CLEVELAND (AP) - A judge yesterday delayed until next year a trial to determine whether Dr. Sam Sheppard killed his wife 45 years ago or was wrongfully imprisoned.

The Cuyahoga County prosecutor, who is defending the state against a lawsuit filed by the Sheppards' son, Sam Reese Sheppard, sought additional time to gather and analyze DNA samples from Marilyn Sheppard.

Prosecutor William Mason said he expects to exhume Mrs. Sheppard from Knollwood Cemetery in suburban Mayfield Heights sometime during the second half of September. Mason plans to have an anthropologist, forensic dentist and DNA expert examine the remains.

''We're after the truth, just like everyone else is in this lawsuit,'' Mason said.

The trial had been expected to start Oct. 18, but Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Ronald Suster granted a delay until Jan. 31. The trial will be the third in the 1954 slaying that helped inspire the movie and TV series ''The Fugitive.''

Mason discounted any possibility of a settlement.

''I think this is a case that needs to be aired in open court,'' he said.

On Aug. 30, Sam Reese Sheppard reluctantly agreed to allow the exhumation to proceed without legal maneuvers to try to block it. He was not present yesterday during a brief hearing on the motion for delay.

''He's had to wait 45 years so far for justice, so a few more months won't make that much difference for him,'' said Sheppard's attorney, Terry Gilbert.

Dr. Sam Sheppard spent a decade in prison after being convicted of beating his wife to death in July 1954 at the couple's suburban home near the Lake Erie shoreline.

Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the original verdict.

Sam Reese Sheppard, 52, of Oakland, Calif., is upset because he feels prosecutors have had 45 years to investigate the case.

The younger Sheppard contends a window washer who later was convicted in another murder killed his mother.

To win the wrongful imprisonment suit, the Sheppard legal team must convince a jury that the majority of evidence indicates the doctor was innocent. If Sheppard wins, damages could reach as much as $2 million.

The remains of Dr. Sheppard, who died in 1970, were exhumed for DNA samples in 1997, at his son's request.