Tommy Zeigler - Dead Man Walking

New Web Site For Zeigler

2008-01-22T19:58:00.000-05:00

This blog has been superseded by a new web site www.freetommyz.com. Go there now.

insuranceusa.com

Petition to Governor Crist

2007-11-14T14:30:00.000-05:00

Read a petition to Florida Governor Charles Crist, seeking Zeigler's release from death row. (click here)

Evidence that prosecutors often care more for convictions than for the truth is still present today just as it was 31 years ago when Tommy Zeigler was wrongly convicted.
Just consider the border patrol agents Ramos and Campeon who are now in prison and former prosecutor Mike Nifong who is not in prison but should be.

Charlie Mays Implicated in another Unsolved Murder

2007-08-16T12:34:00.002-05:00

Recent video taped, sworn testimony by retired Orange Co.detective, Tom DeMars who worked undercover investigating loan sharking states that Charlie Mays was the shooter in the still unsolved murder of store owner, Shorty Reddick . To view a segment of that testimony, click below.

Florida Supreme Court Denies Appeal

2007-07-03T14:09:00.000-05:00

Click here for a link to the courts decision Justice Charles Wells was an author of the decision despite his having been a friend of the late Orange County sheriff, Mel Colman, at the time of the crimes, and despite a letter to him prior to oral arguments that specifically reminded him of his own personal knowledge of the case. CLICK HERE TO READ THE LETTER TO JUSTICE WELLS. Should he have disqualified himself from participating in the decision to deny Zeigler's appeal based on assumptions about the blood evidence that DNA analysis showed were false? The Florida Code of Judicial Conduct states that a judge should disqualify himself if he has "...personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceedings" YOU BE THE JUDGE!!Click here to read how to file a complaint against a state court judge.

Connecting the Dots - Closing Argument for a Fair Trial

2007-05-08T21:32:00.000-05:00

This is a hypothetical closing argument that might have been used by the defense attorney had all of the information that is known now been known in June 1976. While the assumptions made here are based on facts, there is no proof that any of these assumptions is true.
Charlie Mays and Edward Williams had been hired by the loan sharks of West Orange County to eliminate Zeigler. (For a detailed explanation of why Zeigler was unpopular with some of the local business interests, click here.) Williams arranged with his former wife’s son-in-law, Frank Smith, to acquire two cheap handguns that they thought would not be traceable. When Zeigler asked Williams on December 22 to assist him with deliveries on Christmas Eve, they decided that this would be a good opportunity to murder Zeigler and make it look like a robbery. Mays recruited Felton Thomas as an accomplice. (One possibility is that they intended that Thomas would be killed along with Zeigler so that Williams would have a good cover story that he helped fight off the robbers with Zeigler, killing one, but the other got away. It is also likely that others were involved. A young man by the name of Nathaniel Brown had told the defense that a man with a gun shot wound in his shoulder was hiding out in Oakland. This would have accounted for one of the bullets that had been fired but could not be located. His story was never taken seriously at the time. )
Williams came by the store in the afternoon of Christmas eve and learned from Zeigler that his wife and in-laws would be coming to the store that evening to pick out a chair as a gift for the father-in-law. This was a complication they hadn’t expected. Williams knew that Mays would be waiting behind the fence in back of the Winter Garden Inn at 7PM so that Mays and Thomas could jump the fence and come in through the open loading door after Zeigler and Williams arrived. Instead of meeting Zeigler at 7PM at his house as he was supposed to do, Williams drove to Winter Garden Inn to let Mays know about the three additional people who would be in the store.
Now Mays and his accomplices, including a white man in a white Cadillac drove to the front of the store and forced their way in before Zeigler’s wife and parents could relock the door after they entered. They shot and wounded the father in law first and then the two women. Their cars were seen in front of the store by Ken and Linda Roach who reported hearing shots and seeing several cars in front of the store at about 7:20 as they were driving by. ( This information was not reported to the defense until after Zeigler was convicted.) Leaving some men inside the store, they returned to the back of the Winter Garden Inn and probably were let into the back of the store by the men inside. Before Zeigler arrived, his father in law got up from the place he had been initially wounded near the front of the store and tried to reach the front door leaving a trial of blood that Detective Frye thought was left by Zeigler. Before he could reach the door, he was hit over the head and possibly dragged to the back of the store where he was left, still not dead.
After participating in the killings, Felton Thomas got cold feet and wanted out. He had no vehicle and was probably prevented from leaving the Winter Garden Inn by some of the policemen who were on guard in the area. (Jon Jellison, a guest at the Winter Garden Inn, told an investigator for state attorney Bob Eagan in a taped interview that was never turned over to the defense that he had seen a policeman with gun drawn in back of the Inn before he heard shots from the direction of the furniture store at about 9PM.).
When Zeigler and Williams arrived around 7:30, Zeigler was attacked as soon as he entered the rear entry door. They intended to knock him unconscious, but a fight ensued during which Zeigler fired one 22 long rifle shot from his 22 automatic apparently hitting an unknown assailant who was never identified. The 22 automatic misfired after the first shot, but Zeigler managed to grab the 357 from a drawer in the hallway, firing several rounds from it and seriously wounding Mays, During the fight Zeigler got Mays’ blood all over his shirt (which Frye mistakenly thought was his father in law’s blood) before having the gun taken away and being shot himself with the same gun.
With Charlie Mays seriously wounded, the killers decided they had to make sure he was dead by beating in his skull with a linoleum crank. After discovering that Zeigler was still alive, they realized they could not kill him if they were going to frame him. They arranged his wife’s body to make it look like she had been surprised by Zeigler as she stood with her hand in her coat pocket where it was found. They also picked up the live rounds that had misfired and put them in a desk drawer where they would be sure to be found. But they needed something as a clincher. That is probably when they decided to get Zeigler’s 38 from his truck at home.
Edward Williams was sent back to get Zeigler’s 38 revolver, but in order to get his truck out he had to bend the gate yoke since it had been re-locked after Williams and Zeigler arrived. This explains why Don Ficke saw Williams in the Zeigler drive way a little after 8 PM. When Williams returned to the furniture store with the gun - it was easy to steal since the door on Zeigler’s truck would not lock - he backed his truck up to the loading door where it was still parked after police arrived. They shot both of the in laws and the clock with the gun from the truck, emptying all chambers. These were the shots heard by the Jellisons around 9PM. The clock had probably stopped at 7:21 when one of the killers pulled the breaker switch outside the store, but they wanted it to appear that the clock had been stopped by a bullet from Zeigler’s gun when he was committing the murders of his wife and in-laws.
Thinking that Zeigler would not be found for some time, the killers then retreated to the rear of the Winter Garden Inn to plan the story to be reported by Felton Thomas and Edward Williams. Thomas would claim that Zeigler had driven up in a white car (he owned a white Toronado, but had loaned it to Curtis Dunaway that night) and asked them to go to an orange grove to fire the two cheap handguns he supposedly had gotten from Frank Smith.(One problem with this story that was never challenged by the defense was that Zeigler had no way of knowing that Mays would be parked out of sight in back of the Winter Garden Inn.) Thomas was allowed to admit he refused to go into the store after Zeigler arrived. Williams’ story would be that Zeigler had tried to kill him with the gun he had used to finish off his in-laws, but then gave him the gun when it proved to be empty, claiming that he thought Williams was a burglar.
At 9:21 one of the policemen who were involved heard the call from Robert Thompson saying that Zeigler had made a phone call to Don Ficke. They now realized that Edward Williams story would not hold up unless he appeared to be in fear for his life. He was told to get to the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant immediately and ask to use the phone to call the police. He was probably told to just pretend to be calling the police by asking for the police phone number. In reality he would call a friend to pick him up as soon as possible. He had no desire to talk to the police until he had changed clothes and rehearsed his story about Zeigler trying to kill him with the murder weapon Williams had himself used. As Phillip Finch points out in his book, the fatal flaw in the story was that if Zeigler had tried to kill Williams, there would not have been enough time for Zeigler to move the truck from where it was parked (according to Williams) bend one prong on the gate for reasons that are not clear, make a phone call and then shoot himself, and have the blood dry out on his clothes, all in the time it would take Williams to run to the restaurant, estimated to be two or three minutes. Since Williams arrived at the restaurant after the Robert Thompson radio dispatch at 9:21, he must have been hiding at the Winter Garden Inn or elsewhere until after Zeigler made his phone call. The fact that this story was sufficient to send a man to death row can be attributed to the fact that the defense was under such extreme pressure from a biased judge that it did not have time to prepare a case that connected all the dots.

Supreme Court Takes Interest in Oral Arguments

2007-04-20T15:02:00.000-05:00

Oral arguments for Zeigler's appeal of the adverse ruling on the DNA evidence were presented on April 17, 2007. Watch Attorney John Pope present an excellent argument by clicking here.

Shown here are Connie Crawford and Peggy Dollinger. Ms. Dollinger was a juror in Zeigler's trial thirty years ago. She has been a supporter since learning of all the evidence that was withheld from the jury by the prosecution. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Several of Zeigler's supporters attended the hearing and staged a brief rally outside the Supreme Court building afterward. Watch a video clip of the rally by clicking here.

More Zeigler supporters are shown in the picture below. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Why Zeigler Never Got a New Trial

2007-03-31T19:11:00.000-05:00

Pride - Arrogance - And maybe more.... Thirty-one years is a long time. But three men who were key players in the wrongful conviction of Tommy Zeigler 31 years ago are still controlling his fate today. Lawson Lamar is the state attorney for Orange County. Thirty-one years ago he was an assistant state attorney who, perhaps by chance, came to the murder scene on Christmas Eve soon after the crimes were discovered. With four dead bodies, multiple bullet holes, several different weapons, and blood stains everywhere (Click here to see the diagram of the crime scene in Philip Finch's book, page 2.) Lamar and a young inexperienced detective concluded within six hours of the time they entered the store that Tommy Zeigler had committed the crimes. Lamar resisted DNA testing and argued successfully that the DNA wasn't enough to overturn Zeigler's conviction despite the fact that it proved he did not kill one of the victims - and by implication NONE of them.

Why Trial Judge Maurice Paul refused to recuse himself from Zeigler's trial has always been a mystery - though no one with the power to go against him has ever investigated that mystery. (Click to Read Attorney's Memorandum on Paul's adverse rulings.) He was asked to recuse himself three times and his refusal was appealed the Florida Supreme Court without success. It is almost unheard of for a circuit judge to serve as a character witness in a trial. Yet that is what Paul chose to do in a case in which Zeigler was an opposing character witness. That in itself was probably a violation of judicial ethics, but then to refuse to step aside in the case against Zeigler just a few months later is so egregious a violation of the most vulgar perception of what is ethical that it brings discredit to the entire judicial system! As a sitting Senior Federal Judge in Tallahassee today, he can exercise behind-the-scenes influence which can only be imagined.

Supreme Court Justice Charles Wells was appointed directly to the court from private practice in Orange County. Justice Wells was on the court when another appeal of Zeigler's conviction was denied in the early 90's. Whether he was a friend or merely an acquaintence of Judge Paul is not known, but it is known that he was a political adviser to Orange County sheriff Mel Colman. As such, lawyer Wells all but certainly advised Colman to stand mute when his chief deputy sheriff, Leigh McEachern, told him that trial judge Paul was colluding with the prosecution to deny Zeigler a fair trial. Colman ordered McEachern to say nothing about the unethical conference he had attended. Colman and McEachern had been friends since their days with the St. Petersburg Police Department. McEachern turned down the job of police chief of Winter Park when Colman asked him to help him modernize the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
As McEachern says in his book, The Appearance of Justice, page 7, "self preservation prevailed...." And he "quietly joined the Colman metamorphosis."

Politics in Orange County is a brutal business. Within a few years, McEachern was charged with misappropriating funds used by the department as "flash rolls" in apprehending drug dealers. He, too, was wronfully convicted, but he now has had his civil rights restored and he and his wife are the parents of eight adopted children between the ages of five and eighteen. Not long after McEachern's conviction, Colman lost an election to none other than Christmas Eve "johnny on the spot" Lawson Lamar who served two terms before taking over his current job.

Lamar - Paul - Wells. Powerful jurists! Master Politicians....

One is reminded of Lord Acton's famous quote: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

As the Duke University rape case illustrates, laws are needed to prevent men who might have any agenda other than the objective consideration of the facts from taking a leading role in prosecuting or judging other men who are accused of criminal wrong doing.

Who would shoot himself in the stomach to cover up a crime? And Did I Mention With a 357 Magnum

2006-07-08T20:03:00.000-05:00

Zeigler then and now. Photo on the left by Gail Anderson. Photo on the right by Colin Hackley.
At approximately 7:30 PM on Christmas eve 1975, four people were shot to death in the furniture store owned by Tommy Zeigler and his parents in Winter Garden, Florida, a small town near Orlando. The dead were Zeigler's wife, her parents, and a store customer, who might have been there to commit robbery. Zeigler was shot in the stomach at close range with a 357 magnum.
Before the night was over, detective Don Frye of the Orange County (Disney World/Orlando) Sheriffs Office formed the conclusion that Zeigler had committed the crimes and shot himself to try to make it look like the customer, a black man, was responsible. Six months later, Zeigler was convicted of those murders and sentenced to death. The prosecution had somehow convinced the jury that a man could shoot himself in the stomach with a weapon that kicks like a mule and do it with sufficient precision that he would miss any vital organs. For anyone (even a former army reserve medic, as Zeigler was) who has ever fired a 357, that prospect is patently absurd. This is only one of the absurd propositions put forward by the prosecution.
One year ago, a Florida court denied an appeal based on DNA evidence which clearly refutes the prosecution's theory of the crime.
A book, Fatal Flaw, by Phillip Finch published in 1992 lays out the details of the case and argues that Zeigler would likely have been found innocent had the defense had sufficient time to prepare. A booklet, The Appearance of Justice, published in 2006 by Leigh McEachern, who was the chief deputy of Orange County Sheriffs Office in 1975 lays out the DNA evidence and recounts his reason for believing the trial judge, Maurice Paul, was biased.

Was It Robbery, Murder for Money, or ....

2006-05-15T09:08:00.000-05:00

Most of the facts presented here are taken from the extensive trial record discussed in Phillip Finch's Fatal Flaw: The True Story of Murder and Malice in a Small Southern Town.
The state argued that Zeigler killed his wife for the $500,000 insurance policy, and the customer to make it look like a robbery. But why do it in his own store and why kill the inlaws. He didn't need the money. The business was solid. An alternate theory which the state leaked was that Zeigler was homosexual, his wife found out, and she was going to leave him. (I'm not making this up.)

Zeigler claimed that it was apparently a robbery, but he also said that he had been threatened by the Winter Garden police because of Zeigler's efforts to stop the loan sharking racket involving local migrant workers.

The key testimony at trial came from Edward Williams, a black handyman that Zeigler had hired to help him make deliveries on Christmas Eve. If Williams told the truth, Zeigler is guilty. If not, there was a conspiracy that probably involved more than robbery.

Edward Williams came to the sheriffs office early Christmas day with one of the principal murder weapons, a gun that belonged to Zeigler who had kept it in his pick up truck. Williams told police that Zeigler had tried to kill him with the gun, but when he realized it was empty, he gave it to Williams and begged him not to tell anyone. (I'm not making this up.) Williams claimed he then jumped the fence behind the furniture store and ran to the Winter Garden Inn. He then crossed the street in front of the furniture store, went into the Kentucky Fried Chicken restuarant, tried to call police, got a wrong number, and then left and caught a ride home with friends. Williams' truck was left behind the furniture store in front of the loading door.

Another key witness, Felton Thomas, a black fruit picker, testified that he had come to the store with Charlie Mays, the murdered customer, to purchase a console TV which Zeigler had promised earlier that day to sell Mays at a bargain price. For unknown reasons, Mays parked his van in the back parking lot of the Winter Garden Inn in sight of the back of the furniture store, but behind a six foot chain link fence. (I'm not making this up, the van was still there when police found it.) Felton Thomas claimed that Zeigler drove up beside them at 7:30 PM (after the murders of Zeigler's wife and inlaws - a clock had been stopped by an errant bullet at 7:24) and asked them to ride with him to a nearby orange grove to test fire two cheap hand guns. After firing the guns they returned to the fence behind the store. Mays and Zeigler jumped the fence and went to the back of the store but couldn't get in. Thomas claimed he got scared and left, catching a ride home with friends. (I'm not making this up. It's all in the record.)
Later it was discovered that the two cheap hand guns had been purchased several months earlier by Frank Smith, a friend of Edward Williams. Frank Smith claimed that he bought the guns at the request of Zeigler whom he had never met. He said that Zeigler wanted some untraceable guns because of pending legislation that would prevent him from owning an unregistered gun. (Honestly, all this is really in the record used to dispel reasonable doubt. I'm not making this up - INMU.)

The Fatal Flaw According to Phillip Finch

2006-05-14T09:04:00.000-05:00

For readers of this blog who were convinced of Zeigler's guilt by the previous summary of sworn testimony, you are about to read something that may cast doubt in your open minds....

Three policemen were first on the scene after Zeigler called the Winter Garden police chief, Don Ficke. They were Chief Ficke, Chief Robert Thompson of the Oakland police, and Winter Garden patrolman Jimmie Yawn. All three men knew Zeigler. Ficke was a friend who was supposed to go to a Christmas eve party with the Zeiglers, Thompson had been invited to the same party by Zeigler, and Yawn had been an acquaintance of Zeigler's since childhood.

Ficke and Thompson were at the party when Zeigler called Ficke and told him he had been shot and needed help. Ficke and Thompson left immediately and Thompson notified his dispatcher. Yawn was at the Winter Garden Inn (where Felton Thomas had run to escape from Zeigler, remember? INMU.) when he heard the call from Thompson. The time of the call was recorded as 9:21 PM.

Yawn raced out of the Winter Garden Inn, turned onto Dillard Street in front of the furniture store and almost broadsided the car of J.D. and Madelyn Nolan who were just driving by. They decided to stop and watch the action.

The Nolans testified that they watched the three police officers enter the store, carry out the wounded Zeigler, put him in Thompson's police car and take him to the hospital. They then went over to the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant because they saw J. D. Nolan's brother inside, apparently waiting for an order. The resturant was closed. While the Nolan's were standing outside the resturant door, a black man fitting Williams description came to the door and asked to call the police. He was admitted inside,used the store phone, and left saying he got a wrong number. He left the store and drove off with two acquaintances.

All of this occurred after Thompson called his dispatcher at 9:21. Williams testified that he had gone immediately from the Winter Garden Inn to the restuarant after he ran away from Zeigler and that the restuarant was open when he went in.

As Phillip Finch points out on page 317 of his book, if Williams is telling the truth "Zeigler was ...healthy when Williams jumped the fence .... His trip across the street, via the motel, could have consumed no more than a minute. In that time... Zeigler would have had to move Williams truck and wipe off his finger prints, bend the fork of the gate,go into the store and speak with Ted Van Deventer and Don Ficke, shoot himself, wait for the police to show up, be carried into the back of the squad car...and be driven to the hospital."

If Williams was lying, Zeigler is an innocent man on death row for thirty years.

Plenty of Questions for Conspiracy Theorists

2006-05-13T14:32:00.001-05:00

By most accounts, Zeigler was well liked in the black community. His store served many blacks as customers. On the day he was kiled, Charlie Mays had come into the store with his wife to buy linoleum. They had credit there as did many others in the black community. Zeigler was apparently fair and had no obvious prejudice toward blacks.

Six months earlier, Zeigler had gone to bat for a black friend, Andrew James, who owned a liquor store. Zeigler was trying to stop the loan sharking that worked as follows: A migrant labor crew boss would pay his crew members daily in cash that was provided to him by owners of local stores. When the migrants got their checks at the end of the week, they would go to the stores to cash them. The store owner would deduct the amount owed from the checks plus 10% interest. The crew boss got a percentage of the interest. Zeigler believed Andrew James had been framed because the persons behind the loan sharking wanted his lucrative business.

Zeigler helped the lawyer defending James and testified as a character witness for him at trial. The beverage agent testifying against James had his own character witness - Judge Maurice Paul. INMU Andrew James kept his liquor license.

Chief Robert Thompson was hired by the city of Oakland (population in 2000 under 1000 people) in 1973 after several years with the Florida Highway Patrol, the US Border Patrol, and as head of security for Florida Gov. Claude Kirk. At 8:30PM he met Patrolman Jimmie Yawn at the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant across from the furniture store. He left the restaurant at 8:50PM and then drove to the party where he was when Zeigler called for help. It was learned by the defense later that Thompson was the apparent source of the rumors that were spread about Zeigler being a closet homosexual. Thompson resigned from the Oakland Police during Zeigler's trial. INMU.

In his book, The Appearance of Justice, former Orange County Chief Deputy Leigh McEachern says he contacted the Zeigler defense in 1981 to reveal information about a conference he had attended in the office of state attorney Bob Eagan prior to the trial. The conference included Judge Paul, but no member of the defense team. At the conclusion of the conference according to McEachern (page 6), "Judge Paul stated, 'Bob, if you get at least one first degree verdict, I will fry the son-of-a-bitch.'" McEachern passed a polygraph on this matter. He said he had reported the conference to his boss, Sheriff Mel Colman who told him not to say anything about the highly unethical meeting.

In 1987, a freedom of information act demand resulted in Zeigler's appellate attorney finding a record of an interview conducted by the state attorney's office prior to the trial of a Christmas eve guest at the Winter Garden Inn behind the furniture store. The interview had never been turned over to the defense. The hotel guest stated that he had seen a uniformed policeman leaning over the hood of his car with his gun drawn and pointing toward the back of the furniture store. He said this was around 9PM. After he saw the policeman, he heard shots being fired. The state attorney's office thanked the informant, but told him his information was not helpful! INMU.

Some obvious questions arise. What did officers Yawn and Thompson discuss at their meeting at the Kentucky Fried? Why was officer Yawn at the Winter Garden Inn when he got the call from Thompson? What did Edward Williams do from the time he jumped the fense in back of the furniture store until he arrived at the Kentucky Fried to make a phone call? Why did't he see the police cars in front of the store when he came out of the restaurant and report to them then? Why didn't the state attorney think the testimony concerning a police officer in back of the furniture store before hearing shots fired would be helpful?

Could the conspiracy be continuing even to this day. Is it merely judicial arrogance that has caused them to deny or restrict thirty years of appeals. The latest appeal based on DNA evidence that was unavailable at the time of the trial was rejected even though it indisputably refuted a prosecution claim that a large patch of blood on the underarm of Zeigler's shirt belonged to Zeigler's father in law. DNA showed that the blood was not from Zeigler's father in law, but was from Charlie Mays which supports the defense claim that Zeigler and Mays struggled after Mays was shot. Nonetheless, the court rejected the motion for a new trial based on this evidence saying that the father in law's blood could have been on a section of the shirt that was not tested. INMU

A final note for the conpiracy theorists. Former sheriff Mel Colman who lost an election to the current state attorney of Orange Co., Lawson Lamar (Lamar was an assistant state attorney in the prosecutor's office at the time of the trial, and was elected state attorney after Eagan retired)was found dead in his own pool in 2005. No one else was home at the time. He was the only person who might have been willing to confirm Leigh McEachern's claim that Judge Maurice Paul participated in an ex parte conference to discuss the trial and death penalty of a man presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. INMU

DNA Evidence Proves Zeigler Innocent! ...Oh Well, Who Cares.

2006-05-09T10:44:00.000-05:00

Zeigler's t-shirt had Charlie Mays' blood on it not Zeigler's father in law as the state had argued.

Don Frye, the lead Orange Co. Sheriff detective, is living proof that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. A few months before the crime, he had taken a short course on analyzing blood evidence. The Zeigler case was his first opportunity to show off his knowledge (or lack thereof.) The crime scene at the furniture store included four dead bodies, one gut shot person still alive, more than 20 bullet holes, eight different guns, and blood everywhere. Yet Super Spy Frye figured it all out in a couple of hours after stumbling (literally) over the evidence in the darkened store.

The two main conclusions from his analysis of the blood stains were 1) the heavy stains on the bottom of Charlie Mays’ (the black man who was shot and beaten to death) trousers and the caked blood on the soles of his shoes were Mays’ own blood.; and 2) the blood drenched underarm of Zeigler’s shirt was from Zeigler’s father in law. Because of prosecutorial, police, and court misconduct (read conspiracy) the pants were not tested before trial and the shirt blood was not sub-typed. DNA evidence was not possible to obtain 30 years ago.

Now we know what the DNA shows! The blood on Mays pants was from Zeigler’s father in law and the blood on Zeigler’s shirt was from Charlie Mays. Super Spy Frye got it 100% wrong. (Click here to view a closeup of the front and back of Zeigler's t-shirt.)
This totally supports the defense theory that Mays had come to harm Zeigler not to buy a TV. Zeigler and Mays struggled and both got shot. The crime scene photo reproduced in Phillip Finch’s book, Fatal Flaw, shows Mays’ body lying on a white terrazzo floor with no blood stains or foot prints near his body. That means the blood on Mays pants and shoes was dry when he was killed. Dry blood from Zeigler’s father-in-law means only one thing: Mays killed him, not Zeigler. It was at least 15 minutes later that Zeigler and Mays fought and by that time the blood on Mays pants had dried.

In April 2005, the circuit court refused to grant a new trial based on the DNA evidence in part because the prosecution argued that the other parts of the t-shirt that were not tested for DNA might have contained the father in law's blood. (I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP!). The Florida Supreme Court has ruled against Zeigler on all previous appeals and seldom reverses a lower court case. Zeigler’s time is short and the only ones who seem to care are the killers and the conspirators who are still at large!