Ethel May Durkin, a 90-year-old widow from Lakewood, Ohio, was murdered on January 4, 1984. She was described as wealthy and childless and had employed Richard Eberling as a decorator.

Durkin suffered repeated serious injuries while under Eberling’s control, including falls down stairs and periods in which she was reportedly sedated. Eberling enlisted a health aide, Kathy Wagner, who later testified that he spoke about violent acts and admitted to killing Marilyn Sheppard and assaulting Dr. Sam Sheppard. Two of Durkin’s sisters died under suspicious circumstances decades earlier: Myrtle Fray was strangled and beaten in 1962 in her secured apartment building, and Sarah Belle Farrow died in 1970 after reportedly falling down the basement stairs of Durkin’s home; Eberling made statements later that aligned with unpublished details from the police report in the Fray case and suggested he could have pushed Farrow.

Eberling was convicted of Durkin’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. Are there readers who knew the Durkin family, the sisters, or who remember Eberling’s presence in Lakewood?