Overview
- Florida's longest-serving death row inmate Tommy Zeigler returned to an Orange County courtroom for an evidentiary hearing that opened Monday.
- Defense attorney Terry Hadley said new DNA results show no blood from Zeigler’s wife or in-laws on his clothing, which they argue supports a new trial or release.
- Lawyers played a tape of a motel guest stating he heard no gunshots until after an officer arrived behind the store, a recording not presented to the 1976 jury.
- Circuit Court Judge Leticia Marques is presiding over the weeklong proceeding, with a decision expected a few weeks after it concludes.
- Zeigler, 80, appeared frail in a wheelchair with an oxygen bottle after recent infirmary care, as the court revisits the 1975 killings of Eunice Zeigler, Perry and Virginia Edwards, and Charlie Mays.