Death in the Family

Until last July 4, life was good to Ethel Niles Sheppard. A schoolteacher from Paris, Ill., she married an osteopath in 1915, worked hard to help him start a hospital near Cleveland, even washed the hospital linen herself. Her three sons also became osteopaths, and her family flourished until the wife of her youngest son Sam was murdered last July 4. In August Sam Sheppard was arrested at his mother's home after dinner (she had served his favorite dessert, cherry pie), and she never saw him again.

Ethel Sheppard stayed away from her son's trial for murder and read no news accounts. Instead, she heard daily reports from members of her family. She could not help seeing, sometimes, disturbing headlines. During the trial she suffered a slight stroke, was hospitalized twice. She believed in Sam's innocence, wrote him many notes, sometimes talked with him over the prison phone. She sent him inspirational reading, including a booklet called How to Achieve Poise.

Last month her husband, Dr. Richard Sheppard, ailing with pleurisy, went to the hospital. Just before Christmas, Sam was convicted of murder. One day last week Ethel Niles Sheppard, white-haired and handsome at 64, locked herself in her bedroom and fired a bullet from a .38 caliber revolver into her brain. She left a note to her son Stephen, with whom she was staying: "I can't manage without Dad. Thanks for everything. -Mother." By court order Sam Sheppard was granted the privilege -unusual for a convict -of attending his mother's funeral.

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