A trail of blood, rug fibers and cat fur show it is impossible for Florida death row inmate Tommy Zeigler to have killed his wife and in-laws on Christmas Eve 1975, his lawyers assert in a new court filing.
Fresh DNA analysis of dozens of pieces of evidence instead supports Zeigler’s story of walking in on a burglary at his family’s furniture store in Winter Garden, his lawyers say, and provides enough reasonable doubt to overturn his convictions.
The results upend what Orange County prosecutors told Zeigler’s 1976 jury: that Zeigler, who is white, shot and killed his wife, mother-in-law and father-in-law, then lured three Black men to the store to blame them for the murders, killing one. The tests also point to another man as the killer…