ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida prosecutors turned to a blood stain analyst to start off their case to keep Tommy Zeigler on death row Thursday.
The hearing on new DNA evidence could lead to a retrial for Florida’s longest-serving death row inmate, who was convicted of the 1975 murders of four people at his Winter Garden furniture store: Zeigler’s wife, Eunice, her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards, and Charlie Mays.
Zeigler has long maintained his innocence.
The first witness for the state’s case was Anna Cox, an independent blood spatter and stain analyst who forged her career while working in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.
[WATCH: Modern DNA tests challenge key evidence in 1976 Zeigler murder conviction]
Cox said she analyzed evidence, including clothing from Zeigler and the victims, pictures from the crime scene, and also toured the store in Winter Garden, which is still in existence.
Cox said her report showed “castoff” blood stains found on Zeigler’s shirt under the collar and on the interior seam of the front of the shirt came from victim Charlie Mays. She contends those stains would have come if Mays was actively bleeding at the time.
“The areas of yellow that I indicated on the shirt were areas that I identified as either spatter or irregular stains possibly consistent with castoff. So those are stains that are distributed by an action that can be related to being part of a blood-letting event when it’s occurring,” Cox said.
Zeigler’s attorneys contend that Mays may have actually been one of the attackers. Cox said no blood spatter was found from the other victims on Mays’ clothing. She also said Zeigler was the possible source of several bloody shoe prints around the store, because she was able to rule out the shoes of the other people inside.
“They exhibit the characteristics which I’ve been describing today, which are linear lines and separated by evenly spaced voids,” Zeigler said.
In cross-examination, Zeigler’s attorneys noted that Cox’s analysis contradicted several points made by other analysts for the state over the last 50 years.
In one key point, Cox said she saw no indication that were signs of “significant alterations to blood deposition” on victim Perry Edwards that would be caused by a “dynamic activity” like a fight.
However, the courts have found in the past that Zeigler and Edwards “struggled for some time,” and also that Zeigler held Edwards around the neck and clubbed him with a crank, causing at least 10 lacerations on his head.
But while Cox found castoff spatter around Mays’ body, she did not see any around Edwards.
“OK, and just so we’re clear,” the defense attorney said. “You didn’t find any evidence in your review of this file that Perry Edwards struggled for some time with anybody at the crime scene, did you?”
“I have no blood evidence to support that,” Cox said.
Edwards was also shot, and the state has argued in the past that he was shot at close range.
The evidentiary hearing will continue on Friday.