Criminology - The Zeigler Furniture Store Murders

Episode Date: October 12, 2019

On Christmas Eve, 1975, four people were murdered in Winter Garden Florida inside the Zeigler furniture store. Tommy Zeigler, who by that time, was the president of Zeiglers was arrested, tried, and convicted of the murders. The victims that night included Tommy's wife Eunice, Eunice's father and mother, and a family friend named Charlie Mays. Many individuals had something to say about the events that transpired that night. And, as often happens, there were many different variations regarding what transpired. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss this tragic quadruple murder. Did Tommy Zeigler murder four people that night or was he wrongfully convicted? Tommy has spent over 40 years on death row but has never stopped fighting his conviction. DNA may ultimately either prove Tommy guilty or prove that he is an innocent man. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms apply. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 82 of criminology. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how are you today, buddy? I'm doing good.

It's a rainy day out, and I've got nothing better to do than record some criminology with you, so I'm looking forward to it. You got nothing better to do now. So are you saying if it was sunny, you're out? If it was sunny, maybe I'd blow this off and I'd be out cruising, but it's not. So here I... Okay. Well, thank goodness for the rain then.

So more if we receive some really good feedback on the Brianna-Maitland case, that's a pretty big case when it comes to unsolved, right? There are some big unsolved cases, but for the most part, when you think about really infamous cases, most of them are solved because you know who the killer is, the killer becomes infamous, but the Brianna Maitland case, the Moore Murray case, those are pretty well-known unsolved cases. It would have been her birthday this week, so I think it was on people's minds, especially this week.

So more if we have some new Patreon supporters. So let's give some shoutouts. We had Crystal McHale, Glenn Roberts jumped out at our highest level, Elaine Fiorena, Stephanie Mertz, Kathy Tateau. Kinski and Dorothy Carver. So big thanks to all those folks for that support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks to everyone that's decided to contribute on Patreon. That means a lot. And it really helps us put this show out every week. And if you'd like to help support us on Patreon, you can by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, man, are you ready to get into this

episode of criminology? I'm ready. Let's do it. We are talking about these Ziegler Furniture Store murders. It was on Christmas Eve 1975 that a horrific quadruple murder shook the community of Winter Garden, Florida to its core. A prominent local businessman was arrested, tried, and convicted for the crime, but many people believe in his innocence. So that's the question. Did this man murder for people, including his own wife?

in cold blood? Or has an innocent man spent the last 44 years in prison for a crime that he didn't commit? William Tommy Ziegler was born on July 25th, 1945 in Winter Garden, Florida, to Thomas and Buehler. He was the couple's only child. Winter Garden is a relatively small town, just 18 miles from Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. The city was incorporated in 1908 with only 191 residents. Today, they're over 45,000. In 1939, the Ziegler's opened W.T. Ziegler Furniture Store at 40 South Main Street, and in early 1970s, they've relocated the store of a 1010 South Dillard Street. When Tommy Ziegler was old enough, he often helped his parents at the store, which was the first in Winter Garden to allow African Americans to buy furniture on credit.

Tommy's job was to ride his bike around to collect balances owed on furniture. People that knew Tommy said how forget. giving he was if people were going to be late with their payments. Tommy graduated high school in 1963 and he spent one year at Orlando Junior College before joining the Army Reserve. And he served six months in the Army Reserve before moving back home to assist his family with the store. At the age of 20 during his stent as a local youth football coach for a local elementary school, Tommy met Eunice Edwards, who was a teacher at the school. Eunice was born in Gainesville, Florida, where her family had a farm.

Her father, Perry Edwards, was a Baptist minister, and her mother, Virginia, was a homemaker. The family moved several times to different towns in Florida and in Georgia. Eunice graduated from Florida State University in 1965. And after college, she accepted a teacher. position in Winter Garden. Less than a year after Tommy and Eunice met, they got married in July in 1967. It seemed as if they really had a great life together. Eunice played organ at the local church, and Tommy sang in the choir.

Tommy worked full-time at the furniture store, and he also managed multiple apartment buildings. He was part of the town's beautification committee and was good friends with the Winter Garden Police Chief, Don Fick. After his father suffered a stroke, Tommy became proud of. president of Zieglers. Career-wise, things were really looking up for the Zieglers. But if there's something that Tommy and Eunice were missing in their life, it was a child. Eunice experienced issues getting pregnant, and after eight years of marriage, the couple still didn't have a child. Eunice sought out treatment from a fertility specialist. She went so far as to keep very detailed

records of whenever the couple had sex. These records show that two weeks before Christmas, 1975, their active sex life dwindled down. This journal detailing the couple's sex life was viewed by police as proof that Tommy had homosexual urges, something that was never corroborated. But it was these alleged homosexual urges that police would pounce on as one part of the motive for these brutal murders. On Christmas Eve, 1975, Tommy finished up some last-minute deliveries and had plans to meet his longtime customer and friend Charlie Mayer.

Jr. at the store at 7.30 p.m. Mays was coming to pick up a television to surprise his children with. After that, Tommy and Eunice planned to attend a Christmas party. Earlier in the day, this was around noon. Edward Williams stopped by the store to see Tommy. Edward was the Ziegler's handyman, and he was a friend. He moved to Florida from the Bahamas nearly 20 years before and was the first African American customer allowed to buy on credit at the Ziegler store. That day, Edward helped Tommy with some deliveries. When they were back at the furniture store after finishing the deliveries, Tommy asked Edward if he would help him move some furniture at 7 p.m. that night. Edward agreed to help. and Tommy told him to come to his house around that time, and then they would drive to the store together.

A short time later, Charlie Mays and his wife returned to the furniture store to pick up linoleum they ordered earlier that day. Tommy told the couple to go around to the back, so Charlie drove his blue van around back past a large electrical breaker box. We should note that the area behind the store was rarely used by the public and surrounded by a six-foot chain-link fence that secured the park. lot and the rear of the store. It was only accessible by a single swinging gate. After everything was loaded into Charlie's van, Tommy reminded him to come back at 7.30 to pick up the TV. That day, Tommy allowed one of the store employees, a guy by the name of Curtis Dunaway, to borrow his car. This was a brand new 1975 Olds Torinado. Before Curtis left to visit family, he went along with Tommy to get the remaining shipments delivered. And it was on this trip that Tommy mentioned

to Curtis that he would be returning to the store later that evening to pick up some items. And one of the items that he talked about specifically was a piece of furniture for his father-in-law. Curtis told Tommy that he would be happy to give him a hand, but Tommy declined, saying that he had already asked Edward to help him out. Charlie Mays was excited to get his television. He had rearranged his living room, and he looked forward to having the TV on Christmas morning for the kids. To top it off, someone from the First Presbyterian Church in Oakland, Florida, the same one that Tommy and Eunice were associated with.

He dropped off a basket of food in about $40 that had been collected from the congregation to give the someone in need. The pastor wasn't the one who decided Charlie and the Mays family needed it. It was Oakland, Florida Police Chief Robert Thompson. who knew the family. Charlie was well liked by Chief Thompson due to his good reputation. Charlie didn't smoke, drink, or curse, and he was known to be a family man who coached a local softball team. Ted Van DeVenter, a local attorney, hosted an open house Christmas party at his home on Christmas Eve. Police chiefs Don Fick and Robert Thompson were going to the party. Tommy and Eunice Ziegler were expected to be there as well. Tommy was a friend and client of Ted's, but Tommy Ziegler had to finish up

his workload before he could even think about going to a party. After 4 p.m., Edward Williams ran some errands and headed home to get ready for the evening. He put on a black sweater, a pair of green pants, and some new dress boots. Then he headed to meet Tommy at Tommy's house to help him move. He put him move the furniture. Before the party, Eunice and her parents decided to stop by the Ziegler store and pick out a lazy boy chair that was given to them as a gift by the Zieglers. They decided that they would take it home. Just after 6 p.m., Bula Ziegler, Tommy's mother, closed the store. Curtis put away the day's cash receipts in an envelope and locked them inside the combination safe. Usually he would go home at this point and leave some overhead lights on, as to make sure the furniture could be

seen by those driving by. But for some reason, Tommy asked him to turn the lights off. Curtis and Bula locked the front door. Buelo went home, and just before 7 p.m., Tommy headed out to the back to drive home in his gold pickup truck. Curtis followed Tommy to Tommy's house driving the olds he had borrowed earlier in the day. From there, Tommy dropped Curtis off at his home. So, Moore, there's a lot of moving parts here, right? We're trying to set this story up. Admittedly, it's a little convoluted. But there's a reason for that. It's because there are a lot of questions about what happened that night, even more questions about what happened the rest of the night. But no doubt, a lot of moving parts in this story. So let's start with what Tommy said happened. He claimed that he was waiting at home for Edward to pick him up so that they could

finish the rest of the deliveries. They had set the time at 7 p.m. But Edward was late. When he finally arrived, they drove to the store in Edward's truck. Tommy said that he entered the store ahead of Edward and attempted to turn the lights on, but they weren't working. It was later, determined by police that the breaker was shut off. Tommy said that he came out of the backhaul and was assaulted from behind by at least two men. Testimony later from a physician would corroborate that Tommy did have a large lump on the back of his head. Since Tommy often carried large amounts of cash, he usually carried a handgun with him. And it just so happened that he had a 22 caliber smithin-weston on him that night that he had borrowed. That he had borrowed

from Don Fick. During the attack, he pulled the gun out and tried to shoot off around, but the gun jammed. According to Tommy, he then threw it at the assailants and grabbed his 357 colt pistol from the desk nearby. But before he knew it, he was getting beaten up and then felt a searing pain in his stomach as he heard a gunshot. Realizing he had been shot, Tommy fell to the floor unconscious. During the struggle, Tommy lost his glasses. He was legally blind without them. so he was unable to see anything. His broken glasses were later found in the store. So it was pretty well known that Tommy kept multiple guns for his own protection and for the

protection of his business. In addition to the 22 that he borrowed from Don Fick, he had his own 357, morph that you mentioned, but he also had several other guns. These included a 38 caliber. Bergo Derringer that he kept under the cash register at the counter. He had another 38 caliber that he typically carried in a shoulder holster that when it wasn't on his person, he stored in the dashboard of his pickup truck. And he did this a lot when he was driving around making collections.

He had a 38 caliber Smith and Wesson normally kept against a file cabinet in the customer service area, which is a good place for it, Morf, right? You have a customer service area that is meant to provide service to your customers. Well, let's keep a 38 in there just in case. He also had a 22 caliber barretta in his desk drawer. So I don't think there's any doubt. He was well armed. He took his personal protection very seriously. He also took. He also took. He also took. He was. He was well armed. He was, the protection of his business. Seriously. The 357 pistol was normally kept at Tommy's house, but a gang of armed thieves known as the ski mask bandits had recently been robbing businesses throughout Florida, so Tommy brought it into the business and had hidden it in the hallway.

Police Chief Don Fick knew Tommy well, and he was expecting Tommy and Eunice at the party. But Tommy and Eunice were often late for any social occasion. So when they weren't on time to the party, Don and his wife Rita weren't surprised. But when it got past 8 p.m. with still no sign of Tommy and Eunice, they became concerned. They got into Don's unmarked police car and went looking for Tommy and Eunice. And one thing more if I think we have to point out, all of the locations that we're talking about, they're all relatively close to each other, right? whether it's the furniture store, the Fick home, Tommy's home.

The furthest distance of really all of these places is between Tommy's house and the furniture store. And even that is only about a 10 to 15 minute drive. So between 8 and 8.45 p.m. Don and Rita were in their car driving around looking for Tommy and Eunice. And they drove all over. You know, they searched the church. where a service was ending. No Tommy and Eunice. They drove past Tommy's house multiple times, maybe as many as three times. They also kept driving back to the party to look for Tommy's car, no sign. At one point, they drove to the furniture store and they saw a green Ford sedan parked in front of the dark store. They didn't know it at the time, but that car below.

to Eunice's parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards. They also noticed a police car from nearby Oakland, Florida, as well as a local police car parked across the street at the KFC. But in all of this, there was no sign of Tommy or Eunice. And then finally, around 845, the fix gave up looking for the Zieglers and they went to the party. Upon gaining consciousness, Tommy noticed his attackers were gone. He crawled through the store and eventually found the phone and called Ted Vantavender's house, where his Christmas party was in full swing. He talked to his friend Don telling him he had been attacked and shot in his store. As Don

rushed out the door to head to the Ziegler Furniture store, Oakland Police Chief Robert Thompson was heading into the party. When Fick told Thompson what had happened, he agreed to follow Fick to the store his car. The two chiefs raced to the store, getting there in less than one minute. On their way, they called for extra units. The call for backup was logged at 9.21 p.m. Just as multiple units showed up at the store, they saw Tommy attempting to unlock the front door from the inside. Blood was splattered across his face, caked on his armpit. He was in rough shape. Robert ran for the front door. Tommy managed to unlock it and yelled that he had been shot. At that point, Tommy didn't know that his wife and in-laws were dead. He was unaware of anything, except that he may very well be dying.

The bullet had entered Tommy's abdomen. His blood was dry. And from the amount of blood on his face, police suspected that he had a head wound, but they didn't. immediately find one. Rather than call an ambulance, Robert put Tommy in the backseat of his cruiser and he drove to the hospital, getting him there in about three minutes. Before Tommy went into surgery, Robert asked him questions about what happened. Tommy claimed that Charlie May shot him. And because we've talked about so many people, Charlie Mays was the friend and customer that was picking up the television for his kids. Tommy also claimed he thought Charlie tried to rob him and that he may have shot Charlie with his gun. After that, Tommy began slurring his words, so Robert stopped asking questions.

Acting on the information provided by Tommy and thinking that Charlie may still be armed and dangerous inside, police entered the store very carefully, ready for anything. Keep in mind that the lights still weren't working, so they had a hard time seeing. They began calling out to Charlie to give himself up. Through their sweep, they discovered a body, which was later identified as Perry Edwards, Eunice Ziegler's father. Behind the counter, the jam on the office door was broken. It appeared as if someone had forced it open. From there, police entered the employee lounge where a woman's body was found face down with one hand in her pocket. This woman was later identified as Eunice Ziegler.

Her feet were laying against a closed door that led to the rear of the showroom. The door had three bullet holes in it. Chief Don Fick would likely have been able to identify Eunice Ziegler very quickly. He was friends with her. But to that point during the search, he hadn't entered the employee lounge. where her body was found. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency.

We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Towards the back of the showroom, near the linoleum racks, Charlie Maze was found. It's obvious from the scene that he was dead. His face was completely disfigured. He had a black metal linoleum crank laid across his right arm, and he was surrounded by several guns. Two revolvers within a few feet of his head, two more pistols near his feet, and a fifth pistol was found near Perry's hand.

Heading to the rear storage area, the loading dock doors were closed and locked. but the swinging door leading to the loading dock was unlocked. Police saw a pickup truck park there with no driver. While police continued to search the store, Chief Don Fick called attorney Ted Van DeVenter and the church minister Mickey Fisher, he asked them to head to Tommy and Eunice's home to let Eunice know what had happened. Because at this point, he's unaware that she is dead in the important. in the employee lounge.

When the two men arrived at the Ziegler home, they knocked, they didn't get an answer, and they immediately became worried about Eunice. Luckily, Tommy's parents lived next door. So the two men ran over to their house and told Tommy's mom, Bula, what had happened. Ted and Mickey went with Bula to the hospital, and they caught Tommy just before he went in for surgery. Tommy's mom asked him where Eunice was, and he replied, isn't she with you? Ted and Mickey were concerned enough about Eunice that they decided to get what they assumed was Tommy's house key from his pants pocket so that they could head back to his house and get inside.

Back at the crime scene, Chief Don Fick was notified of the concern for Eunice and her parents since they couldn't be found. Don went into the employee lounge to see if the woman's body found there was Eunice. But due to the lack of lighting, he didn't recognize Eunice. Some police at the scene suggested that Eunice and her parents could have been hostages inside their home. So orders were made by Don Fick for officers to head to the Ziegler home and enter it through any means necessary. Police thought that they had found all of the bodies. But as investigators moved in and out of the store, one of them found the body of Virginia Edwards. Her body was curled up amid a display of living room furniture. She had suffered a gunshot wound to the side of her head. By this point, police had

managed to get the store's lights back on. They asked store employee Curtis Dunaway to come and identify the body of Charlie Mays. Before walking through the building, officers asked Curtis, Why he had turned the power off in the junction box as he left the store, because I think more if they were well aware that it was customary for the lights to be on at night, this is when he told them that Tommy Ziegler had asked him to turn them off. In addition to identifying Charlie Mays, Curtis also identified the bodies of Virginia, Perry, and Eunice. Throughout the night, a rookie detective named Domney,

Donald Fry worked the scene, and he came up with a theory of what happened. It went like this. Tommy Ziegler shot his wife, then her parents, and at least 20 minutes later, Charlie Mays. In an attempt to divert suspicion, Tommy then shot himself, because who would believe him if he didn't? We mentioned that the version we went through earlier was Tommy's version of what happened, and there are parts in that version that coincide with some people's versions of the night. But some parts are drastically different. As we move, forward, we'll be talking about the known facts of the night and other witness testimony. I do think we need to talk a little bit about this Detective Fry. Fry literally just finished

taking a one-week class on blood spatter. So he wasn't exactly an expert on the subject, but he used what knowledge he had to cast suspicion on Tommy Ziegler. Although Winter Garden wasn't necessarily considered a small town, it was still the first time any Orange County detective had ever investigated a quadruple homicide and especially one on such a large scale. The area inside this building where the murders occurred was over 10,000 square feet and evidence was everywhere.

Charlie Mays was found with credit card receipt slips worth about $415 and over $400 cash stuffed in his pockets. Police found this somewhat strange, since it was known that employee Curtis Dunaway had put all the receipts and cash into the safe earlier that evening before leaving work. Between Charlie's body and the west wall of the showroom was a shoulder holster. Police also found two bloody 38 caliber cartridges that were from the top drawer of Tommy's desk in the office. These were found behind the counter.

These cartridge showed evidence of being misfires. And Morph, I think this is an important point to jump in and talk about, right? Because a lot of people may not be familiar with the term misfire. I mean, they probably know what it means, right? Somebody pulled the trigger and the gun didn't go off. Well, how do you tell that from a cartridge, an unfired cartridge? Most of the time, and again, this is not in the research. this is just from my personal experience, most of the time you tell that from a slight indentation

in the primer. So the primer is a little piece of metal that sits in the middle of the very back of the cartridge. And it's what the hammer comes down on. That creates a spark, which ignites the gunpowder, which then propels the bullet, you know, out of the gun. A lot of times when you have a misfire, it's because the hammer struck the primer, but it was a light strike, not hard enough to ignite. So when you take a look at that cartridge on the very back where the primer is, you'll see a little indentation. That's the, from my experience, that's how you know that you've had a misfire.

And they can be very dangerous, right? You can have a misfire that doesn't go off. but it'll go off like 10 seconds later. Charlie had a single gunshot wound to the chest and one in the upper back. He was struck in the forehead with a linoleum crank, which was found lying on his hand. The soles of his shoes had dried, cake blood on them. His body was only 15 feet from the body of Perry Edwards. Between the two men lay five guns.

Police took photographs of the scene and Charlie's body was photographed with a tooth clearly lying on his shirt. But the tooth was never collected into evidence. and it's not clear what happened to it or who it belonged to. Two important pieces of evidence were blatantly missing from the scene, and those were fingerprints and gunshot residue. The guns were wiped clean, and Tommy's clothing tested negative for gunshot residue, even though the state later alleged that he fired a total of 28 shots.

Add on top of this, not a single bullet. out of all the shots fired, managed to hit and break a single window. So according to the detective's theory, the night played out like this. Tommy drove his wife to the store after it closed, then shot her. He waited for her parents, who he knew were coming to pick up a lazy boy as a Christmas present. When they arrived, he shot them. Before Perry Edwards was shot, he must have.

he must have fought and struggled with Tommy. Tommy beat him with the linoleum crank handle. Then Charlie arrived and Tommy beat and shot him. The theory goes on to say that Tommy stuffed the cash and receipts into Charlie's pockets to make it look like a robbery. And then he used his army experience to give himself a non-fatal gunshot wound. Then he called the police. chief. So what's the motive here in this theory? Police say it was money. And to further that,

they say that Tommy recently took out two life insurance policies on UNIS worth $250,000 apiece. Morph, that is a lot of money in 1975. Hell, that's a lot of money today. But half a million in 1975, that is a chunk of change. It definitely could be looked at as a motive for murder. We know money is quite often the motive behind many murders. The puzzling thing is, if money was the motive for these murders, why did he need that money? We couldn't find any evidence that he was in financial trouble or had any gambling debts. so if money really was the motive for the murders,

what was he planning to do with that money? Now, all of that was circumstantial until Edward Williams showed up at around midnight at the police station and gave his version of what happened that night. Edward said Tommy had arranged to meet him at Tommy's house at around 7 p.m. to help move furniture. Edward said he found a note that was attached to the garage

saying Tommy was going to be late, so Edward waited for him. Tommy soon pulled up to the house. house with two people Edward couldn't identify and asked him to wait there saying he'd be back in 10 minutes. Tommy returned alone. At around 8.30 p.m., Edward noticed that when Tommy got into his car to head to the furniture store, his pants had a patch of blood on them. However, later testing revealed that it wasn't blood on his pants, but actually wood polish. Edward went on to say that they drove to the store and he noticed right away that it was dark. Tommy made his way into the store

and called for Edward to come in. But because there were no lights on, Edward didn't see that Tommy had a pistol, which he claims Tommy attempted to shoot him with. But when he fired the gun jam, Edward asked Tommy if he was trying to kill him. And Tommy replied, he thought Edward was an intruder, which is a strange thing to say, more if I think when you've just called the guy to come into the store with you. But Edward said that Tommy handed him the gun. But instead of staying, Edward put the gun in his pocket and ran to the KFC across the street. He said that he then tried to call police, but he couldn't get a hold of them. So instead he called his friend who drove him to his other car a Chevy Camero.

Now, I know it's 1975, but was it really that hard to get a hold of the police in 1975? I mean, I think that's something more if we have to look at as we're dissecting the version of events told by this guy, Edward. Edward later showed up at the police department with the gun and it was determined later to be one of the murder weapons. But for some reason, and you can say that about a lot of the things in this. this case, Edward's hands were never tested for gunshot residue. He also mentioned to police that Tommy had contacted him in June of that year regarding the sale of two hot untraceable guns. So I think the question that arises out of that, we've already talked about all of the guns that Tommy had. Some of them were very nice guns, right? He could afford Remington's and Smith and

Wessons. So why the need to go out and purchase a couple of low-quality, untraceable guns? Well, to police, it was because he was planning the murder and he didn't want these guns to be traced back to him, to Tommy. A young man named Thomas Buddy Felton told police he met with Charlie Mays on Christmas Eve at the store to help Charlie with the TV. Tommy told Charlie and Buddy to get into car and they drove to a nearby Orange Grove. Tommy handed both men guns and asked

them to fire them out the window. The men fired three or four shots into the ground. Police theorized that Tommy did this to get their fingerprints on the guns so as to lead the detectives to Felton and Charlie as the perpetrators and not Tommy. The three men returned to the store

where Tommy parked in back but he said that Tommy asked him to turn off the power switch on the outside of the building. He then said that Tommy jumped the fence, picked up a pipe, and tried to break a window. And he did this because he said he forgot his keys. Tommy asked Charlie and Buddy to jump the fence. Charlie jumped over, but Felton chose not to.

Tommy then invited Charlie into the store and Charlie went in while Buddy sat outside in the car. After a few minutes of waiting, he walked across the street to. a convenience store and he never went back. But he claims that after he left, Tommy headed back home where he would then meet Edward Williams. Buddy later contacted police when he heard about the murders. I think my question morph is if Buddy left walked across to the convenience store and never came back, how in the world does he know what Tommy did later? How does he know that he headed back home? and met up with Edward Williams. I'm really struggling with that. Yeah, it makes you question whether he's being truthful and this really played out the way

he's claiming it did. I mean, to be honest with you, I'm struggling with what a lot of people in this case are saying. I mean, it's obvious that everyone cannot be telling the truth, right? There's one real version of events. So that means that some of these people are not telling the truth. I mean, there's no, there's no way around it. We mentioned way back near the beginning of this episode that part of the detective's theory was that Tommy Ziegler was secretly gay. Police suspected that Eunice found out about it and that she was planning to leave Tommy that Christmas. Eunice's brother, Perry Edwards Jr., alleged that Tommy committed the murders to prevent her from leaving him. By December 29th,

1975. This was less than a week after the murders, while Tommy Ziegler was still recovering from his wounds. Police decided that Tommy was guilty and charged him with all four murders. Tommy Ziegler is going to go to trial. Information received from a man named Robert Foster. This was a guy that was supposedly a close friend of Charlie Mays was included in the arrest warrant for Tommy Ziegler. But during the trial later on, detectives testified that this Robert Foster didn't exist and that the name on the warrant was a typographical error. It would come out later after the trial that Robert Foster did exist. And this is going to be important as we get into Tommy Ziegler's trial. At the beginning of the trial in June 1976, Tommy's lawyer, Ralph Terry Hadley tried to get the judge, Maurice Paul, to recuse himself because of a previous

incident with Tommy and himself. Terry Hadley defended the owner of a local bar on charges that he sold a $5 envelope of marijuana to an undercover officer. A beverage control agent then used that arrest as a reason to revoke the bar owner's liquor license. Tommy testified as a character witness for the bar owner, and because of his testimony, the bar owner was able to keep his license. Judge Paul denied the request to recuse himself, saying that he could be unbiased. He also denied Hadley's request to delay the trial. Tommy testified on his own behalf at trial. He said that he and Edward drove to the store. Tommy entered the back hallway first and someone struck him in the head. They fought. He lost his glasses. He said that he saw the vague outlines

of two what he called dark blurbs, one larger than the other. He pulled his pistol from his waist holster and unfortunately the gun jammed, so he tossed it. After that, he was beaten. He described it as he was flying through the air, bouncing off the walls, bouncing off refrigerators, shelves. He was knocked into a hallway where he was able to grab his Colt 357 revolver, that he kept in his desk drawer.

He said that he swung the gun with everything that he had and he connected with someone. He then felt what to him seemed like a hot poker in his stomach and heard someone say, Maze's shot, kill him. According to Tommy, everything happened so quickly. And this battle was so brutal in the dark store that he really couldn't add in more details. When he was questioned about the life insurance policies, Tommy admitted to purchasing both policies. His personal lawyer suggested he buy a policy since his father had just suffered a stroke, and Tommy had just become the company's president. He admitted that when he got two offers from

two separate customers of his that sold life insurance, it was only fair to support both of them in their businesses by buying one policy from each customer. He also spoke very kindly of his late wife Eunice saying, quote, my wife and I were closer and more compatible than we were when we got married. So more if this is the mid-1970s, right? Obviously way before DNA ever played a role in solving crimes. So during the trial, the blood evidence was a very important factor. The prosecution said the blood found on Tommy shirt came from Perry Edwards. Now, what's interesting is that Perry and Charlie both had type A blood. And at the time that these tests took place, the testing couldn't narrow it down to a specific person as the source

of that blood. So rather than take Tommy's word, which was that it was Charlie May's blood, they took the word of Edward Williams and claimed that it was the blood of Perry Edward. The prosecution stated that this came from Tommy, holding Perry Edwards in a headlock and beating him until he died. So if Tommy was responsible for beating Perry, it was only reasonable, according to the prosecution, that he was responsible for the rest of the murders as well. The prosecution talked about some of the blood evidence. They said that Tommy sure didn't contain a lot of his own blood. There was a little bit under the armpit of his shirt. There was a little bit of spatter.

Their contention was that the dried blood on Tommy's shirt was consistent with Tommy's family being shot first. And then at least 30 minutes later, Charlie Mays being shot and beaten. Police believe that the bullets recovered from the scene were shot randomly, more than likely as a tactic to throw the police off of their original trajectory. Police were able to pinpoint an exact time that at least one bullet was shot because it hit a clock and caused it to stop at exactly 7.24 p.m. Some witness testimony that the defense could have used in trial was the testimony of a couple named Kan and Linda Roach. They claimed to have driven passive furniture stored at around 7.20 p.m. and heard at least a dozen shots. They saw approximately four cars outside, as well as an African American man walking around. This was approximately 10 minutes before Charlie or Buddy Felton would have arrived.

Based on the speed Roach was going, 35 miles per hour, and the number of shots they reported. It was determined that Ken and Linda heard all the shots in approximately four seconds. Mike, I know you do a lot of shooting. Do you think it's possible for one person to shoot a gun that many times in the seconds that it took for the roaches to drive by? So I will say this. It is possible. There are top level competitive shooters that fire extremely quickly. But that's not what we're talking about here, right?

To my knowledge, nobody involved in this case is a top level competitive shooter. That would be, it's very quick firing. There's no doubt about it. So under the right circumstances with the right shooter and the right weapon, it's possible. But I guess it's also likely that more than one shot, shooter with more than one gun could be involved too? I think that's absolutely true. You know, don't forget some of the guns, at least some of the guns that we were talking about were revolvers. So you have to add that factor in as well. I think it's plausible that

there could have been more than one shooter and more than one gun. That would make it much easier, right, to fire off that many shots in that amount of time, assuming that the calculation is correct. The state interviewed the roaches but told them that their testimony wasn't needed. The state rested their case on what was really a heap of mostly circumstantial evidence and testimony that was never corroborated. It only took the jury about 25 minutes to deliberate. But during that 25 minutes, it started out split right down the middle, 6-6. But it ended with 11 jurors thinking Ziegler, was guilty and one juror thinking he was innocent. The holdout was a juror named Irma Brickle. She brought up to the judge both privately in his chambers and on the record that she was being harassed

by other jurors during the deliberations. She said that one even went so far as to put one of the revolvers from evidence up to her head and pulled the trigger. But instead of finding New Jersey, jurors. The judge allegedly gave her Valium. And then after a short period of time, she rejoined the jury and changed her opinion. And on July 2nd, 1976, the jury found Tommy Ziegler guilty of murder and recommended that his sentence be life in prison. And more, if we have to spend a few minutes talking about what allegedly went on during these deliberations. It's not tough for me to imagine being a holdout and having other jurors try to sway your opinion. I think that happens a lot of the time.

What is tough to imagine is being a holdout and being so harassed, so coerced into changing your vote that another juror puts a empty gun to your head, cocks it, and pulls the trigger. Now, this is what Irma Brickle has said happened. That's hard to believe that that would go on in a deliberation room. I think it's even harder to believe that once she told the judge about it,

he basically allegedly said, here's a value, deal with it. Yeah, I'm not calling her into question. I'm not saying that, this stuff didn't happen, and maybe I'm using the wrong words, it just blows me away, though. That same year, the law prohibiting the death penalty was overturned, and in a move by the judge

that is now considered constitutional, Judge Paul sentenced Tommy to death. For almost 44 years, Tommy has been on death row proclaiming his innocence, and fighting to get the case looked at once again, this time, using the latest DNA test that he believes will prove his innocence. His story, has never changed, and he's always kept a positive attitude about the situation. Many theorized the reason why Tommy wasn't put to death years ago is due to the public uproar that may ensue if it happens, and he is truly not guilty. Well, I'll say this, more 44 years is a long time to be on death row, right? No doubt.

If you look at a lot of the cases that you and I have done, either on criminology or some of our other podcast, that's a long time. I also believe that because there was a lot of blood evidence in this case, it's kind of ripe for advanced DNA testing that they didn't have available back then. Hopefully they'll get all that stuff done and we'll know for sure one way or the other what happened in this case. Since Tommy was sentenced to death, his case was featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and the show arranged to have Tommy examined by a polygraph expert who concluded that Tommy was telling the truth. Now, we all know. Polygraphs are not admissible in court, but you take it for what it's worth. In 2002, Tommy paid for the testing of four one-inch

squares from his clothing that has been kept in a climate-controlled storage unit. The clothing tests cost about $1,000 per square, and they concluded that not a single drop of blood on any of the squares tested matched that of Perry Edwards. The locations of the squares were not chosen at random. They came from his undershirt and three very specific places on his pants. A forensic scientist said that the test would directly reveal. whether or not Tommy was the killer. The courts were presented with this information,

but they said that the lack of Perry's DNA was not exculpatory enough to warrant Tommy getting a new trial. Evidence in Tommy's case known as the Jellison tapes were recovered later on. The tapes were loaded with information that it presented to the defense team could have corroborated Tommy's version of events.

In 1976, a Minnesota tourist named, John Jellison gave a statement to police that was taped. Jellison was staying at a hotel next to the Ziegler Furniture Store on the night of the murders. According to Jellison, at just after 8 p.m., he saw a police officer in a shooting position leaning on the hood of his patrol car at the rear of the furniture store. Suddenly, shots rang out from within the store, and other police pulled up just after the shots. This was crucial to the timeline, because the prosecution claimed that the murderers had to have been committed between 7 and 8 p.m.

These gunshots were after 8 p.m. While a police officer was on scene, the tapes were never turned over to the defense team, and were only later discovered when Tommy hired a private detective to dig into all the evidence. Other evidence that was unearthed was about a man named Robert Foster. We talked about Robert Foster. This is the name of the man that police claimed was only a typo. and didn't exist. But we said he actually did exist. This man, Robert Foster, who was a friend of Charlie Mays, was arrested the same night of the furniture store murders. He was arrested for a robbery

that took place across the street from the furniture store. It turned out that Foster had a long criminal history for robbery. In 1971, he was caught with his brother, stealing television sets from a furniture store. And this is the guy who, again, was very close friends with Charlie Mays and whose testimony policed used to arrest Tommy Ziegler. Tommy Ziegler is now 74 years old. And he's still fighting to have evidence looked at. And the Ziegler family has money. So Tommy has stated, you know what? This is not going to cost the taxpayers anything. We'll pay to have the DNA tested. But for years, Tommy's pleas went unanswered. That is until January 3rd, 2019, when Tommy Ziegler got really what was his first good bit of news in over four decades. That's when

the Florida State Attorney's Office said that they were going to take a fresh look at the case. Now, that was just earlier this year. So it remains to be seen what the outcome will be, but if some of the new DNA techniques are used in testing this evidence, it may once and for all answer the question using science. Did Tommy Ziegler kill four people? Or is he an innocent man that's been locked up for 40 plus years? And Morph, you and I have talked about this quite a bit. We've gone over some of the new DNA techniques. We spent a whole season, right? talking about cases that were solved using some of these new techniques. I don't see how there's any way that if this happens, it doesn't get settled once and for all.

Either Tommy Ziegler murdered four people or he was an innocent man who essentially lost his entire life sitting in prison. Yeah, you would think that the state would want the right person to be in prison. paying for these crimes. You would think that. But in a lot of the cases that we do, wouldn't you agree that it seems like there is a lot of pushback from the state in some of these instances? It's almost as if, and I think this is the reason, they don't want to be proven wrong. You would think that they just would want to get to the truth, right? Isn't that what everybody is seeking? but it doesn't always seem that way, and that's frustrating sometimes.

Special thanks for writing and research assistance in this episode goes out to Lana Hyatt and to Debbie Buck at True Crime Diva.com. As always, if you love the show, go out and give us a five-star rating. You can give us a review, but keep telling your friends. Word of mouth is huge for the show. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at CriminologyPod. you can find us on Facebook by searching for criminology podcast. You can also find our discussion group called Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. All right, Morph, so that is

it for another episode of criminology, the story of Tommy Ziegler. It's a tragic story all the way around, especially if Tommy Ziegler ends up being proven innocent. I mean, four people lost their life. That part is unbelievably tragic. What will also be extremely tragic is if it comes out that this man has spent what will at the time probably be at least 45 years of his life in prison for something that he didn't even do. And on top of that, you know, one of the individuals killed was his wife. So, you know, if he did it, then he's right where he should be. But if he didn't, I just can't even start to imagine what it would be like to be locked up for that period of time or any period of time to be honest with you for something that you knew deep down in your heart you didn't do. If that's how this thing shakes out.

But we'll be back with you next Saturday night, as always, with a brand new episode of. of criminology. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you to them. Take care, everyone.