Jan. 28, 1963 - Love has come to Dr. Sam Sheppard in the prison where he is serving a life sentence for the 1954 murder of his wife Marilyn. This will become a matter of public knowledge tomorrow when Sheppard will be given a hearing before the Ohio pardon and parole commission on his petition for commutation of sentence. He is now confined in the Ohio Correctional institution in Marion. When the hearing opens, there will be Mrs. Ariane Tebbenjohanns (pictured), a 33-year-old blonde divorcee, in one of the spectator seats. This is the woman Sheppard expects to marry if he is released from prison. Sheppard and the woman, a resident of Duesseldorf, Germany, met for the first time in the Marion prison last week, and a betrothal resulted from that meeting. It was the culmination of an international courtship carried on for three years by air mail, exchanges of photographs, and intermediary services of members of Sheppard’s family. Mrs. Tebbejohanns’ attraction toward Sheppard derived from her reading accounts of his trial and conviction. Sheppard began serving his term on June 30, 1955, and he will be eligible for parole without commutation on June 30, 1965, less several months’ good time to which he is entitled because of credits for inmate teaching. His pregnant wife, Marilyn, was beaten to death in their lakefront home in Bay Village, Ohio, on July 3, 1954. The state accused Sheppard of the crime when its investigations disclosed no evidence that other persons had been in the house when the crime was committed. He was convicted after a trial in Cleveland which lasted two-and-a-half months.
