Son speaks out on 'Blind Faith' killer Robert Marshall's death
Robert O. Marshall, 75, the "Blind Faith" killer, who was convicted of arranging the murder of his wife, Maria, in 1984, has died, according to his son.
One month away from potential freedom after more than 30 years behind bars, the man who orchestrated the most notorious murder in the history of Ocean County has died of natural causes.
Robert O. Marshall, 75, formerly of Toms River, who was also known as Prisoner No. 203062, likely succumbed to complications from a debilitating stroke he suffered over the summer, according to officials familiar with his health issues. He had been scheduled for a parole hearing in March.
For Marshall's two eldest sons — who had pleaded with parole board members not to release their father from jail, where he had been since his conviction in the murder of their mother — Marshall's death closes a painful chapter in this family tragedy.
"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."
Marshall had been incarcerated in South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton, where he was pronounced dead at 7:14 a.m. Saturday, said Matthew Schuman, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.
"Due to (federal) HIPAA regulations, we cannot provide a cause of death, although certainly no foul play is suspected," Schuman said.
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."
Marshall said he does feel cheated that his father could not bring himself, in the face of his own mortality, to accept responsibility for what he had done to his family.
"I do feel a little cheated that he never took the opportunity in his declining health, in the end of his life, to say 'I'm sorry. … I'm sorry for what I did to your mother, I'm sorry for how hard this has been on you and your brothers.' "
In the summer of 1984, Marshall had arranged the execution of his wife and the mother of his three sons, Maria Marshall, in an elaborate murder-for-hire scheme. After Maria's death, Marshall, a once prominent and respected Toms River insurance broker, planned to collect a $1.5 million payout on her life insurance policy and then be free to legitimize an extramarital affair. At the time of the murder, the Marshalls were an all-American, upper, middle-class family who were pillars in Toms River society.
The case spawned a best-selling book, "Blind Faith," and a subsequent TV movie of the same name. The meaning of the title comes from the fact that Robert and Maria Marshall's three sons continued to believe in their father's innocence, even in the face of mounting evidence for his guilt and his increasingly bizarre behavior after their mother's death.
Ultimately, the eldest sons, Roby and Christopher Marshall, who were 19 and 18 respectively at the time of their mother's death, came to terms with their father's guilt. Their youngest brother John, who was 13 at the time, was never able to accept that truth.
Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato said Monday that he too is troubled by the fact that Marshall was incapable of acknowledging his complicity in the case.
"That he was obviously the mastermind of this hideous crime," Coronato said.
But if there was any doubt about whether Marshall felt regret or sorrow over what he had done to his family was illustrated in what then-Assistant Prosecutor Kevin W. Kelly revealed during Marshall's trial in 1986.
Coronato explained that Kelly told the jury that Robert Marshall had never picked up the cremated remains of his wife, which were left in a cardboard box at a Toms River funeral home.
"There is nothing more important than family," Coronato said. For him, all those years ago, that anecdote underscored how cold-blooded Marshall really was.
Maria Marshall, 42, was shot twice at close range in the back on Sept. 7, 1984, during a staged robbery at what was then a picnic area on a forested median strip of the Garden State Parkway in Lacey. While returning home from a night out at Harrah's casino in Atlantic City that night, the Marshalls stopped at the picnic area after Robert Marshall pretended there was a problem with the right rear tire on their 1980 Cadillac Eldorado.
To make the crime look like a robbery, Robert Marshall had himself struck on the head and knocked unconscious as he was ostensibly checking the tire. The tire itself was slashed at the scene to appear as if the vehicle had been sabotaged in Atlantic City by robbers who had planned to follow the couple home until the flat tire forced them to pull over in a remote location such as the Oyster Creek picnic area.
It took three months for investigators in the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office to unravel the web of deceit that Robert Marshall had spun. He was convicted of capital murder on March 5, 1986.
After 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury sentenced him to death. However, the same jury acquitted the alleged hit man in the killing, Larry N. Thompson, who admitted in a dramatic jailhouse confession last year that he was in fact the trigger man in the case. Thompson, now in his 70s, acknowledged his role while 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 years later. Another man served a short jail sentence in exchange for testifying for the state, and a third man was sentenced to a life term for connecting Marshall to the murder-for-hire group, all of whom hailed from Louisiana.
Marshall was resentenced to 30 years to life in 2006 after successfully overturning the death penalty sentence. He was eligible for parole at the time of his death Saturday and the state Parole Board seemed poised to grant him his last request due to his failing health.
On his Facebook page this weekend, Christopher Marshall posted a quote from the 2005 novel The Zahir by author Paulo Coelho. The story is about a man who searches for his missing wife and embarks on a journey of self-discovery in the process.
"It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over," Marshall quoted.
Erik Larsen: 732-682-9359 or elarsen@app.com