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DNA may reopen '75 massacre case For 27 years, Tommy Zeigler has sat on Florida's death row, convicted of a 1975 Christmas Eve massacre, including the slayings of his in-laws from Moultrie. But in court papers expected to be filed today in Orlando, Zeigler's lawyers will ask for a new trial, contending that DNA tests of blood samples taken last year strongly rebut the state's theory of the notorious case and support Zeigler's long-held claim of innocence. "I think that these tests confirm what we've said all along, that Tommy Zeigler is not guilty of these crimes," New York attorney John Houston Pope said. "The opportunity is here for the courts to right this injustice and allow a man who's been wrongly incarcerated to return to the free world." But a state attorney countered Tuesday that the DNA tests prove no such thing. "That's ludicrous and totally ridiculous," Assistant State Attorney Jeff Ashton said of Zeigler's new claims. "It's like revisionist history, and it really doesn't change anything. . . . The amount of evidence in this case is overwhelming." Since 1973, the convictions of 102 people on death row nationwide have been thrown out, according to the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. Of that number, 12 were exonerated based on DNA tests. More than 7,000 people have been sentenced to death during that time. The court motions are to be filed today under a new Florida law allowing challenges to convictions based on DNA testing, Pope said. Florida was one of several states to enact new laws allowing challenges based on DNA testing. Georgia has long allowed "extraordinary motions" for new trials based on newly discovered evidence. In 1976, Zeigler, a furniture store owner in Winter Garden, Fla., was convicted of killing his 29-year-old wife, Eunice; her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards, 72 and 54, who were visiting from Moultrie for the holidays; and Charles Mays, 35, who had bought a TV at the store that day and was scheduled to pick it up. The jury's first vote on guilt or innocence was 6-6, but ultimately jurors voted unanimously to convict Zeigler. In the sentencing phase, however, jurors recommended life, not death. But the trial judge gave Zeigler a death sentence, which was overturned in 1988, when the Florida Supreme Court ruled character witnesses should have been allowed to testify. After a resentencing hearing a year later, another judge also handed down a death sentence. Over the years, claims that Zeigler's case was mishandled have abounded. Zeigler's attorneys will argue on Jan. 28 before the federal appeals court in Atlanta that his conviction should be thrown out because of misconduct by prosecutors and police. Zeigler, his lawyers say, "was the victim of the same heinous criminals who killed his wife and in-laws, and he is a victim of injustice." When police arrived at the Zeigler Furniture Store on the night of Dec. 24, 1975, Zeigler, with a gunshot wound in his abdomen, was rushed to a hospital. Eunice, his wife of nine years, was found with a fatal gunshot wound in her head next to the store's showroom. Her parents' bodies were found in the showroom. Mays' body was found across the showroom near Perry Edwards' body. Five days later, still in the hospital, Zeigler was charged with the killings. The motive, prosecutors said, was to collect $500,000 in life insurance he had taken out on his wife several months earlier. Prosecutors said Zeigler, who is now 57, shot himself in the stomach to frame Mays and two other men for the crimes, making it look like they tried to rob the furniture store. The two men, Felton Thomas and Edward Williams, both testified for the prosecution against Zeigler at trial. But Zeigler's new lawyers contend the state's theory of the case collapses with the DNA test results. Authorities have contended that Zeigler's father-in-law, Perry Edwards, died after putting up a fierce fight with Zeigler. For this reason, the blood stains on Zeigler's shirt must have come from his father-in-law, prosecutors said. At the time of the trial, DNA testing of blood was unavailable. Authorities were only able to show that the blood was Type A, the type belonging to both Edwards and Mays. Pope, who began representing Zeigler in 1991, said his client has always said he was jumped when he entered the furniture store. Zeigler fought with and then shot his assailant, who must have been Mays, Pope said. In August 2001, a Florida state court judge granted permission for DNA testing of evidence for use in a clemency petition to Gov. Jeb Bush that has not yet been acted upon. The DNA tests show the blood on Zeigler's shirt came from Mays, Pope said. Blood on Mays' pants came from Edwards, indicating it was Mays who killed Edwards in a fight, Pope said. "The tests provide a firm, scientific basis for concluding that Charlie Mays had Perry Edwards' blood on him, which leads to the conclusion that Charles Mays was in fact one of the perpetrators of these murders," Pope said. "That corroborates everything that Tommy Zeigler testified to and contradicts the very foundation of the state's case." Ashton, the state attorney, said Mays was killed close to where Edwards' body lay so he may have fallen on it and picked up some of Edwards' blood. Ashton added there is nothing in Zeigler's trial testimony to support Pope's argument that Zeigler injured Mays in a fight. But Pope points to the trial transcript where prosecutor Bob Eagan asked Zeigler to explain how he "got all the blood under the armpit of your clothing." Zeigler replied that during the fight, "I was grabbing everything I could grab ahold to and swinging with everything I had." Eagan then asked, "You can't tell me how you held Perry Edwards around the neck and clubbed him with your right hand as you held him with your left?" "No, sir, because I did not do it," Zeigler answered.
During his closing statement to the jury, Eagan did not mention Edwards by name, but told the jury, "You will see a soaked area of blood under the left armpit of [Zeigler's] shirt. That could have gotten there only by his having someone in his arm who was Type A blood. [Zeigler] didn't get that crawling around on the floor. Who was bleeding Type A blood?"
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