Justice Delayed: The Robert Marshall Story

The Tale of Tape

It's hardly surprising that authorities, from the earliest stages of the investigation, considered Marshall a suspect. Though he had denied the affair at first, they soon learned about it, and even managed to enlist Beth as a witness. Marshall would later claim that cops and prosecutors had offered her a deal in exchange for her testimony, promising to grant her immunity if necessary. It turned out to be necessary, and her account of the statement that Marshall made to her about his desire to find a way that his wife "wasn't around," would end up playing a pivotal role in his murder trial.

They also learned about his financial woes, about the insurance, and most critically, about his dealings with McKinnon. On September 21, just two weeks after the killing, investigators met with Marshall in his home, and asked him if he knew McKinnon or the man whose name McKinnon was using. His son Rob was present, and so was his sister, Oakleigh. Marshall refused to answer any questions, saying he was acting on the advice of his attorney. But Marshall would later claim that he knew that authorities were beginning to close in. Marshall became more agitated.

What's more, his relationship with Beth had collapsed, in part, perhaps because of the harsh light of public scrutiny that was now focused on them, and in part, Marshall admits, because he had lied to Beth about his relationship with the men who made up what was now being called the "Louisiana Connection."

A few days after his encounter with investigators in his home, soon after a grand jury handed down indictments against the Louisiana men, and just shortly before the indictment charging him with murder and solicitation for murder was unsealed, Marshall checked into a hotel room on the Jersey Shore.

It was the same room where he spent more than a few amorous moments with Beth. He called his sons, and recorded what would later be described as farewell tapes to each of them. He also recorded one for his brother-in-law, an attorney, indicating that he wanted each of his sons to receive cars purchased with the money from his estate, a Mustang for one, a Jeep for another and a Porsche, for his youngest son when he was old enough to drive.

Marshall put the tapes in envelopes, addressed them, and then put them in a mail depository downstairs in the hotel lobby. Then, he bought a Coke, returned to his room and spiked it with an overdose of sleeping pills. Then, by all accounts, he almost immediately fell asleep. It was, a psychiatrist would later declare, a suicide attempt by a man he characterized as both deeply depressed and manipulative. It didn't work.

If Marshall had been right about anything, he had been right that police were closing in. In fact, they had him under surveillance when he checked into the hotel, and, perhaps fearing that he would try suicide, they called the room repeatedly while he was there, hanging up each time he answered. When at last he didn't answer, they summoned an ambulance and burst into the room.

Before carting him to Point Pleasant medical, where he was treated before being admitted to a Philadelphia-area psychiatric facility for a time, they also confiscated the tapes. It would, of course, later become a subject of legal wrangling whether the authorities acted correctly when they seized the tapes. But in the end, the tapes played a crucial role in the investigation.

In the tape he made for his brother-in-law, Marshall admitted his link to McKinnon, and for the first time, placed McKinnon in New Jersey on the night of Maria's murder. According to court records, Marshall in his recorded statement "admitted paying [McKinnon] $6,300, including $800 the night of Maria's murder." That money, authorities would later claim, changed hands at the casino in Atlantic City, when Marshall ducked out of Maria's sight.

It may well have been that the tape was one of the factors that helped turn McKinnon into one of the state's most potent witnesses. It also helped that the state offered McKinnon a wonderful deal for his testimony. The arrangement, dubbed a "deal with the devil" by Marshall's defense lawyer, included among other things, in exchange for his testimony, that McKinnon would plead guilty to conspiracy to commit murder but that he would spend almost no time in prison. Prosecutors also agreed that he would be placed in a witness protection program, though as things would turn out, McKinnon didn't stay long in the program. The only real condition was that McKinnon had to verify that he had not pulled the trigger in Maria's death.

He insisted that he had not, and identified another man, who he claimed had accompanied him to New Jersey. That man too was indicted but ultimately, in one of the more bizarre elements of the case, the same jury that convicted Marshall exonerated the alleged gunman, finding, apparently that some, but not all, of McKinnon's testimony was credible.

McKinnon's testimony did turn out to be riveting, though. According to his account, he had traveled to New Jersey months earlier and met with Marshall, who, during an awkward hotel room meeting, asked the wheeler-dealer to kill his wife.

The love-struck and debt-ridden insurance salesman was so eager to have the deed done, McKinnon insisted, that he wanted him to do it immediately, at one point suggesting, McKinnon claimed, that he should do it in the parking lot of a restaurant favored by local police officers.

McKinnon maintained that he never really had any intention of killing Maria Marshall, but that he was simply stringing Marshall along, trying to squeeze as much cash as he could from him.

That changed, McKinnon claimed, when he supposedly learned that someone had taken out a contract on his life. Though there was never any evidence to support that assertion, McKinnon said he assumed that Marshall had grown impatient with McKinnon's inaction.

That, McKinnon said, was when he enlisted the gunman, the same guy he insisted who had tipped him off about the contract on his own life.

On the morning of September 8, he claims, he met with Marshall to scope out potential locations for the hit, and they decided on the Oyster Creek Picnic Area, because it was both secluded and had easy access to the highway.

The also decided that to make things look more convincing, Marshall would not be able to walk away unscathed. He would at least have to suffer a head injury.