NJ - Maria Marshall, 44, dies in contract killing, Oyster Creek, 7 Sept 1984

robinparten

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Robert Marshall's death sentence was overturned in New Jersey. I think he has been on death row for over 20 years for hiring a hit man to kill his wife. The movie "Blind Faith" was made about the case. What a scum, his wife didn't get another 20+ years......
 
Interesting... did this just happen? Wonder why now after he's been on death row so long? Was his time up?
 
New Jersey has not put anyone to death since 1963. Most of the death sentences handed down since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982 have been overturned.

I remember reading this book and watching the movie. It was one of the first cases that sucked me into this. I can't believe he's still alive!
 
robinparten said:
Robert Marshall's death sentence was overturned in New Jersey. I think he has been on death row for over 20 years for hiring a hit man to kill his wife. The movie "Blind Faith" was made about the case. What a scum, his wife didn't get another 20+ years......

I remember that movie. The late, dearly departed Robert Urich, starred in it.
 
The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider reinstating a New Jersey man's death sentence in a case that inspired a true-crime book and television miniseries.

Justices did not comment in rejecting New Jersey's appeal of an appeals court ruling that found that Robert O. Marshall's lawyer did not adequately represent him during the death penalty phase of his trial for arranging the death of his wife.

More @ link
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/jersey/index.s...torylist=jersey
 
kato said:
I remember that movie. The late, dearly departed Robert Urich, starred in it.

Robert Urich was always one of my favorite actors and I miss him. :angel: I hated that he played such a SOB in Blind Faith, but he was good and believable.

I've read the book a few times and it's just heartbreaking what the three boys went through after their beloved mother was murdered. If I remember correctly, the youngest still believes in his father's innocence and I think Robert Marshall wrote a book about his case. I'll have to do some digging on it.

One of the sons is married to Tracy Gold.
 
I knew she was married to a Marshall, but I didn't realize it was one of those Marshall's! I believe she's married to the oldest one... Roby?



NewMom2003 said:
Robert Urich was always one of my favorite actors and I miss him. :angel: I hated that he played such a SOB in Blind Faith, but he was good and believable.

I've read the book a few times and it's just heartbreaking what the three boys went through after their beloved mother was murdered. If I remember correctly, the youngest still believes in his father's innocence and I think Robert Marshall wrote a book about his case. I'll have to do some digging on it.

One of the sons is married to Tracy Gold.
 
MagicRose99 said:
I knew she was married to a Marshall, but I didn't realize it was one of those Marshall's! I believe she's married to the oldest one... Roby?

I think Robby is the middle one. I believe Chris is the oldest, then Robby, then John.

Of course, I could be wrong! :D ;)
 
Here's a portion of info about Tracy Gold & Roby Marshall

Roby was actually an advisor for the movie BLIND FAITH. How sad.

"How She Found Her Soul Mate



Gold is clearly tickled by her domestic bliss and proud of the hard work she and her husband, Roby Marshall, a 32-year-old athletic coach at a private school in Los Angeles, have done to get here. Most boyfriends, she knows, would have been scared away by her ordeal, but when they met, Marshall had already survived his own horror, and ironically, it's what had led him to Gold.



In 1984, Marshall's father, Robert, a hard-driving insurance broker in Toms River, New Jersey, hired a hit man to kill his homemaker wife, Maria, so he could collect on a $1.5 million insurance policy. As it was later revealed, Robert Marshall was having an affair with a neighbor and was deeply in debt, so he arranged to have his wife shot on the side of the road as they returned from a night in Atlantic City. In 1986, he was convicted of contracting her murder and sentenced to death.



The case inspired Joe McGinniss's 1989 bestseller Blind Faith - - which is told from the point of view of Roby, who was 19 at the time, and his younger brother -- and the 1990 NBC miniseries of the same name. Joanna Kerns, who played Gold's mother in Growing Pains, also played Marshall's mother in Blind Faith. One day, she invited Marshall, who was serving as technical advisor on the miniseries, to the Growing Pains set and introduced him to Gold. Their attraction was instant.



"We really are soul mates. We've been through so much together; we're now getting to reap the benefits," says Gold. "I always wanted to be married, have babies and a beautiful home. Acting is what I like to do, but I look at others who really get into it and work the scene -- that's just not me. Also, for me, it's not about the trappings. I never liked to go out and party.



"Well, my husband is the farthest thing from being involved in acting. He hates the business. He loves me. That's his connection to the business. He visits me on location and is getting very good at changing diapers, which is good, because I eventually want four kids.



"I'm the oldest of five girls, so I've been changing diapers since I was 8. Roby had never changed a diaper in his life; taking care of a baby is a foreign concept to him. He loves playing with Sage, but the minute he starts crying, it's Tracey, I think he wants you! ...
"


http://www.eatingdisorderresources.com/celebs/redbook0997traceygold.htm
 
Marie Marshall murdered in murder for hire plot, Sept. 7, 1984. The murder was the subject of the bestselling 1989 book, "Blind Faith" by author Joe McGinniss.

mariamarshall.jpg


The man who fired the .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol that killed Maria Marshall in Ocean County's most notorious murder case has confessed his guilt almost 30 years after the crime, according to authorities.

Larry N. Thompson, 71, incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola for his part in an unrelated armored-car robbery and the attempted murder of a Shreveport police officer, has told Louisiana and New Jersey law enforcement officials that he was the shooter, 28 years after a jury in Mays Landing found him not guilty of the homicide.


http://www.app.com/story/news/local...erman-admits-shooting-maria-marshall/2179086/
 
I followed this trial closely at the time. I never understood his acquittal, he was guilty as sin there was more then enough proof. I wish I had been on that jury no way would I have believed his family members. When this happened it was just a few towns over from me and it was a very big case. I was very upset when his sentence was commuted to 30 years to life, Marshall deserved nothing less then death penalty, as did the trigger man.
 
Inside the 30-year quest to close the Marshall case

Surrounded by spectacular, rugged landscape, Angola prison is in the middle of nowhere, tucked into an isolated corner of southeast Louisiana along the Mississippi River, 25 miles from the nearest town.

Angola, a nickname for the 134-year-old Louisiana State Penitentiary, is home to one of the nation’s most notorious prisons and the state’s death row, where life for most inmates will end either by lethal injection or age and hopelessness.

It was here, against the backdrop of an overcast sky on April 25, that James A. Churchill touched down in a small plane at an air strip within the 8,000-acre complex. Churchill, 70, a retired chief of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, had flown in to solve a case that had dogged him for almost 30 years. A bearlike man with a white beard and a soft-spoken nature, Churchill, then a prosecutor’s lieutenant, had last faced Maria Marshall’s killer in 1987.



http://www.app.com/story/news/local/toms-river-area/2014/05/18/churchill-catching-thompson/9232755/
 
I'm putting this here because I didn't see a section about Maria's murder. The book and movie Blind Faith was based on her murder.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099148/

Could Robert Marshall be free soon?

TOMS RIVER – Robert O. Marshall, who was convicted of arranging the contract murder of his wife in 1984 and who successfully fought to overturn his death sentence two decades later, is eligible for parole for the first time this year.

The public has until Wednesday to comment to the state Parole Board, in writing, on Marshall's appeal for release. A hearing could take place as early as August, with Marshall eligible for release up until March of next year, if the board were to approve.


http://www.app.com/story/news/local.../robert-marshall-blind-faith-parole/11564021/
 
http://www.thedailyjournal.com/story/news/crime/2014/06/29/blind-faith-killer-parole/11707115/

Robert O. Marshall, who was convicted of arranging the contract murder of his wife in 1984 and who successfully fought to overturn his death sentence two decades later, is eligible for parole for the first time.

The public has until Wednesday to comment to the state Parole Board, in writing, on Marshall's appeal for release. A hearing could take place as early as August, with Marshall eligible for release up until March of next year, if the board were to approve it.

The parole eligibility date for Marshall, whose crime was the subject of the TV movie "Blind Faith," is Dec. 19, according to David Thomas, executive director of the state Parole Board.
 
Here is the link to the book Robert Marshall wrote. Apparently he still claims that he's innocent.

It boggles my mind that inmates are allowed to have books published. Didn't Jeffrey Macdonald also write a book?....

You're close. Joe McGinness wrote the book, Blind Faith. He also wrote Fatal Vision, the first book on MacDonald.
 
Here is the link to the book Robert Marshall wrote. Apparently he still claims that he's innocent.

It boggles my mind that inmates are allowed to have books published. Didn't Jeffrey Macdonald also write a book?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1892941783/002-7353377-4322430?v=glance&n=283155

Here is a link to Maria Marshall's gravesite. May she rest in eternal peace. Such a tragedy.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/f...ia&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=23088&

Well, he always claimed he was innocent, and the case was largely circumstantial, so why not? It doesn't threaten anyone and it won't change anything if the conviction was with good cause. If he feels there is an alternative version to tell it does not harm for him to tell it.

Keep in mind that it is not unusual for people to be convicted for things they didn't do, and many of them spend very long periods in prison. Should they be deprived of the right to defend themselves and lobby public opinion for a re-examination of their case after they are convicted just because they were convicted?
 

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