Speaker 1: Robert Marshall was an upscale problem gambler. He and his
Speaker 1: wife Maria had spent the evening in Atlantic City. They
Speaker 1: were on their way home. There was a problem with
Speaker 1: us tire. He stopped at arrestop and his wife was
Speaker 1: shot twice in the back and died almost immediately.
Speaker 2: The police didn't think this was a robbery turned homicide.
Speaker 3: It was murder for hire.
Speaker 2: And they believe the person who hired someone to kill
Speaker 2: Maria Marshall was her husband.
Speaker 1: He had a girlfriend and he wanted out, and he
Speaker 1: wanted his wife to pay for it with her life.
Speaker 2: Today, we're in New Jersey for the conclusion of Murder
Speaker 2: on the Parkway. I'm Slow Glass and this is American homicide.
Speaker 2: Just to note that this episode contained some graphic content.
Speaker 2: Please take care while listening. On a late summer night
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four, Maria Marshall was killed at a
Speaker 2: rest stop along the Garden State Parkway. The ordeal was
Speaker 2: originally believed to be a robbery turned homicide.
Speaker 1: New Jersey is no stranger to murder. We have a
Speaker 1: lot of mobsters in New Jersey, but this was different.
Speaker 1: It was murder for hire, which we didn't get that much.
Speaker 2: Of Journalist Judy Peat wrote about the story for a
Speaker 2: New Jersey newspaper.
Speaker 1: It got national attention, a book was written about it,
Speaker 1: a movie was done about it based on the book,
Speaker 1: and no story about Tom's River for about twenty five
Speaker 1: thirty years ram without mentioning the spectacular murder in the
Speaker 1: headline or at least in the first paragraph.
Speaker 2: Even the Toms River Little Leak team found that out
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight when it won the Little Leak
Speaker 2: World Series.
Speaker 1: It was huge, but they never really got their due
Speaker 1: because of the Marshall case.
Speaker 2: By Christmas of nineteen eighty four, three men from Louisiana
Speaker 2: were charged with Maria's murder along with her husband, Robert Marshall.
Speaker 1: Robert Marshall was an attractive man with a very attractive
Speaker 1: wife and three teenage sons, I think the youngest was
Speaker 1: about twelve or thirteen at the time, who were all
Speaker 1: championship swimmers and she was swim team mom of the year.
Speaker 1: They seemed to have an idyllic life.
Speaker 2: Think about it, those three teenage boys already having to
Speaker 2: deal with their mother being murdered, and then they had
Speaker 2: to process the fact that their father was charged with
Speaker 2: orchestrating her death.
Speaker 1: Robert Marshall sold insurance and iras and did very well. However,
Speaker 1: Marshall was in debt. He had a gambling problem. He
Speaker 1: had just in the months before the murder up to
Speaker 1: his wife's life insurance to a million and a half.
Speaker 2: In fact, Robert had just taken an additional policy out
Speaker 2: on Maria the morning prior to her murder. According to prosecutors,
Speaker 2: Robert's motive for killing his wife was to use her
Speaker 2: insurance money to pay off his debt and run away
Speaker 2: with his mistress.
Speaker 1: He had a girlfriend and he wanted out, and he
Speaker 1: wanted his wife to pay for it with her life.
Speaker 2: Prosecutors believe Robert Marshall put the plan in place with
Speaker 2: the help of three guys from Louisiana, Billy, Wayne McKinnon,
Speaker 2: Larry Thompson, and a hardware clerk named Bobby Cumber, and
Speaker 2: they believe it all started with Bobby.
Speaker 1: He first met Bobby at a party he was up
Speaker 1: in New Jersey visiting, and Marshall asked Bobby if he
Speaker 1: could find him a private.
Speaker 2: Detective, Lieutenant Jim Churchill investigated and he learned Bobby Cumber
Speaker 2: connected Robert Marshall to a PI named Billy Wayne McKinnon.
Speaker 3: McKinnon talks with Marshall.
Speaker 4: Marshall said, I have a very sensitive investigation that I
Speaker 4: want him done.
Speaker 3: I don't trust.
Speaker 4: Anybody in my area to do it. So McKinnon says, well,
Speaker 4: it'll cost you five thousand dollars for me to come
Speaker 4: up there and do this. So Marshall sends him a
Speaker 4: Western Union money order, which we have a copy of.
Speaker 2: That's when Robert Marshall took things a step further.
Speaker 4: He says, well, basically I want her done away with.
Speaker 4: Mckinn is somewhat taken back by that, and he says, well,
Speaker 4: you know that can be done, but it's going to
Speaker 4: cost you a lot more than what you've already given me.
Speaker 3: So then they negotiate some sort of a deal.
Speaker 2: Now, according to Billy Wayne McKinnon, deal to murder Maria
Speaker 2: amount into over eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: McKinnon has no intention of doing this, but he has
Speaker 4: an intention of bleeding this guy for money as often
Speaker 4: as he can, because what's he going to say? You know,
Speaker 4: he stole from me because I wanted to kill my wife.
Speaker 2: So McKinnon simply took Robert Marshall's money and strung him
Speaker 2: along throughout the summer of nineteen eighty four, and by
Speaker 2: the end of that summer he turned the job over
Speaker 2: to his friend Larry Thompson.
Speaker 4: Thompson's the kind of guy that does this and kind
Speaker 4: of horns in on this scam. The authorities in Louisiana
Speaker 4: know him. Whenever there's a homicide, he's the first guy
Speaker 4: to think of.
Speaker 2: McKinnon told investigators that he and Larry Thompson drove up
Speaker 2: from Louisiana the day before Maria's murder. By then, Robert
Speaker 2: Marshall had already paid Billy Wayne McKinnon nearly twenty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars with the promise of more money to come after
Speaker 2: the job was done. He and Robert Marshall then came
Speaker 2: up with their plan. They'd make Maria's murder look like
Speaker 2: a robbery gone wrong. At a rest stop off the
Speaker 2: Garden State Parkway.
Speaker 4: They tell him to pull in, park your car here,
Speaker 4: get out of the car, and then they will do
Speaker 4: the rest. He said, I'll have twenty five hundred dollars
Speaker 4: in my pocket. You can take that. Hit me over
Speaker 4: the head, but don't hit me hard enough. I'm going
Speaker 4: to be a vegetable.
Speaker 2: But here's where things get tricky for prosecutors.
Speaker 3: Thompson was the only person at the scene.
Speaker 4: Billy Wayne had dropped him off and then he circled
Speaker 4: around and came back north after the shooting had occurred
Speaker 4: and after Marshall had been hit on a head, So.
Speaker 2: Billy Wayne McKinnon never actually saw Larry Thompson kill Maria.
Speaker 2: He dropped Larry off at the rest stop, drove away
Speaker 2: and then returned after the murder.
Speaker 4: When he gets there, he sees Marshall land by the
Speaker 4: rear tire and Thompson is running towards a car, gets
Speaker 4: in the front and says take off. When he starts
Speaker 4: to take off, he says, wait a minute, I gotta
Speaker 4: do something. He gets out of the car, runs back
Speaker 4: to the car and Billy Wayne sees him take out
Speaker 4: his knife and stick it into the right rear tire
Speaker 4: and he hears the air coming out.
Speaker 2: So the last thing to happen was Larry Thompson cutting
Speaker 2: the Marshall's rear tire.
Speaker 4: There was about a two inch cut in the sidewalk,
Speaker 4: perfect for somebody who had a fairly large knife and
Speaker 4: just stuck it in air and.
Speaker 5: Let it out.
Speaker 2: Billy Wayne McKinnon confirmed what investigators originally believed about the tire.
Speaker 4: We had an air pump brought to the scene to
Speaker 4: inflate the tire and it wouldn't inflated. The air was
Speaker 4: escaping as fast as it went in, So there's no
Speaker 4: way he could have driven from Atlantic City with the
Speaker 4: tire like that.
Speaker 2: Now, if you remember, the suspicion over the tire was
Speaker 2: what made Robert Marshall a suspect early on in the investigation.
Speaker 5: He was arrested while he was Christmas shopping.
Speaker 2: Linda Fenwick was friends with Maria Marshall.
Speaker 5: It was complicated. It was a complicated situation.
Speaker 2: Now picture this, It's been three months since Maria was killed.
Speaker 2: Her husband, Robert is Christmas shopping for his three kids
Speaker 2: and that's when police go to arrest him. He even
Speaker 2: pleaded with the officers to allow him to first drop
Speaker 2: off the gifts.
Speaker 5: But they refused. I couldn't imagine anybody hurting Maria was
Speaker 5: That was my feeling, least of all him. I was
Speaker 5: torn between whether he was guilty or not. I didn't
Speaker 5: think he was. In fact, he said to me at
Speaker 5: the last time I saw him in a swim meet.
Speaker 5: He said, don't believe everything you see in the paper.
Speaker 5: You know, I said, Okay, don't believe it. It was
Speaker 5: just before he was arrested.
Speaker 2: But hindsight is twenty twenty and looking back, she remembers
Speaker 2: Robert's demeanor changing after Maria's murder.
Speaker 5: At first, it was very hard for him to deal with.
Speaker 5: He he acted like a grieving husband at certainly at
Speaker 5: the funeral at the church. But yes, he did return
Speaker 5: to life is normal, you know, going to swim meets
Speaker 5: and you know, helping out of the house with the
Speaker 5: boys and whatnot. But what the boys went through was
Speaker 5: absolutely horrible to see that your father is involved in
Speaker 5: a murder with your mother. It was terrible. I mean,
Speaker 5: I mean, as far as I were can saying their
Speaker 5: father was innocent. He wasn't involved, and let's find out
Speaker 5: who is.
Speaker 2: Maria Marshall looked to have the ideal life. She was beautiful,
Speaker 2: She married her high school sweetheart and they had three kids.
Speaker 2: They lived in the up for middle class township of
Speaker 2: Tom's River, New Jersey, where they belonged to the local
Speaker 2: country club. Robert was a successful insurance salesman, but he
Speaker 2: still seemed to have his priority straight. He would take
Speaker 2: Fridays off to spend time with his family, but according
Speaker 2: to prosecutors, it was all a facade. In early nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six, Robert Marshall sat at the defense table in
Speaker 2: a New Jersey courtroom. He was on trial for murdering
Speaker 2: his wife.
Speaker 1: Marshall was charged with conspiracy to commit first degree murder,
Speaker 1: which is a capital offense in New Jersey, or was
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: That's journalist Judy Pete.
Speaker 1: The other person in the case was a man named
Speaker 1: Larry Thompson. Thompson and Marshall were tried first.
Speaker 2: In an unusual move, prosecutors tried Robert Marshall and Larry
Speaker 2: Thompson together. Thompson was accused of pulling the trigger and
Speaker 2: shooting Maria Marshall, while Robert Marshall was accused of orchestrating
Speaker 2: the whole thing. The third man who would be tried
Speaker 2: separately is Billy Wayne McKinnon. He was accused of driving
Speaker 2: the getaway car.
Speaker 1: McKinnon revealed the whole thing, at least his version of
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and turned four, essentially getting a vastly
Speaker 1: reduced sentence.
Speaker 2: And this is important and likely the very reason prosecutors
Speaker 2: tried Robert Marshall and Larry Thompson together. Billy Wayne McKinnon
Speaker 2: struck a plea deal with prosecutors. He agreed to testify
Speaker 2: against the two men.
Speaker 1: Billy Wayne McKinnon was just going to fleece Marshall, at
Speaker 1: least that's what he testified, but he ended up hiring
Speaker 1: a murderer.
Speaker 2: Billy Wayne said he subcontracted the job and hired the
Speaker 2: co defendant, Larry Thompson, to kill Maria. If you remember,
Speaker 2: the Louisiana hardware store clerk named Bobby Cumber was the
Speaker 2: one who originally connected Robert Marshall to Billy Wayne McKinnon.
Speaker 2: Although the police charged Bobby, those charges didn't stick.
Speaker 1: The judge actually dismissed the charges against Bobby.
Speaker 2: There's a lot more to what happened with Bobby Cumber,
Speaker 2: and we'll share the full story in a special bonus
Speaker 2: episode of American Homicide. But first let's get into the
Speaker 2: case against Robert Marshall and Larry Thompson. I know there's
Speaker 2: a lot of names in this case, so let's recap.
Speaker 2: Robert Marshall was married to Maria Marshall. He was cheating
Speaker 2: on her with a woman named Saran Crashhouer. During the
Speaker 2: summer of nineteen eighty four, Maria hired a PI to
Speaker 2: look into Robert's fare, while Robert hired a PI of
Speaker 2: his own named Billy Wayne McKinnon to look into Maria.
Speaker 2: According to Billy Wayne, Robert wanted him to murder Muria,
Speaker 2: but Billy Wayne McKinnon subcontracted that job to his friend
Speaker 2: Larry Thompson, and prosecutors made the risky decision to offer
Speaker 2: Billy Wayne McKinnon a plea deal in exchange for his
Speaker 2: test stimony against Robert Marshall and Larry Thompson. He would
Speaker 2: be their star witness.
Speaker 1: It really rested on Billy Wayne McKinnon.
Speaker 2: And Billy Wayne McKinnon was a former deputy sheriff turned
Speaker 2: private detective. This is not someone you'd expect to be
Speaker 2: a hit man. He testified that Robert Marshall hired him
Speaker 2: to kill Maria, but he said his conscience wouldn't allow
Speaker 2: him to be the shooter.
Speaker 1: He installed for at least three or four months. McKinnon
Speaker 1: never expected to actually go through with it. He was
Speaker 1: just trying to see how much he could fleece Robert
Speaker 1: Marshall for and he'd taken twenty one thousand up front.
Speaker 2: And eventually Billy Wayne McKinnon offered some of that money
Speaker 2: to his friend Larry Thompson.
Speaker 1: Authorities always believed that Larry was a stone cold killer.
Speaker 3: He was fairly slick that way.
Speaker 2: McKinnon said he and Robert Marshall planned out the murder
Speaker 2: the afternoon before.
Speaker 5: She could not be shot in the face.
Speaker 1: He didn't want her beauty affect it, so she was
Speaker 1: shot in the back. I mean, these were the kind
Speaker 1: of details that came out in court and they were
Speaker 1: pretty damning.
Speaker 2: Billy Wayne McKinnon said he did not winness the shooting.
Speaker 2: He was there to drive the getaway car. But here
Speaker 2: was the problem for Billy Wayne McKinnon and prosecutors. Larry
Speaker 2: Thompson used McKinnon's gun in the killing.
Speaker 1: Larry Thompson this surprised everyone, but he brought up a
Speaker 1: preacher and family from Louisiana who testified that he was
Speaker 1: at the dentist and a revival meeting at the time
Speaker 1: of the murder.
Speaker 2: Larry Thompson denied killing Maria Marshall. He said he was
Speaker 2: at home in bed that night. His son, wife and
Speaker 2: brother even backed up his alibi. Larry even went a
Speaker 2: step further and said he had never even been to
Speaker 2: Atlantic City and that was the risk prosecutors took with
Speaker 2: having Billy Wayne McKinnon as their star witness. So, now
Speaker 2: with a confused jury looking on, Robert Marshall was called
Speaker 2: to testify.
Speaker 3: He took a stand in his own behalf.
Speaker 2: Lieutenant Jim Churchill was in the courtroom.
Speaker 4: Basically, what he says is that he didn't do it.
Speaker 4: He was a loving father and didn't do it, and
Speaker 4: he wasn't in financial trouble. I had no problem paying bills.
Speaker 2: Robert Marshall testified he had simply hired Billy Wade McKinnon
Speaker 2: to investigate some missing gambling winnings. He said he later
Speaker 2: learned his wife Maria, had used that money to hire
Speaker 2: a detective to investigate his adultery.
Speaker 4: He was carrying on an affair with Saran crash Hour.
Speaker 2: So Robert Marshall confirmed his fourteen month long affair with
Speaker 2: Saran and other women. He also admitted that in the
Speaker 2: three months after his wife's murder, he vacationed with another
Speaker 2: woman in Florida send flowers to an ex lever and
Speaker 2: was involved with a third woman. All that aside, he
Speaker 2: maintained he was not at all involved in Maria's murder.
Speaker 3: Basically, that was it.
Speaker 4: McKinnon who testified against him, was lying and the inference
Speaker 4: was that he did it, stole the money, and now
Speaker 4: he's making all.
Speaker 3: This stuff up.
Speaker 2: By this point, the trial became a spectacle. In between
Speaker 2: this testimony, Robert Marshall would turn to his family, smile
Speaker 2: and give them a thumbs up.
Speaker 4: Marshall would have signs at a cardboard and turn around,
Speaker 4: show up to his kids that says I love you,
Speaker 4: and he'd do that so the press that was there
Speaker 4: would be able to see inflation in these cardstone.
Speaker 2: The most explosive exchange during Robert Marshall's nine and a
Speaker 2: half hours on the stand happened during cross examination. Listen
Speaker 2: to what the prosecutor said when he noticed Robert Marshall
Speaker 2: was wearing his wedding ring.
Speaker 4: So the prosecutor said, to hold up your left hand, Yes,
Speaker 4: sta wedding ring on there. He said, yeah, that signifies
Speaker 4: your devotion to your wife, your deceased wife, and you
Speaker 4: know your devotion and love for her.
Speaker 5: Is that right?
Speaker 4: You say, we can't tell Jerry why she's still on
Speaker 4: a box at the funeral home. Nobody came and picked
Speaker 4: up the ashes of Maria Marshall at the funeral home.
Speaker 2: That's heartbreaking. Maria Marshall was cremated in mid September and
Speaker 2: Robert was arrested in December.
Speaker 4: At the time of the trial, she was still on
Speaker 4: a shelf in the funeral because nobody picked her up.
Speaker 2: Robert Marshall was stunned.
Speaker 3: And he held his hand up there for like five minutes.
Speaker 3: He didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: When he finally found the words to respond, he said
Speaker 2: he and his children had planned to bury Maria in
Speaker 2: Florida over the Christmas holiday, but Robert Marshall was arrested
Speaker 2: a week before Christmas.
Speaker 3: It was something I'd never seen like that.
Speaker 2: In the court room before the seasoned insurance salesman hoped
Speaker 2: the jury would ignore the mountain of evidence against him
Speaker 2: and made one last attempt to sway the jury.
Speaker 3: His boys testified on his behalf.
Speaker 2: One of his sons explained that their mother wanted to
Speaker 2: be buried under a palm tree. To the prosecutor's credit,
Speaker 2: he went easy on the children who testified, but he
Speaker 2: unloaded on Robert Marshall. During closing arguments, they said, what.
Speaker 4: He did to those boys, and he said to put
Speaker 4: him on a stand like that, and you saw it.
Speaker 4: They didn't want to be there, but he made him
Speaker 4: take the stand, and because of that, there's a special
Speaker 4: place in hell for him.
Speaker 2: It's not always a given that the accused takes the
Speaker 2: witness stand in his own defense, especially in a murder trial,
Speaker 2: but Robert Marshall did. He testified that he was hit
Speaker 2: over the head while changing a flat tire and woke
Speaker 2: up to find his beloved wife, Maria shot to death
Speaker 2: in the front seat of their car.
Speaker 6: That particular murder, because of the nature of it, who
Speaker 6: the people were, and so on, sent a lot of
Speaker 6: shockways through town.
Speaker 2: Tom kellaher is the former mayor of Tom's River.
Speaker 6: Maria had been shot with a looked like a forty
Speaker 6: five automatic and they said that Marshall was hit over
Speaker 6: the head apparently with the same forty five. I have
Speaker 6: to tell you that I thought, why would they shoot
Speaker 6: a petite blonde lady who's asleep anyway and wasn't really
Speaker 6: a threat to them, and only hit Marshall over the head.
Speaker 6: That raised a question right off the bat.
Speaker 2: In my mind, after Robert's six week trial, the court
Speaker 2: of public opinion in Tom's River had pretty much convicted him.
Speaker 6: The evidence was so overwhelming against Marshall. There's only one
Speaker 6: or two people that really went to bat for him,
Speaker 6: and everybody else was just kind of waiting for the
Speaker 6: other shoot a drop.
Speaker 2: As the case went to the jury, Robert Marshall, who
Speaker 2: had been holding up signs to his children that said
Speaker 2: I love you, passed another message to his youngest son.
Speaker 6: When everybody in the world who knew anything about the
Speaker 6: case figured that jury is only going to be out
Speaker 6: ten minutes and convict this guy. He kept temas on Listen,
Speaker 6: you go home, get the house ready for a big
Speaker 6: celebration tonight, and then when it's over, you and I
Speaker 6: are going to go to Florida, get a boat and
Speaker 6: fishing of it.
Speaker 2: But Robert Marshall would never take his children fishing in Florida.
Speaker 6: The jury wasn't out very long at all, and the
Speaker 6: jury found him guilty. He was convicted.
Speaker 2: Jim Churchill was in the courtroom when Robert Marshall heard
Speaker 2: the verdict.
Speaker 4: What happened was after the verdict came in, he fainted
Speaker 4: and they took him to a local hospital down there.
Speaker 2: Can you even imagine. Even after Robert Marshall was hauled
Speaker 2: off on a stretcher, the jury still had to rule
Speaker 2: on the co defendant, Larry Thompson.
Speaker 4: The same jury that finds Marshall guilty finds Thompson not guilty.
Speaker 2: That's right, the jury acquitted Larry Thompson.
Speaker 4: We spent as much time, I think, trying to convict
Speaker 4: Larry Thompson than we did Robert Marshall, and for some
Speaker 4: reason or other, they just didn't buy it.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. The jury believed Larry Thompson's defense that he
Speaker 2: was home in Louisiana on the day of the murder.
Speaker 4: That he was at a dentist office with his son
Speaker 4: having some work done on his child's mouth.
Speaker 2: So Larry Thompson walked away.
Speaker 4: A freeman, a member of the jury, was pulled and said,
Speaker 4: you had so much information, so much stuff against Marshall,
Speaker 4: and the judge kept talking about reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt,
Speaker 4: reasonable doubt. So either a system works or it doesn't work,
Speaker 4: and it stays with you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: An infamous picture ran in the local newspaper Larry Thompson
Speaker 2: is seen climbing into his beat up pickup truck going
Speaker 2: off to leave, while Robert Marshall is laying on a
Speaker 2: stretcher in the background. But there's an even more important photo,
Speaker 2: a picture of Maria Marshall that Lieutenant Churchill had pinned
Speaker 2: to his bulletin board at work. He put it there
Speaker 2: as a reminder that the case was not closed.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've been in this enough. Sure you get
Speaker 4: involved in cases, but you do the best you can.
Speaker 4: You collect the investigation. There might be something you might overlook,
Speaker 4: but it's certainly not on purpose.
Speaker 2: With Larry Thompson's acquittal, the attention again returned to Robert Marshall.
Speaker 2: After recovering from his fainting spell, he returned to the
Speaker 2: courtroom hours later.
Speaker 4: And the judge ordered him back because the hospital cent
Speaker 4: there's nothing, no reason why he shouldn't go back.
Speaker 2: That's when Robert Marshall heard his sentence.
Speaker 3: Marshall got to death penalty.
Speaker 5: You know, I expected him to serve sometime, but I
Speaker 5: was surprised that death penalty.
Speaker 2: That's Maria's friend, Linda Fenwick.
Speaker 5: He wrote me a couple of letters early on when
Speaker 5: he was in prison, telling me that he didn't do it,
Speaker 5: and that you know, he missed Maria and he missed boys,
Speaker 5: and you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Robert Marshall spent eighteen years on death row before an
Speaker 2: appeal judge ruled that his lawyer misrepresented him during the
Speaker 2: death penalty phase of his trial. So in two thousand
Speaker 2: and six he was resentenced and had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: address the court. Here he is speaking.
Speaker 7: I know I've made some terrible mistakes, mistakes which have
Speaker 7: caused a lot of suffering from my family. I accept
Speaker 7: full responsibility that my actions led to her death. I'm
Speaker 7: deeply sorry for my actions, but I can't change the past. However,
Speaker 7: I can change the future. I'll be seventy five years
Speaker 7: old when my thirty year sentence is up, and I hope,
Speaker 7: in prayer, I have a chance to spend what was
Speaker 7: left in my life with my sons and grandchildren.
Speaker 2: By this time, Robert's three children were in their thirties.
Speaker 5: I mean, he actually thought he was going to you know,
Speaker 5: that these appeals were going to work, but of course
Speaker 5: they didn't.
Speaker 2: The judge resentenced Robert Marshall to life in prison, with
Speaker 2: the possibility of parole.
Speaker 5: All three of them supported him until it was clear
Speaker 5: that he had some involvement, but the younger one supported
Speaker 5: him till his death.
Speaker 2: And Robert Marshall was right about one thing. The people
Speaker 2: of Toms River did talk, and they talked about this
Speaker 2: case and the murder of Maria Marshall for years.
Speaker 5: Yes, it had an impact on a lot of people.
Speaker 5: It's a case that's still talked about in town. I
Speaker 5: mean everybody was aware of every detail of it, and
Speaker 5: they still talk about it.
Speaker 2: The alleged triggerman was Larry Thompson, who was acquitted, but
Speaker 2: his story doesn't end there. After being exonerated in the
Speaker 2: Marshall case, Larry Thompson was later convicted of armed robbery
Speaker 2: and the attempted murder of a Louisiana policeman that landed
Speaker 2: him a long prison sentence and a lot of time
Speaker 2: to think about his past.
Speaker 4: In twenty fourteen, I get a phone call saying Larry
Speaker 4: wants to talk with you.
Speaker 2: So, three decades after Lieutenant Jim Churchill had investigated Mria
Speaker 2: Marshall's murder, he gets on a plane and flies to
Speaker 2: Louisiana to visit Larry Thompson in prison.
Speaker 4: Larry's waiting outside the Warden's office for me, and this
Speaker 4: is the first time I've talked to him ever.
Speaker 2: The two sit face to face. That's when Lieutenant Churchill
Speaker 2: turned on his tape recorder and I.
Speaker 4: Said, this is going to be short and sweet to
Speaker 4: fire those shots that killed Maria Marshall.
Speaker 3: Yes, I did.
Speaker 4: Those people testified to you, including your son, they were
Speaker 4: either mistaken or deliberate lions on your behalf.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yes, Larry Thompson admitted that he fabricated his alibi and
Speaker 2: he killed Maria Marshall. But even with Larry's confession, double
Speaker 2: jeopardy laws prevented him from being retried. Regardless, it was
Speaker 2: the truth, something Lieutenant Churchill had never stopped looking for.
Speaker 3: I did it mostly for Robbie.
Speaker 2: Robbie Marshall was Robert and Maria's oldest son. He had
Speaker 2: always believed his father murdered his mother.
Speaker 4: Robbie wasn't too happy with the fact that the man
Speaker 4: we charged with his mother's actual murder was found not guilty.
Speaker 3: He thought that it was because we didn't do enough
Speaker 3: work on it.
Speaker 2: With this information, Lieutenant Churchill got in touch with Robbie's brother, Chris.
Speaker 3: And I called him.
Speaker 4: I said, look, I got some closure for you here,
Speaker 4: So I told him, and he thanked me very much,
Speaker 4: and I said, do me a favor.
Speaker 3: Call your brothers and tell them you know what I
Speaker 3: just told you.
Speaker 2: And it was the last time he heard from any
Speaker 2: of the Marshall children.
Speaker 4: The fact that there are three young boys who were
Speaker 4: left without a mother and then without a father, and
Speaker 4: it's amazing to me that they've done as well as
Speaker 4: they have.
Speaker 2: The Marshall children would receive shocking news. In twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: a year after Larry Thompson's confession, Robbie and his siblings
Speaker 2: were preparing for the possibility of their father getting out
Speaker 2: of prison. Robert Marshall was up for parole, and just
Speaker 2: before his parole hearing, Robert suffered a stroke and died.
Speaker 2: He was seventy five years old. For Lieutenant Churchill, he
Speaker 2: felt like the Marshall case was finally closed and that
Speaker 2: meant he could remove the photo of Maria that hung
Speaker 2: above his desk.
Speaker 4: I took it off the bulletin board, put it back
Speaker 4: in a file and that's where it is among the
Speaker 4: nineteen file boxes.
Speaker 3: In the archives.
Speaker 2: It's been over forty years since Maria Marshall was killed
Speaker 2: along the Garden State Parkway, and nearly a decade since
Speaker 2: Robert Marshall died in prison, and this is still the
Speaker 2: one case that sticks with the lieutenant.
Speaker 4: Not because it's the hardest case we ever had, but
Speaker 4: it's the one that's most memorable. I feel I know
Speaker 4: more about him and her and Larry Thompson and Nickinnon
Speaker 4: then they do some of my relatives.
Speaker 2: And when he says him, he's referring to Robert Marshall.
Speaker 4: And to have him do something like what he did,
Speaker 4: and he had every opportunity to get out of it,
Speaker 4: but he was so desperate, desperate to get out of debt,
Speaker 4: desperate to get out of the marriage, desperate.
Speaker 3: To maintain his notor ride in the community. That trumped everything.
Speaker 2: Next time, on American Homicide.
Speaker 1: I was interviewing a judge and as I was walking
Speaker 1: out the door, he actually said, you know, there's one
Speaker 1: case that always bothered me.
Speaker 2: Journalist Judy pet wrote extensively about one person in this story.
Speaker 1: It sort of stunned me because sitting judges under New
Speaker 1: Jersey law are not allowed to discuss any case they've had.
Speaker 2: I'm Sloan Glass. In a special bonus episode, we'll talk
Speaker 2: about Bobby Cumber, the man at the hardware store who
Speaker 2: passed messages between Robert Marshall and Billy Way McKinnon.
Speaker 1: The Bobby Cumber angle was small. He was the little
Speaker 1: guy that nobody really paid attention to.
Speaker 2: He was the person so few paid attention to. And
Speaker 2: yet the part of this case I think is worthy
Speaker 2: of so much more attention.
Speaker 1: The way he was treated was criminal almost every step
Speaker 1: of the way.
Speaker 2: That's next time on American Homicide. You can contact the
Speaker 2: American Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail
Speaker 2: dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me
Speaker 2: Sloan Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a
Speaker 2: division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gantz.
Speaker 2: The series is also written and produced by Todd Gantz,
Speaker 2: with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our
Speaker 2: associate producer is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart teap is Ali
Speaker 2: Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing, and mastering by
Speaker 2: Nico Auruka. American Homicides theme song was composed by Oliver
Speaker 2: Bains of Neiser Music Library provided by my Music. Follow
Speaker 2: American Homicide on Apple Podcasts and please rate and review
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