PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The arguments at the hearing, along with reports submitted to the court, foreshadow what will likely come during the weeklong hearing scheduled to start Dec. 1. Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Monique Worrell, who agreed to Zeigler’s DNA testing three years ago but is now opposing his request for a new trial, was not present. One of her assistant state attorneys sat by as Schow handled the argument. Florida, with 30 cases, leads the nation in exonerations from death row."
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STORY: "Orlando judge agrees to review Tommy Zeigler case," by Former Tampa Bay Times Reporter Leonora LaPeter Anton, published by The Tampa Bay Times, on August 13, 2025. ( Leonora LaPeter Anton was a co-recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.)
SUB-HEADING: "Death row inmate will be allowed to present evidence at December hearing."
PHOTO CAPTION: "Tommy Zeigler, pictured on Nov. 26, 2024, says he tried not to get his hopes up after DNA tests backed up his story. He says he has been disappointed too many times before.
GIST: "Orlando Circuit Judge Leticia Marques agreed Tuesday to hold an evidentiary hearing in the long and tangled case of death row inmate Tommy Zeigler. That means the judge will consider his case in its entirety, including the results of recent DNA testing on the evidence.
Marques heard arguments from lawyers in her courtroom last week but did not say why she was granting the hearing. She was quick to mention in her order that it should not be taken as a decision on the case’s merits. A lawyer for Florida’s attorney general had argued against giving Zeigler another day in court.
“We have been fighting for this day for decades, and so to have this opportunity is very, very meaningful for Tommy, for his team and for any defendant that faces capital punishment for crimes they maintain they didn’t commit,” said Zeigler’s New York lawyer, David Michaeli, on Tuesday evening.
Zeigler, now 80, is possibly the longest-serving death row inmate in the country. He had tried to test the evidence in his case for decades. Though his lawyers agreed to pay the costs of the testing, prosecutors and judges refused six times.
Michaeli and one of Zeigler’s other lawyers, Dennis Tracey, will have part of a week to present the results and other evidence they say proves him innocent.
Zeigler was convicted in 1976 of killing his wife, Eunice Zeigler; her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards; and another man at his family’s furniture store in Winter Garden on Christmas Eve the year before.
Prosecutors argued Zeigler killed his family, then lured three Black men to the store, killing one of them.
At the hearing last week, Tracey told the judge that the recent DNA testing proved Zeigler innocent beyond a reasonable doubt and his conviction should be overturned.
Significant back spatter would have sprayed over Zeigler if he had shot his wife and in-laws, the lawyer said. All three were killed at close range with large-caliber bullets that lodged in their brains.
Yet the testing found no blood from his family members on Zeigler’s shirt, pants or socks, Tracey said.
One small spot of his father-in-law’s blood on the inner side of his left suede shoe and another on the inner right were explainable, his lawyer said, if Zeigler walked to the front of the store to call for help. Edwards’ blood only represented 1% of one of the spots.
The results were not enough to prove Zeigler killed his family, Tracey said, and inconsistent with him doing so, according to their DNA expert.
Eunice Zeigler’s long herringbone jacket sported trace amounts of DNA in five locations from Charlie Mays, an orange grove crew leader and the fourth person found dead at the store.
Prosecutors have always argued that Zeigler drew Mays to the store to kill him and blame him for the murders. “It provides evidence Mays moved her body after she was shot, and he was likely a perpetrator,” Tracey said.
That would back up Zeigler’s story of walking in on a robbery, he said, since Mays had the store’s cash receipts in his pocket and blood from Zeigler’s father-in-law, Edwards, soaked the lower reaches of his trousers.
But Assistant Attorney General Joshua Schow, who referred to a PowerPoint, said Zeigler’s new evidence “came up short.”
Touch DNA on Eunice Zeigler’s coat was not strong enough to even count, with Mays only being a possible contributor to it, Schow said. Mays’ clothes also would have had more of Edwards’ blood on them, Schow said, if he had killed him.
Zeigler should not be allowed to retry his case, Schow said, especially since a number of witnesses had testified against him at his trial, corroborating each other.
And blood spatter from Mays on Zeigler’s shirt showed he may have been the one to hit Mays in the head with a carpet crank, the lawyer said. Schow said an employee’s raincoat had been reported missing and may have provided Zeigler cover while he killed his family.
“I haven’t seen anything where the state argued Mr. Zeigler was wearing a raincoat,” Marques said to him.
Schow acknowledged her point.
The arguments at the hearing, along with reports submitted to the court, foreshadow what will likely come during the weeklong hearing scheduled to start Dec. 1.
Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Monique Worrell, who agreed to Zeigler’s DNA testing three years ago but is now opposing his request for a new trial, was not present. One of her assistant state attorneys sat by as Schow handled the argument.
Florida, with 30 cases, leads the nation in exonerations from death row."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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