The Contract Murder Of Maria P. Marshall Still Reverberates in Ocean County, 30 Years Later

by Patricia A. Miller

Kevin Kelly - the man who put Robert Marshall behind bars back in the late 1980s - had only one photo on the wall in his Brick Township law office when he lived in Ocean County.

It was an 8-by-10, black-and-white shot of a stunned Marshall, right after a Cape May County jury found him guilty of murdering his wife Maria in 1986. Kevin Kelly loved that photo.

Kelly - a tough guy who grew in Jersey City - had a reputation for not mincing words, usually words that couldn’t be repeated in a public setting.

But a famous exchange between Kelly and Marshall at the 1986 trial in Cape May County still resonates through the decades.

Marshall had the nerve to wear his wedding ring at the trial. He was also prone to holding up cardboard signs with the words ”I love you,” so his heartbroken three sons who were sitting the courtroom could see them.

Kelly noticed the ring and began to hammer Marshall. He asked him if he still loved Maria. Marshall said yes.

Then Kelly dropped the bomb. He asked Marshall if he loved his wife so much, why were her ashes still sitting in a box in a Toms River funeral home.

And for that, “there’s a place in hell for you,” Kelly thundered.

Rob and Maria Marshall were a Toms River power couple back in 1984. Marshall was a big shot insurance salesman on the board of directors for United Way and a member of the Toms River Country Club. Maria, by all accounts, was a stay-at-home mom who devoted her life to her children, Roby, Christopher and John.

Marshall’s secret life

She didn’t know her husband had been cheating on her for more than a year, with Saraan Kraushaar, a vice-principal at Pinelands Regional High School. She didn’t know the extent of his gambling debts, debts Marshall hoped to pay off when he collected on the $1.5 million life insurance policy he had taken out on his non-working wife.

The boys were all in their teens when their parents left on the evening of Sept. 7, 1984 for a trip to Harrah’s in Atlantic City. They never saw their mother again.

Marshall told police that on the way back from Atlantic City, he had to stop at the Forked River rest area because one of his tires felt low and he wanted to check the pressure. It was a lie. He had methodically arranged for a Louisiana scumbag named Larry Thompson to shoot Maria after he got out of the car to check the tire, then strike him on the head so it could look like he had been attacked too.

That means he drove back from Atlantic City, knowing full well that someone would soon kill the mother of his sons.

After a three-month investigation in New Jersey and the Shreveport, Louisiana area, Marshall, then 45, Billy Wayne McKinnon, then 41, Shreveport, LA, Robert A. Cumber, 45, of Bossier City, La. and Larry N. Thompson, 41, of Fair View Alfa, La. were indicted in the contract murder of Maria Marshall.

The trial of Marshall and Thompson began on Jan. 27, 1986, in Mays Landing. A change of venue was needed due to the tremendous pretrial publicity in Ocean County.The trial ended on March 5, 1986. Marshall was found guilty of offering money or the promise of money to individuals for the murder of his wife. He was sentenced to death.

Thompson - a man without a conscience whose first wife had mysteriously been killed in a ”hunting accident” - was acquitted.

Detectives in the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office back then had no doubt that Thompson was the one who pulled the trigger of the .44 caliber pistol on that long ago night. But he slipped out of their grasp with the jury verdict for almost 30 years.

Thompson - charged in the indictment as the shooter - was found not guilty. His defense relied on the testimony of Thompson’s wife, Wanda, his son Brian and his brother Steven, who all testified they had seen him in Louisiana on or about the date of the shooting, which gave him an alibi.

The truth finally surfaces

Thompson went back to Louisiana. He kept busy. He is serving a 50-year sentence for armored car robbery, the attempted murder of a Shreveport police officer and other charges. In March 2013, the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office contacted the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office to let them know Thompson was suspected of being involved in another murder.

In October of 2013, Chief James A. Churchill - who supervised the Marshall murder investigation back in 1984 , was invited to Shreveport to assist the Caddo Parish authorities in their investigation of the other murder due to similarities in the Marshall case.

Thompson, already in jail, had nothing to lose. Double jeopardy protects him from being tried again for the Marshall murder. He told Churchill he had pulled the trigger in an April 2014 affidavit.

Marshall was hoping to be granted parole this year. He no longer faced a death sentence, since New Jersey abolished it years ago. Christopher and Roby Marshall vociferously opposed parole for their father. John still believes in his innocence.

Maria P. Marshall lies in grave #23088 in St. Joseph R. C. Cemetery in Toms River. Her sons - teenagers when she was murdered - are now middle-aged men. They have been without her for 30 years. Their children will never get to know their grandmother. Their grandfather took care of that.

“Murdered by her husband for insurance money,” reads the description on the website findagrave.com.

Photo credits: www.findagrave.com