WEBVTT - S1: E17 – Murder on the Parkway, Part 2 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:07.880 Robert Marshall was an upscale problem gambler. He and his 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.440 wife Maria had spent the evening in Atlantic City. They 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:13.440 were on their way home. There was a problem with 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.639 us tire. He stopped at arrestop and his wife was 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.400 shot twice in the back and died almost immediately. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.600 The police didn't think this was a robbery turned homicide. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.440 It was murder for hire. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.040 And they believe the person who hired someone to kill 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.200 Maria Marshall was her husband. 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:38.519 He had a girlfriend and he wanted out, and he 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.360 wanted his wife to pay for it with her life. 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.320 Today, we're in New Jersey for the conclusion of Murder 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.840 on the Parkway. I'm Slow Glass and this is American homicide. 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.120 Just to note that this episode contained some graphic content. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:58.440 Please take care while listening. On a late summer night 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.040 in nineteen eighty four, Maria Marshall was killed at a 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.880 rest stop along the Garden State Parkway. The ordeal was 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.319 originally believed to be a robbery turned homicide. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:15.200 New Jersey is no stranger to murder. We have a 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:19.839 lot of mobsters in New Jersey, but this was different. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:24.640 It was murder for hire, which we didn't get that much. 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.000 Of Journalist Judy Peat wrote about the story for a 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:29.160 New Jersey newspaper. 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:33.240 It got national attention, a book was written about it, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.039 a movie was done about it based on the book, 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.360 and no story about Tom's River for about twenty five 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:48.440 thirty years ram without mentioning the spectacular murder in the 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:50.840 headline or at least in the first paragraph. 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.240 Even the Toms River Little Leak team found that out 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.040 in nineteen ninety eight when it won the Little Leak 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:57.960 World Series. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.840 It was huge, but they never really got their due 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.680 because of the Marshall case. 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.600 By Christmas of nineteen eighty four, three men from Louisiana 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:13.600 were charged with Maria's murder along with her husband, Robert Marshall. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:18.120 Robert Marshall was an attractive man with a very attractive 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.840 wife and three teenage sons, I think the youngest was 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.120 about twelve or thirteen at the time, who were all 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:30.520 championship swimmers and she was swim team mom of the year. 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.760 They seemed to have an idyllic life. 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.920 Think about it, those three teenage boys already having to 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.840 deal with their mother being murdered, and then they had 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.800 to process the fact that their father was charged with 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:47.240 orchestrating her death. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:53.760 Robert Marshall sold insurance and iras and did very well. However, 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.200 Marshall was in debt. He had a gambling problem. He 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.359 had just in the months before the murder up to 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.080 his wife's life insurance to a million and a half. 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:11.519 In fact, Robert had just taken an additional policy out 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.160 on Maria the morning prior to her murder. According to prosecutors, 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.320 Robert's motive for killing his wife was to use her 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.200 insurance money to pay off his debt and run away 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:25.639 with his mistress. 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:31.880 He had a girlfriend and he wanted out, and he 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.560 wanted his wife to pay for it with her life. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.400 Prosecutors believe Robert Marshall put the plan in place with 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.400 the help of three guys from Louisiana, Billy, Wayne McKinnon, 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.600 Larry Thompson, and a hardware clerk named Bobby Cumber, and 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.680 they believe it all started with Bobby. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.080 He first met Bobby at a party he was up 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:59.440 in New Jersey visiting, and Marshall asked Bobby if he 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.080 could find him a private. 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:07.560 Detective, Lieutenant Jim Churchill investigated and he learned Bobby Cumber 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.200 connected Robert Marshall to a PI named Billy Wayne McKinnon. 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.800 McKinnon talks with Marshall. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.960 Marshall said, I have a very sensitive investigation that I 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:19.799 want him done. 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:21.080 I don't trust. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:26.000 Anybody in my area to do it. So McKinnon says, well, 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.720 it'll cost you five thousand dollars for me to come 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:35.200 up there and do this. So Marshall sends him a 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:37.960 Western Union money order, which we have a copy of. 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.320 That's when Robert Marshall took things a step further. 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.800 He says, well, basically I want her done away with. 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.920 Mckinn is somewhat taken back by that, and he says, well, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:51.719 you know that can be done, but it's going to 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.039 cost you a lot more than what you've already given me. 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.040 So then they negotiate some sort of a deal. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.360 Now, according to Billy Wayne McKinnon, deal to murder Maria 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:03.920 amount into over eighty thousand dollars. 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:07.640 McKinnon has no intention of doing this, but he has 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.679 an intention of bleeding this guy for money as often 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.400 as he can, because what's he going to say? You know, 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.559 he stole from me because I wanted to kill my wife. 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.360 So McKinnon simply took Robert Marshall's money and strung him 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.320 along throughout the summer of nineteen eighty four, and by 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.800 the end of that summer he turned the job over 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:28.440 to his friend Larry Thompson. 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.000 Thompson's the kind of guy that does this and kind 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:37.320 of horns in on this scam. The authorities in Louisiana 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.599 know him. Whenever there's a homicide, he's the first guy 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:41.159 to think of. 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.760 McKinnon told investigators that he and Larry Thompson drove up 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.880 from Louisiana the day before Maria's murder. By then, Robert 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.839 Marshall had already paid Billy Wayne McKinnon nearly twenty thousand 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.440 dollars with the promise of more money to come after 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.080 the job was done. He and Robert Marshall then came 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.640 up with their plan. They'd make Maria's murder look like 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.279 a robbery gone wrong. At a rest stop off the 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.000 Garden State Parkway. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.360 They tell him to pull in, park your car here, 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.440 get out of the car, and then they will do 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.719 the rest. He said, I'll have twenty five hundred dollars 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.279 in my pocket. You can take that. Hit me over 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.080 the head, but don't hit me hard enough. I'm going 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:28.000 to be a vegetable. 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.040 But here's where things get tricky for prosecutors. 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.479 Thompson was the only person at the scene. 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:36.960 Billy Wayne had dropped him off and then he circled 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.080 around and came back north after the shooting had occurred 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.240 and after Marshall had been hit on a head, So. 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.839 Billy Wayne McKinnon never actually saw Larry Thompson kill Maria. 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.760 He dropped Larry off at the rest stop, drove away 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.640 and then returned after the murder. 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.080 When he gets there, he sees Marshall land by the 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:04.119 rear tire and Thompson is running towards a car, gets 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.560 in the front and says take off. When he starts 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:08.680 to take off, he says, wait a minute, I gotta 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.560 do something. He gets out of the car, runs back 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.560 to the car and Billy Wayne sees him take out 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.400 his knife and stick it into the right rear tire 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:19.920 and he hears the air coming out. 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.640 So the last thing to happen was Larry Thompson cutting 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.160 the Marshall's rear tire. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.880 There was about a two inch cut in the sidewalk, 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.480 perfect for somebody who had a fairly large knife and 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:34.520 just stuck it in air and. 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:35.119 Let it out. 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:41.000 Billy Wayne McKinnon confirmed what investigators originally believed about the tire. 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.280 We had an air pump brought to the scene to 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.840 inflate the tire and it wouldn't inflated. The air was 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.720 escaping as fast as it went in, So there's no 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.080 way he could have driven from Atlantic City with the 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:54.920 tire like that. 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.680 Now, if you remember, the suspicion over the tire was 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.880 what made Robert Marshall a suspect early on in the investigation. 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.160 He was arrested while he was Christmas shopping. 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.720 Linda Fenwick was friends with Maria Marshall. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.960 It was complicated. It was a complicated situation. 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.239 Now picture this, It's been three months since Maria was killed. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.640 Her husband, Robert is Christmas shopping for his three kids 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.840 and that's when police go to arrest him. He even 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.400 pleaded with the officers to allow him to first drop 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:30.440 off the gifts. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:35.200 But they refused. I couldn't imagine anybody hurting Maria was 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.960 That was my feeling, least of all him. I was 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.320 torn between whether he was guilty or not. I didn't 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:44.720 think he was. In fact, he said to me at 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:46.839 the last time I saw him in a swim meet. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.800 He said, don't believe everything you see in the paper. 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.520 You know, I said, Okay, don't believe it. It was 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:56.720 just before he was arrested. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:01.240 But hindsight is twenty twenty and looking back, she remembers 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.520 Robert's demeanor changing after Maria's murder. 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.080 At first, it was very hard for him to deal with. 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.760 He he acted like a grieving husband at certainly at 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:15.240 the funeral at the church. But yes, he did return 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:18.840 to life is normal, you know, going to swim meets 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.120 and you know, helping out of the house with the 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.840 boys and whatnot. But what the boys went through was 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:30.079 absolutely horrible to see that your father is involved in 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.920 a murder with your mother. It was terrible. I mean, 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:35.760 I mean, as far as I were can saying their 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.760 father was innocent. He wasn't involved, and let's find out 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:39.160 who is. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.800 Maria Marshall looked to have the ideal life. She was beautiful, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.440 She married her high school sweetheart and they had three kids. 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.440 They lived in the up for middle class township of 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.360 Tom's River, New Jersey, where they belonged to the local 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:09.640 country club. Robert was a successful insurance salesman, but he 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.160 still seemed to have his priority straight. He would take 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:17.000 Fridays off to spend time with his family, but according 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:21.480 to prosecutors, it was all a facade. In early nineteen 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.840 eighty six, Robert Marshall sat at the defense table in 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.480 a New Jersey courtroom. He was on trial for murdering 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:29.080 his wife. 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:35.800 Marshall was charged with conspiracy to commit first degree murder, 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.760 which is a capital offense in New Jersey, or was 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:40.520 at the time. 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:42.880 That's journalist Judy Pete. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.640 The other person in the case was a man named 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:51.400 Larry Thompson. Thompson and Marshall were tried first. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:56.120 In an unusual move, prosecutors tried Robert Marshall and Larry 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.240 Thompson together. Thompson was accused of pulling the trigger and 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.800 shooting Maria Marshall, while Robert Marshall was accused of orchestrating 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.959 the whole thing. The third man who would be tried 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:11.800 separately is Billy Wayne McKinnon. He was accused of driving 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:12.600 the getaway car. 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:17.120 McKinnon revealed the whole thing, at least his version of 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:21.600 the whole thing, and turned four, essentially getting a vastly 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:22.480 reduced sentence. 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:27.120 And this is important and likely the very reason prosecutors 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.520 tried Robert Marshall and Larry Thompson together. Billy Wayne McKinnon 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.479 struck a plea deal with prosecutors. He agreed to testify 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:36.640 against the two men. 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.800 Billy Wayne McKinnon was just going to fleece Marshall, at 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.240 least that's what he testified, but he ended up hiring 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:45.880 a murderer. 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.640 Billy Wayne said he subcontracted the job and hired the 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.120 co defendant, Larry Thompson, to kill Maria. If you remember, 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.360 the Louisiana hardware store clerk named Bobby Cumber was the 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.120 one who originally connected Robert Marshall to Billy Wayne McKinnon. 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.680 Although the police charged Bobby, those charges didn't stick. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.360 The judge actually dismissed the charges against Bobby. 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.400 There's a lot more to what happened with Bobby Cumber, 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.520 and we'll share the full story in a special bonus 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.480 episode of American Homicide. But first let's get into the 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:23.480 case against Robert Marshall and Larry Thompson. I know there's 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.880 a lot of names in this case, so let's recap. 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.920 Robert Marshall was married to Maria Marshall. He was cheating 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.200 on her with a woman named Saran Crashhouer. During the 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.640 summer of nineteen eighty four, Maria hired a PI to 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.080 look into Robert's fare, while Robert hired a PI of 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.480 his own named Billy Wayne McKinnon to look into Maria. 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.640 According to Billy Wayne, Robert wanted him to murder Muria, 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.959 but Billy Wayne McKinnon subcontracted that job to his friend 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:56.760 Larry Thompson, and prosecutors made the risky decision to offer 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.680 Billy Wayne McKinnon a plea deal in exchange for his 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:03.840 test stimony against Robert Marshall and Larry Thompson. He would 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:05.479 be their star witness. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:08.920 It really rested on Billy Wayne McKinnon. 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.600 And Billy Wayne McKinnon was a former deputy sheriff turned 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.480 private detective. This is not someone you'd expect to be 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.640 a hit man. He testified that Robert Marshall hired him 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.880 to kill Maria, but he said his conscience wouldn't allow 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:25.880 him to be the shooter. 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:31.400 He installed for at least three or four months. McKinnon 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.160 never expected to actually go through with it. He was 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.839 just trying to see how much he could fleece Robert 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:42.319 Marshall for and he'd taken twenty one thousand up front. 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.120 And eventually Billy Wayne McKinnon offered some of that money 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:47.800 to his friend Larry Thompson. 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.080 Authorities always believed that Larry was a stone cold killer. 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:54.200 He was fairly slick that way. 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.360 McKinnon said he and Robert Marshall planned out the murder 0:13:58.440 --> 0:13:59.680 the afternoon before. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:01.679 She could not be shot in the face. 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.000 He didn't want her beauty affect it, so she was 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.480 shot in the back. I mean, these were the kind 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.800 of details that came out in court and they were 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:11.559 pretty damning. 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.480 Billy Wayne McKinnon said he did not winness the shooting. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.800 He was there to drive the getaway car. But here 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:23.480 was the problem for Billy Wayne McKinnon and prosecutors. Larry 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.720 Thompson used McKinnon's gun in the killing. 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:32.440 Larry Thompson this surprised everyone, but he brought up a 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.120 preacher and family from Louisiana who testified that he was 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.480 at the dentist and a revival meeting at the time 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:40.280 of the murder. 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.880 Larry Thompson denied killing Maria Marshall. He said he was 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.240 at home in bed that night. His son, wife and 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.040 brother even backed up his alibi. Larry even went a 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.840 step further and said he had never even been to 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.600 Atlantic City and that was the risk prosecutors took with 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:05.120 having Billy Wayne McKinnon as their star witness. So, now 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:09.480 with a confused jury looking on, Robert Marshall was called 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:10.160 to testify. 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:12.560 He took a stand in his own behalf. 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:15.560 Lieutenant Jim Churchill was in the courtroom. 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.960 Basically, what he says is that he didn't do it. 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.120 He was a loving father and didn't do it, and 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:25.080 he wasn't in financial trouble. I had no problem paying bills. 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.520 Robert Marshall testified he had simply hired Billy Wade McKinnon 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.600 to investigate some missing gambling winnings. He said he later 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.000 learned his wife Maria, had used that money to hire 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.360 a detective to investigate his adultery. 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:46.520 He was carrying on an affair with Saran crash Hour. 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:51.240 So Robert Marshall confirmed his fourteen month long affair with 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.320 Saran and other women. He also admitted that in the 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:59.440 three months after his wife's murder, he vacationed with another 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.760 woman in Florida send flowers to an ex lever and 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:08.120 was involved with a third woman. All that aside, he 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:12.040 maintained he was not at all involved in Maria's murder. 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:15.160 Basically, that was it. 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:20.040 McKinnon who testified against him, was lying and the inference 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.520 was that he did it, stole the money, and now 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:23.600 he's making all. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:24.080 This stuff up. 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.320 By this point, the trial became a spectacle. In between 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:32.400 this testimony, Robert Marshall would turn to his family, smile 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:34.200 and give them a thumbs up. 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.080 Marshall would have signs at a cardboard and turn around, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:39.920 show up to his kids that says I love you, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.920 and he'd do that so the press that was there 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.880 would be able to see inflation in these cardstone. 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.800 The most explosive exchange during Robert Marshall's nine and a 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:55.320 half hours on the stand happened during cross examination. Listen 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.440 to what the prosecutor said when he noticed Robert Marshall 0:16:58.520 --> 0:16:59.800 was wearing his wedding ring. 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.480 So the prosecutor said, to hold up your left hand, Yes, 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.880 sta wedding ring on there. He said, yeah, that signifies 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.320 your devotion to your wife, your deceased wife, and you 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:14.879 know your devotion and love for her. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:15.320 Is that right? 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:17.840 You say, we can't tell Jerry why she's still on 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:23.640 a box at the funeral home. Nobody came and picked 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.520 up the ashes of Maria Marshall at the funeral home. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:33.600 That's heartbreaking. Maria Marshall was cremated in mid September and 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:35.440 Robert was arrested in December. 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:38.879 At the time of the trial, she was still on 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.520 a shelf in the funeral because nobody picked her up. 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.320 Robert Marshall was stunned. 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.119 And he held his hand up there for like five minutes. 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:48.080 He didn't know what to do. 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.960 When he finally found the words to respond, he said 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.520 he and his children had planned to bury Maria in 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:59.160 Florida over the Christmas holiday, but Robert Marshall was arrested 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:00.960 a week before Christmas. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.399 It was something I'd never seen like that. 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.760 In the court room before the seasoned insurance salesman hoped 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.840 the jury would ignore the mountain of evidence against him 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.040 and made one last attempt to sway the jury. 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:15.920 His boys testified on his behalf. 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.840 One of his sons explained that their mother wanted to 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.639 be buried under a palm tree. To the prosecutor's credit, 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.360 he went easy on the children who testified, but he 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:31.400 unloaded on Robert Marshall. During closing arguments, they said, what. 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.120 He did to those boys, and he said to put 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.000 him on a stand like that, and you saw it. 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.400 They didn't want to be there, but he made him 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.720 take the stand, and because of that, there's a special 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:51.320 place in hell for him. 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.159 It's not always a given that the accused takes the 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:59.479 witness stand in his own defense, especially in a murder trial, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.800 but Robert Marshall did. He testified that he was hit 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.520 over the head while changing a flat tire and woke 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.080 up to find his beloved wife, Maria shot to death 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:12.680 in the front seat of their car. 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.800 That particular murder, because of the nature of it, who 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:20.600 the people were, and so on, sent a lot of 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:21.600 shockways through town. 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.680 Tom kellaher is the former mayor of Tom's River. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.359 Maria had been shot with a looked like a forty 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:32.040 five automatic and they said that Marshall was hit over 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.199 the head apparently with the same forty five. I have 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.159 to tell you that I thought, why would they shoot 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.400 a petite blonde lady who's asleep anyway and wasn't really 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.960 a threat to them, and only hit Marshall over the head. 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.120 That raised a question right off the bat. 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.120 In my mind, after Robert's six week trial, the court 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.360 of public opinion in Tom's River had pretty much convicted him. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:20:00.439 The evidence was so overwhelming against Marshall. There's only one 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:02.400 or two people that really went to bat for him, 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:04.600 and everybody else was just kind of waiting for the 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:06.320 other shoot a drop. 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.000 As the case went to the jury, Robert Marshall, who 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.480 had been holding up signs to his children that said 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.000 I love you, passed another message to his youngest son. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.959 When everybody in the world who knew anything about the 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.240 case figured that jury is only going to be out 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.320 ten minutes and convict this guy. He kept temas on Listen, 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:27.080 you go home, get the house ready for a big 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:31.480 celebration tonight, and then when it's over, you and I 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:33.120 are going to go to Florida, get a boat and 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:33.800 fishing of it. 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.920 But Robert Marshall would never take his children fishing in Florida. 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.919 The jury wasn't out very long at all, and the 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.280 jury found him guilty. He was convicted. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.359 Jim Churchill was in the courtroom when Robert Marshall heard 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:48.960 the verdict. 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.360 What happened was after the verdict came in, he fainted 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.680 and they took him to a local hospital down there. 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:00.399 Can you even imagine. Even after Robert Marshall was hauled 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:03.520 off on a stretcher, the jury still had to rule 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:05.640 on the co defendant, Larry Thompson. 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:11.400 The same jury that finds Marshall guilty finds Thompson not guilty. 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.200 That's right, the jury acquitted Larry Thompson. 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.960 We spent as much time, I think, trying to convict 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.520 Larry Thompson than we did Robert Marshall, and for some 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.919 reason or other, they just didn't buy it. 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:32.240 It's unbelievable. The jury believed Larry Thompson's defense that he 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.879 was home in Louisiana on the day of the murder. 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.320 That he was at a dentist office with his son 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.080 having some work done on his child's mouth. 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.520 So Larry Thompson walked away. 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:50.359 A freeman, a member of the jury, was pulled and said, 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.480 you had so much information, so much stuff against Marshall, 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.920 and the judge kept talking about reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt, 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.520 reasonable doubt. So either a system works or it doesn't work, 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:05.439 and it stays with you. 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:06.240 Yeah, you know. 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:11.560 An infamous picture ran in the local newspaper Larry Thompson 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.240 is seen climbing into his beat up pickup truck going 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.679 off to leave, while Robert Marshall is laying on a 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:24.360 stretcher in the background. But there's an even more important photo, 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.600 a picture of Maria Marshall that Lieutenant Churchill had pinned 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:31.640 to his bulletin board at work. He put it there 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.320 as a reminder that the case was not closed. 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.360 I mean, you've been in this enough. Sure you get 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:40.760 involved in cases, but you do the best you can. 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.640 You collect the investigation. There might be something you might overlook, 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:46.120 but it's certainly not on purpose. 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:51.200 With Larry Thompson's acquittal, the attention again returned to Robert Marshall. 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.719 After recovering from his fainting spell, he returned to the 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:57.480 courtroom hours later. 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:00.920 And the judge ordered him back because the hospital cent 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:03.600 there's nothing, no reason why he shouldn't go back. 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.720 That's when Robert Marshall heard his sentence. 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.640 Marshall got to death penalty. 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.080 You know, I expected him to serve sometime, but I 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:14.840