1 Answer

The answer has long been in dispute. The belief remains that the series was based on the tragic case of Dr. Sam Sheppard, accused of killing his wife in 1954. However, series creator, Roy Huggins, has denied that the show was based on Sheppard. 

Wiki-pedia 

An American osteopathic physician[2]and neurosurgeon, who was involved in an infamous and controversial murder trial. He was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard. Sheppard served almost a decade in the Ohio Penitentiary before his 1954 conviction was overturned. In 1966, he was acquitted in a new trial. In 2000, Sheppard's son Sam Reese Sheppard, who had been seven years old at the time of his mother's murder, sued the State of Ohio for his father's alleged wrongful imprisonment. After a 10-week-long trial, a civil jury unanimously ruled against him.