Dr. Sam Sheppard: Unschuldig verurteilt

This is a murder mystery from real life, which after forty years still hasn't been satisfactorily solved to all parts. A successful surgeon happily married with a son one morning finds his wife brutally murdered with blood all over the place in 1954, and everything points to him as the murderer. He is prosecuted and condemned for life in prison, but after ten years a high court declares the trial invalid and he is released. He tries to get back to his work, but nobody wants him, since he is branded by the fact of his ten years in prison, and declines to baser activities and to drinking. Gradually he drinks himself to death.

Meanwhile his son grows up and decides to do everything he can to solve the murder mystery and get his father exonerated, although he is already dead. By new evidence of the DNA technique he succeeds, but it is well too late after forty years. This spectacular case made history and a breakthrough in the use of DNA at difficult trials, but the son is still struggling to get his father acknowledged as innocent by all parts. It is a wonderful story of a relationship between a father and a son, and the film has succeeded very well in finding the right touch. It's almost a documentary tragedy, as nothing can bring back the father and his lost honour, but this is a criminal case of almost universal significance.