Some of you have emailed me asking why I have stopped posting about the William Thomas Zeigler case. Am I now convinced that he is guilty? Am I bored with the case? Am I in a clinch with the defense team? No to all the above.
I have tried to show why I believe that Zeigler never had a fair trial and why I believe that the prosecution never proved its charges against him. I think that I made my point.
Suppressed evidence that in that hands of first trial attorney Terry Hadley would have created reasonable doubt, the significance of the Jellison Tape, the crime scene observations of the first officer on the scene, and the crime scene analysis of in particular Eunice Edwards-Zeigler would under normal circumstances have acquitted Zeigler. They are all described in detail on DCC.
I could rewrite some posts just to create more posts to add to Zeigler’s category but repeating myself will not add to the clarity this case needs. If anything else, I’d be re-writing “Fatal Flaw” and Phillip Finch wrote it best. So there you have it.
My series may have come to a halt for now but I stand by my analysis of these murders. I am still convinced that the man we have on death row for these murders is the wrong man. Some of the true killers are described in Finch’s book. Go read it.
Case overview: In Dec 1975, a quadruple murder took place in the Zeigler Furniture Store (Winter Garden, Florida). The victims were Charles Mays, Virginia and Perry Edwards, and their daughter Eunice Edwards-Zeigler. The fifth victim, William Thomas Zeigler, became the sole suspect because he survived. The case is riddled by police misconduct (lying on the stand), prosecutorial misconduct (withheld evidence), and forensic testing disproving the charges. The evidentiary hearing for touch DNA testing was held on March 31, 2016. Judge Whitehead denied the request on July 18, 2016. On November 23, 2016, an appeal was filed in the Supreme Court of Florida. On April 21, 2017 the Florida Supreme Court denied the touch DNA request. On May 8, 2017 a motion for a rehearing with the US Supreme Court was filed. It was denied November 13, 2017.