fourth grade. My sister was in first grade, and our cousin Chip, who came to live with us after his father was arrested, was in third grade.
Uncle Sam kept saying he was innocent, but nobody listened except for his family and friends. Big black headlines screamed out from the front pages of all three Cleveland newspapers every day, vilifying Dr. Sam Sheppard and implying the involvement of the entire Sheppard family in carrying out and covering up for the death of Marilyn Sheppard. Our front yard was continually infested with cold-mannered reporters who considered us to be the enemy; they thought they cared more about Aunt Marilyn’s death than we did.
We knew what was going on: Chip’s mother had been killed by somebody, and the police were blaming it on his father, and everybody hated us because we were part of the Sheppard family. My parents assured us that Uncle Sam was innocent, that everybody did not feel he was guilty and that nobody hated us. But we saw it with our own eyes.
Everywhere we went we heard about it. If it wasn’t on the school bus where the older kids carried the front page of the Cleveland Press from the night before, taking it in for “Show and Tell,” it was sure to find us in the schoolroom where we endured in embarrassed silence the cruel remarks of classmates (“Your uncle is a murderer!”) and even teachers who evidently considered the murder case a good subject for class discussion. And we were sitting in the car the day Mom gave the charge card to the gas station attendant. He looked at the name on the card, “Sheppard,” and said to her in a disgusted voice, “My gosh, are you related to that murderer, Sam Sheppard?”
I hated meeting new people. I was embarrassed to tell anybody my last name. Usually I just gave my first name and mumbled the last name real fast if somebody insisted on knowing it. Unfortunately, some people already knew my name was Sheppard. I dreaded walking into a big room full of other kids who were all staring at me and whispering behind their hands about the Sheppard family murderers. I overheard or imagined such remarks while choking back the tears, horrified, unable to breathe, move or speak, and just wishing I could totally disappear.
I knew my Uncle Sam had not killed my Aunt Marilyn, but I didn’t say anything when I was hurt by remarks about me and my family because I was paralyzed with shame. Worse, it seemed to me that everybody outside my family and our close friends was convinced that Uncle Sam was guilty and, therefore, they all thought that my family was bad — which meant to me that I was bad. I was certain that I must, indeed, be a very bad, unlovable person to have so many people react toward me in such a negative manner.
