Did you ever watch the movie "The Fugitive" starring Harrison Ford? Do you want to know the real story behind the movie? Then you should read Mockery of Justice The True Story of the Sam Sheppard Murder Case by Cynthia L. Cooper and Sam Reese Sheppard. Mockery of Justice is one of the most detailed books on the market about the Dr. Sam H. Sheppard case. It contains a detailed timeline on everything that happened since Marilyn Reese Sheppard's murder took place to the present time where Sam Reese Sheppard is still trying to solve the case of who murdered his mother. It has a full map of the Cleveland area indicating key areas of the murder such as the Sheppard home and the coroner's office. Mockery of Justice also has extensive footnotes and an index.

     In the early morning of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Reese Sheppard was murdered while Sam Reese Sheppard lay sleeping in another room. Dr. Sheppard claimed that there had been another person in the house at that night, but no one knows the real truth. Even before the investigation could lead to a conclusion about the murderer, the press demanded that Dr. Sam H. Sheppard be arrested for his wife's murder. With such pressure from the media, the police and prosecution rushed to convict Dr. Sheppard of murder. Mockery of Justice goes into the details of the frantic trial that included a media circus. All throughout the trial, the media was everywhere. There was a radio broadcast room set up right inside the court. The jury was never sequestered during the trial.

     The Sam Sheppard trial was an unfair trial due to the fact that he was not convicted on actual evidence. After serving ten years in prison, Dr. Sheppard was released by a ruling of the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled the Dr. Sheppard was denied a fair trial because Judge Edward Blythin did not control the courtroom's atmosphere. The Supreme Court's decision set a precedent for other high profile cases in preventing adverse publicity. In another trial in 1966, Dr. Sam Sheppard was found innocent of his wife's murder. Dr. Sheppard died a couple of years later due to the extensive emotional damage that he was subjected to.

     Mockery of Justice explores a trail of evidence to try to look for the real killer of Marilyn Sheppard. It contains new evidence and confessions that the public did not know before. There are also many pictures in the center of the book. If you only watched the movie The Fugitive you never would have known that when the crime scene was investigated, that the police officers ignored collecting evidence just because they did not think that it was important at the time. They did not collect all the fingerprints that were found, nor did they photograph the crime scene. The police barred the Sheppards and the defense team from entering the Sheppard home. If you want to know more details about the Dr. Sam Sheppard case, then you should definitely read Mockery of Justice The True Story of the Sheppard Murder Case The book is beautifully written by Cynthia L. Cooper, an attorney and a journalist, and Sam Reese Sheppard the surviving son of the Sheppards.