Mary S. Sherman

Mary Stults Sherman (April 21, 1913 - July 21, 1964) was a prominent orthopedic surgeon in New Orleans who was murdered in a still unsolved mystery.

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Sherman was born in Evanston, Illinois, to Walter Allen Stults and the former Monica Graham. She graduated from Evanston Township High School and attended the Institute de Mme Collnot in Paris, France. In 1934, she obtained her bachelor of arts degree from Northwestern University. The following year, she received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Chicago. From 1935 to 1936, Sherman was an instructor at the University of Illinois French Institute in Paris.

In 1943, she obtained a medical degree from the University of Chicago. She interned at Bob Roberts Hospital at the University of Chicago. In 1947, she was appointed assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at Billings Hospital, also affiliated with the university. In 1952, she relocated to New Orleans to become director of the bone pathology laboratory at The Ochsner Clinic Medical Foundation, a creation of surgeon Alton Ochsner. The next year she began her terminal position as associate professor at Tulane Medical School. A cancer researcher, she was also the senior visiting surgeon in orthopedics at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. She was a member of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. She was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

In 1964, Sherman was stabbed in the heart, arm, leg, and stomach. Her mattress had been set afire, but investigators determined that the massive burns inflicted upon her could not have come from the smoking mattress. There was a small fire in her apartment (The Patio, on St. Charles Avenue) and smoke, but her death was caused by a stab wound to the heart. There were hack marks made from a butcher knife on her torso. Her shocking death occurred on the day that the Warren Commission arrived in New Orleans to obtain testimony about the assassination the previous autumn of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Her body was cremated.

In 1995, Edward T. Haslam self-published Mary, Ferrie & the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory, which presented the first forensic analysis of Sherman's murder for public review.

In 1999, Judyth A. Vary Baker claimed to have interned under Sherman in 1963. She revealed her involvement in an anti-Castro conspiracy to individuals outside her family and to CBS's 60 Minutes investigators. Baker asserted she had been, at first against her wishes, recruited by both Ochsner and Sherman into a "get-Castro" project that had the backing of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Mafia in New Orleans. It is claimed that Ochsner had close ties to the Republicans, Richard M. Nixon and Louisiana Governor David C. Treen. How any of these claims are connected to Sherman's murder is unresolved.

In 2007, Haslam, expanded his investigation into Sherman's death in a new book published by TrineDay, Dr. Mary's Monkey, which included some of Baker's testimony and related documents.

References

• Mary S. Sherman on Spartacus
• "Mary S. Sherman", A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, Vol. 1 (1988), p. 741.
• "Sherman murder", New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 22, 23, 31, 1964.
• New Orleans States Item, July 21, 31, 1964
• Who's Who in the South and Southwest (1959)
• "Should We Believe Judyth Baker?" on the Kennnedy Assissination website