WINTER GARDEN, Fla. (WFLA) — After spending nearly 49 years on death row, convicted mass murderer Tommy Zeigler could soon win his freedom.
Defense attorney Terry Hadley has represented Zeigler since the night of the Winter Garden murder on Christmas Eve, 1975. Now, the latest DNA analysis results have prompted Hadley to seek a new trial.
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“We believe the evidence that Tommy Zeigler is innocent is very conclusive,” Hadley told NBC affiliate WESH.
The complaint, filed Friday and obtained by WESH, cites the “absence of family blood stains on Zeigler’s clothing” as proof that “Zeigler could not have committed the murder.”
Zeigler was nearly 31 years old when he was sentenced to death for the murders of his wife Eunice and in-laws. Two of the victims were found dead from gunshot wounds, and the others were reportedly bludgeoned to death.
Despite a gunshot wound to his abdomen, prosecutors determined Zeigler fired the shot to cover up the crime. However, Zeigler, who will turn 80 in July, continued to maintain his innocence throughout his sentence.
“I have been fighting for my name all these years. I want my name back! I have done everything I can to prove my innocence,” Zeigler said in February 2023, when he was sentenced to death. A prisoner told WESH 2 Investigations in an interview.
Initial, inaccurate DNA tests led a court to deny his bid to clear his name, but Zeigler and his lawyers spent decades fighting to have the evidence reexamined.
Their wishes finally came true in December 2022, when a judge granted their request to reexamine the evidence using the latest DNA technology. Then-Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody objected to the motion, but the Florida Supreme Court denied her request for an emergency appeal.
Zeigler’s lawyers say the new DNA results create sufficient “reasonable doubt as to Zeigler’s guilt.”
