On March 6, 2026, Orlando Circuit Judge Leticia Marques said that “she would not be ordering a new trial for Zeigler. She said he had not proved that new evidence would result in an acquittal, and that’s the standard required by Florida law.”
The state’s strategy to focus on Charles Mays as a victim rather than as part of a group of people intending to harm William Thomas Zeigler, may have paid off.
It is incredibly difficult to get the whole story into the court room. Many issues are procedurally barred such as the mysterious tooth, jury intimidation, etc. Together they would give a modern-day jury a better overview of what happened that Christmas Eve Night in 1975.
“The DNA results released in January 2025 raised the possibility of another person at the scene, but no one has been linked to the case.” The judge is right. That other person may have passed away before their DNA was uploaded into any database, governmental or public such as Ancestry. Maybe they were never arrested and asked for a swab.
I still need to read the full ruling. The Order was not online this weekend but has been posted now. To find it, go to myeclerk.myorangeclerk.dom, scroll down to Court Records Search and fill in Tommy’s full name: William Thomas Zeigler. You will see two cases. Click the first link and scroll down to the Order date of March 6, 2026. That’s it.
I am devastated because I genuinely believed the defense had raised enough reasonable doubt. Hoodline correctly reports that the “decision closes off the most immediate route to relief at the trial level but leaves open the possibility of further appeals and petitions to higher courts.” They are right. It is not game over. The defense team has already said to appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.