Dr. Sheppard, who was in the midst of a multi-year affair with a nurse at the time of his wife’s death, said he was asleep in a room separate from his wife when he heard her scream, ran to her defense, and was knocked out by an assailant. When he came to, he found Marilyn badly beaten, bloodied and dead, but he was still able to chase someone he described as “a bushy-haired intruder” from his home, but when he caught the unidentified man, Dr. Sheppard was again knocked unconscious.

At his trial, Sheppard’s defense attorney would point out various injuries on his client, to include cuts and broken teeth that he indicated were the result of Sheppard’s struggle with his wife’s killer. The defense would also suggest that the murder victim had lost teeth while biting her attacker and that Dr. Sheppard had no such wounds, while others believed she had lost these teeth in the course of the severe physical beating she underwent at the hands of her assailant.

Unconvinced of the existence of the “bushy-haired” killer, the jury found Sheppard guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Almost ten years after going to prison, Sheppard’s conviction was overturned, due in part to a statement by the judge on the first day of his trial where the judge allegedly said “Well, he’s guilty as hell,” and the US Supreme Court’s finding that the first trial had a “carnival atmosphere.” Sheppard was released after a decade of confinement, only to be retried and found not guilty in 1966 when, this time, he declined to take the stand in his own defense, choosing instead to let the evidence chips fall where they may.

Some suggest that both the David Janssen television series of the 1960′s, and Harrison Ford’s 1993 movie of the same name, “The Fugitive,” where both actors played fugitive Dr. Richard Kimble who was falsely accused of murdering his wife and later proved his innocence by finding the “one-armed man” who actually committed the murder, was a result of the Sheppard murder case, though producers of course denied the connection. We do know that after being released from Prison, Dr. Sheppard eventually became a professional wrestler using the name “The Killer,” and would die a tragic death as an alcoholic, protesting his innocence to the very end.

In the case of jailed Casey Anthony, her lead attorney and their forensic consultant suggested that Casey Anthony was, like the fictional Dr. Kimble and the real Dr. Sheppard, already convicted in the court of public opinion and that she could not get a fair trial in Orlando, Florida. This is the reason they are asking for a change in venue, but in order to protect that location from a 21st century “carnival atmosphere” like that found in the Sheppard trial, they are not announcing where they want the trial, one at least 9 months from now, to take place. They do say that they have not had the opportunity to examine the physical evidence in this case and one can assume that part of their defense strategy is to attack and hope to nullify any impact that potential linking physical evidence could have on their client.

While the attorney’s did not discuss who they thought was actually was responsible for three-year-old Caylee’s death last summer, they did not rule out one of their client’s many stories, this concerning the nanny who took or kidnapped little Caylee, telling Casey not to go to the police for a month, during which Casey says she conducted her own independent search for her daughter. At this same time, of course, it appears that Casey was also busy dating, dancing and drinking with friends, none of whom knew that Caylee was missing and presumed kidnapped.

Time will tell if the mysterious “one-armed” or “bushy-haired” nanny is the person responsible for Caylee’s death. But in the meantime, the defense wants the public to see their client as another Dr. Richard Kimble, an innocent person hounded by the police and the public who will eventually prove her own innocence. We’ll see…