Born in Evanston, Illinois on April 21, 1913, she she earned a medical degree from the University of Chicago in 1941 and 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. TTe next year she became an associate professor at New Orleans' Tulane Medical School. A cancer researcher, she was also a senior visiting surgeon in orthopedics at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans

On July 21, 1964, Sherman was found dead in her apartment on St. Charles Avenue. She had been stabbed and burned. The police report classified the death as a murder. An autopsy was performed by Monroe S. Samuels, M.D., on July 21, 1964. The autopsy report classified Sherman's death as a homicide. Dr. Samuels determined that Sherman died of a stab wound in her heart.  Her murder is listed as unsolved.

Her murder has been included in several conspiracy theories:

According to Joan Mellen, author of A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History, Sherman may have been involved in secret cancer-related research on behalf of US intelligence. Mellen contends that Alton Ochsner, at whose clinic she worked for a time, was linked to the Central Intelligence Agency and a contributor to the anti-communist Information Council of the Americas (INCA). Mellen wrote that Sherman also made financial contributions and provided medical care to exile Cubans training to overthrow Fidel Castro, and was a close friend of David Ferrie's. Mellen alleges that the police investigation was shut down after a month "by a higher authority; several months later, one of the investigating detectives concluded "they didn't want this thing solved". Mellen argues that the evidence suggests Sherman died in an accident involving a particle accelerator used in secret night-time cancer-related research on behalf of US intelligence, with Sherman being moved to her apartment and stabbed to cover up the incident. Mellen argues that Sherman's extraordinary burn injuries must have been produced by such highly unusual means, as an apartment fire or even a crematorium could not have approximated them.

Edward T. Haslam, who wrote Mary, Ferrie & the Monkey Virus: The Story of an Underground Medical Laboratory and Dr. Mary's Monkey: How the Unsolved Murder of a Doctor, a Secret Laboratory in New Orleans and Cancer-Causing Monkey Viruses Are Linked to Lee Harvey ... Assassination and Emerging Global Epidemics claimed that Sherman was murdered because she knew too much about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Jim Garrison questioned the manner of Sherman's death, claiming that the autopsy report said her right arm and rib cage had been burned away, whilst the hair on her head remained unburned. According to Garrison, the body had been stabbed in the heart, liver, arm, leg, and stomach, and the wound to the heart hemorrhaged but the wound to the liver did not, indicating that she was alive at the time of the heart wound but already dead by the time the wound to the liver was inflicted. Garrison also claimed that the massive burns inflicted upon her could not have occurred in her apartment and the details of her missing arm were not released to the public. (WIKI)

Other books related to Mary Stults Sherman include JFK: The Dead Witnesses by Craig Roberts, Who's Who In The JFK Assassination: An A to Z Encyclopedia by Michael Benson, Getting Away With Murder: 15 Chilling Cold Cases That Will Make You Think Twice About Going Outside by William Webb, and Bloody Ivy: 13 Unsolved Campus Murders by Chris Bobonich, among many others.