Robert Marshall, Blind Faith’s Murderous Husband, Has Died
In this Dec. 13, 2007 file photo, inmate Robert O. Marshall speaks to the Associated Press in a lawyers conference room at the maximum security New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, N.J. New Jersey’s Department of Corrections said Robert O. Marshall died Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015, at South Woods State Prison in southern New Jersey. He was 75. Marshall, a New Jersey insurance salesman, was convicted of plotting to kill his wife in a crime that inspired the bestselling book “Blind Faith” and a TV movie. (AP Photo/Mel Evans, File)
Robert Marshall, the Toms River man who was convicted of killing his wife and became the subject of a book and TV movie about murder, has died in prison. He was 75.
Joe McGinnis wrote the book Blind Faith about the mystery surrounding Maria Marshall’s death. The book was turned into the 1990 NBC movie of the same name, with actor Robert Urich starring as Robert Marshall.
Mr. Marshall, who had a mistress at the time, was convicted of hiring men to kill his wife, Maria, 42, in 1984 at a rest stop along the Garden State Parkway. He was sentenced to be executed.
In a trial that drew wide attention, prosecutors said Mr. Marshall, a prominent insurance broker in Toms River, N.J., had intended to use more than $1.25 million in life insurance proceeds to pay off $300,000 in personal debts.
He spent 18 years on death row until a federal court ruled in 2004 that he had been inadequately represented by counsel during his sentencing. He was resentenced to life imprisonment in 2006.
The Asbury Park Press interviewed the Marshalls’ son, Chris.
“For the past 30 years of my life, I have lived with the reality of having a parent who is a monster,” said Chris Marshall on Monday. “But for the first 18 years of my life he was my father, who supported his family, and was always there for us when we needed him.”
Trying to reconcile the two Robert Marshalls he knew left Chris Marshall feeling introspective and at times pensive over what was, what was lost and what will never be.
“The finality of this is what took me by surprise,” Marshall explained. “The emotional range is from relief to sadness and mourning, this person who is your father is gone. At the same time, there is this ‘vindictive happiness’ that he’s gone now. … He’s no longer a drain on anyone.”
The Press of Atlantic City talked to the investigator who helped crack the case:
“I got the call from someone in the Prosecutor’s Office, and then my daughter called to tell me he died. It wasn’t a surprise. I knew he was pretty much incapacitated and has been for about six months,” James Churchill said. Marshall was a successful insurance broker in Toms River at the time of his wife’s killing. Churchill was an investigator for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office who helped crack the case.
“His (Marshall’s) death doesn’t give me closure. When you work in this business for as long as you do, when a case comes along, you try to get as much information as you can to solve the case,” Churchill said.
Marshall had been scheduled to receive his first-ever parole hearing next month.
