Robert Marshall conspired to kill his wife Maria on September 7, 1984 in NJ very close to where I grew up. He did it for the insurance money (he 1.3 mil on her--by the way he was an insurance salesman). The case was made into a book by Joe McGinness and a 3 hr tele movie of the week. He is guilty IMOP but he may get the appeal he is waiting for...sickening.... ). The shooter he hired from Louisianna got immunity because he gave state's evidence against Marshall. IMOP he cold bloodily orchestrated the death of his wife (the youngest son of 3 :behindbar supported the father, Robert, and the other 2 resigned themselves to the fact that their father murdered their beloved mother.)This was a very horrific crime...so calculating. He was supposed to get the death penalty but due to his appeals The State has now , in the wake of the fact that seeking another death penalty plea would possibly result in several years of deliberation, abandoned this course of punishment hoping that he will again receive LIP (life in prison). I a me keeping my fingers crossed!
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Marshall timeline: How it all began
Posted by the Ocean County Observer on 05/13/06
STAFF REPORT
This chronology of the Robert O. Marshall case is based on sworn testimony, court action and investigators' reports.
May 24, 1984: Robert O. Marshall meets Robert Cumber of Bossier City, La., at a graduation party for a neighbor. He later contacts Cumber about hiring a private investigator from Louisiana to follow his wife, Maria.
June 18, 1984: Through Cumber, Marshall meets Billy Wayne McKinnon for the first time at an Atlantic City casino. Marshall, who had telegraphed $2,500 to McKinnon the week before as a deposit for what he claimed would be private investigatory work, gives him $7,000 more. A fee of $65,000 for the contract murder of Maria P. Marshall is agreed upon. McKinnon testified Marshall asked him to kill his wife "as soon as possible." But that night, McKinnon, who had been given a time and location where he could find Mrs. Marshall, fails to do so.
July 17, 1984: McKinnon returns to New Jersey. Marshall gives him $7,000 more and arranges for McKinnon to murder Maria Marshall in the parking lot of an Atlantic City diner where the couple would be later that night. McKinnon testified he waited in the diner's parking lot for 40 minutes, didn't see the Marshalls, then drove back to Louisiana. McKinnon considers taking Marshall's money without fulfilling Marshall's wishes.
August 1984: McKinnon is contacted by fellow Louisianan Larry Thompson about a contract Thompson says has been placed on McKinnon's life for failing to uphold his part of a deal.
Sept. 6, 1984 (morning): McKinnon meets Marshall at a restaurant rest area on the Garden State Parkway. Marshall takes him to several locations along the parkway and settles on the Oyster Creek Picnic Area as the locale where his wife can be killed.
Sept. 6, 1984 (evening): The Marshalls drive to Atlantic City for dinner and gambling.
Sept. 7, 1984 (early morning): At 12:45 a.m., McKinnon, waiting near a parkway toll plaza, sees Marshall's yellow Cadillac Eldorado pull through the toll gates. McKinnon, who has Thompson with him, follows the car. Minutes later, he enters the picnic area. He sees Marshall lying near the rear of the car. Thompson runs to McKinnon's car, throws a few items on the floor and returns to the Eldorado, apparently to slash a tire. They speed off southbound, discarding Mrs. Marshall's purse and a .45-caliber handgun along the way. Authorities summoned to the picnic area find Marshall with a blow to his head requiring five stitches. His wife is slumped across the car's front seat, dead from two gunshot wounds to the back. Marshall says he was mugged and robbed when he pulled over to check a flat tire.
Sept. 7, 1984 (daybreak): Marshall gives authorities at least four different accounts of when he began having car problems that forced him to pull into the picnic area.
Sept. 7-21, 1984: Ocean County Prosecutor's Office investigators establish that Marshall is having an affair with Sarann Kraushaar, a married acquaintance from the Toms River Country Club, and they see a link between Marshall and a group of men in Shreveport, La.
Sept. 22, 1984: Robert Cumber is arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
Sept. 25, 1984: Marshall receives a call from someone in Louisiana; the message is relayed to him via an answering machine at Kraushaar's apartment. Upon hearing Marshall's explanation that he was in contact with the Louisiana contingent because of gambling debts involving an NBA playoff game, Kraushaar who said she never knew Marshall to bet on an athletic event and was aware of his dire financial straits said she realized "the circumstances were so incriminating that I was appalled by the deception." With the exception of her court appearances, it was the last time she sees Marshall.
Sept. 27, 1984: Marshall checks into a Lakewood motel room and records a rambling, 40-minute "suicide tape." The suicide is never carried out.
Oct. 13, 1984: McKinnon and James Davis of Shreveport are arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. All charges against Davis eventually are dropped.
Oct. 17, 1984: An Ocean County grand jury indicts Cumber, McKinnon and Davis on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. McKinnon is charged with committing the murder. Cumber and Davis are indicted as accomplices.
Mid-December 1984: McKinnon agrees to cooperate with authorities. He enters into a plea bargain that will result in five years in the prison of his choice and family visits. Defense lawyers later will label this the state's "pact with the devil." McKinnon says Larry Thompson shot Mrs. Marshall.
Dec. 19, 1984: Marshall is arrested and charged with murder by soliciting another to kill his wife and being an accomplice. He is held in lieu of $2 million bail. Thompson is arrested.
April 25, 1985: Citing an "inordinate and continuing interest" in the case, Superior Court Judge William H. Huber grants a defense motion and orders the trial be held in Atlantic County.
July 16, 1985: The charge that Cumber was an accomplice is dismissed by the trial judge in Atlantic County, Superior Court Judge Manuel H. Greenberg. Cumber still is charged with conspiracy.
Jan. 14, 1986: Jury selection in the state of New Jersey v. Robert O. Marshall and Larry N. Thompson begins in Courtroom One of the Atlantic City Courthouse in Mays Landing.
Jan. 20, 1986: Opening statements are made to a jury of 11 men and five women. Ocean County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin W. Kelly alleges Marshall had his wife killed to collect $1.3 million in insurance policies to offset a $300,000 debt and so he could continue his affair. Defense lawyer Glenn A. Zeitz of Philadelphia and Thompson's attorney, Francis J. Hartman of Mount Holly, charge the state's case is based on false statements by McKinnon.
Feb. 3-6, 1986: McKinnon testifies Marshall hired him to kill his wife.
Feb. 14, 1986: Insurance agents testify Marshall took out $1.3 million in policies on his wife's life with more than half the policies initiated during the eight months before she was shot to death.
Feb. 23, 1986: Marshall, taking the stand in his defense, denies having any role in his wife's shooting. He admits to the extramarital affair. It is revealed Marshall had several love affairs immediately after his wife's death, and he had yet to inter his wife's ashes.
Feb. 24, 1986: Thompson testifies he was in Louisiana at the time of the slaying and produces witnesses to corroborate his story.
March 3, 1986: Kelly's summation labels Marshall a "coward," and perhaps, in the most memorable words of the trial, says: "And he has the audacity to bring his three boys in to testify. That's obscene . . . to put his boys on the witness stand is obscene, and for that there is a place in hell for him."
March 5, 1986: Marshall is convicted of capital murder. After 90 minutes of deliberation, the same jury sentences him to death. Thompson is acquitted.
June 23, 1986: Cumber, who had turned down an opportunity to plead guilty in exchange for time served in connection with his role in the case, opts for an Atlantic County jury trial. He is found guilty of being an accomplice to murder.
July 11, 1986: McKinnon pleads guilty to conspiracy to kill Mrs. Marshall and receives a five-year sentence. Because of time served, he receives his parole on Oct. 7, 1986.
Sept. 11, 1986: Cumber is sentenced to life imprisonment. He will not be eligible for parole for 30 years.
April 8, 2004: A U.S. District Court judge agrees with Marshall, on death row 18 years while appeal after appeal failed, that he did not have competent legal representation at the sentencing phase of his trial. The judge orders a new death penalty hearing.
Nov. 2, 2005: U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the reversal.
Nov. 18, 2005: Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas Kelaher sends a letter to acting Gov. Richard Codey urging him to abandon the death penalty and support a life without parole law.
Jan. 12: Codey signs death penalty moratorium, which immediately halts all executions and creates a study commission to examine all aspects of the state's death penalty system.
Jan. 17: Codey pardons Cumber.
Jan. 31: The state Attorney General's Office asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a ruling on the case.
March 20: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to reinstate Marshall's death sentence.
May 12: Kelaher announces he will no longer seek the death penalty for Marshall, and will ask for life without parole.
Gannett New Jersey and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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), that he was defending himself, and that he had blacked out the events - it wasn't until his son told him that Mommy was laying on the floor and that there was blood that David "remembered" what had happened:
