WINTER GARDEN, Fla. (WFLA) — After spending near 49 years on demise row, convicted mass assassin Tommy Zeigler might quickly win his freedom.
Protection Legal professional Terry Hadley has represented Zeigler because the night time of the killings on Christmas Eve, 1975, in Winter Backyard. Now, the outcomes from fashionable DNA evaluation have prompted Hadley to ask for a brand new trial.
“We predict the proof could be very conclusive that Tommy Zeigler is an harmless man,” Hadley instructed NBC affiliate WESH.
A movement filed Friday, and obtained by WESH, cites “the absence of blood of Zeigler’s members of the family on his clothes” as proof that “Zeigler couldn’t have dedicated the murders.”
Zeigler was practically 31 years previous when he was sentenced to demise for the murders of his spouse, Eunice, and his in-laws. Two of the victims have been discovered lifeless from gunshot wounds, whereas the others have been reportedly crushed to demise.
Regardless of a gunshot wound to his abdomen, prosecutors decided that Zeigler had shot himself in an try and cowl up his crimes. Nonetheless, over the course of his sentence, Zeigler, who turns 80 in July, has remained steadfast in his innocence.
“I have been combating all these years for my title. I would like my title again! I’ve carried out every little thing on this planet that I might to show my innocence,” Zeigler stated throughout an interview with WESH 2 Investigates from demise row in February 2023.
Whereas early, less-accurate DNA testing resulted in courtroom rejections of motions to clear his title, Zeigler and his attorneys spent many years battling to have the proof reexamined.
They lastly bought their want in December 2022 when a movement to retest the proof with fashionable DNA expertise was granted by a decide. Florida’s legal professional normal on the time, Ashley Moody, fought the movement, however the Florida Supreme Court docket rejected her movement for an emergency enchantment.
In accordance with Zeigler’s authorized crew, the brand new DNA outcomes create sufficient “cheap doubt about Zeigler’s guilt.”
