have known that he would be killing Eunice and her parents shortly before 7:30.  Mays was supposed to be eager to receive his bargain-priced TV.  If he had driven up while shots were being fired inside the store—Eagan claimed that Zeigler was killing Perry and Virginia Edwards at 7:24—then Zeigler's elaborate plot would have been ended hardly before it began.

If we are to believe that Zeigler is guilty, we must believe that Edward Williams was terrified for hours by three clicks in the darkness.  Williams said that when he heard the gun snapping, he knew immediately that Zeigler was trying to kill him.

Williams's reaction, as he described it, might have been appropriate at the climax of a tense, uncertain situation.  But this was not the case on Christmas Eve.  He knew Zeigler well, and trusted him.  As far as Williams knew, their errand was routine.  He had no reason to be anything but relaxed as he walked up the hallway toward the showroom.  Moreover, visibility was marginal at best, and Zeigler was suppose to have wrapped a towel around the object that he carried in his right hand.  Yet Williams claimed that he knew at once that the clicking was from a gun, and was instantly terrified, certain that Zeigler was trying to kill him.  Moreover, his terror did not ebb when he got away from Zeigler.  In fact, by his testimony, it grew greater. He managed to drive his Camaro from Winter Garden to Mary Ellen Stewart's home in Orlando, yet claimed that two hours or more after the incident, he was so shaken that he could not drive the few blocks to the sheriff's station.

If we are to believe that Zeigler is guilty, we must accept that he allowed the two principal witnesses against him to escape without a struggle.  First, according to Felton Thomas, Zeigler left him sitting in the Oldsmobile while he took Charlie Mays into the store and killed him.  Thomas said that Zeigler tried to coax him inside, then gave up and told him to stay in the car when he refused to follow Zeigler into the dark building.

But Zeigler did not have to coax Thomas.  According to Thomas himself.  Zeigler had a bag of loaded pistols; he could have forced Thomas into the store at gunpoint, or at least tried to do so.

Later, according to Edward Williams, Zeigler tried to coax him back into the store after Williams ran out.  Williams represented Zeigler's last chance to stage the burglary successfully.  According to the state's  case, Williams's escape was so disastrous that Zeigler was forced to shoot himself in order to deflect suspicion.  But Zeigler never physically tried to bring Williams into the store.

The two men weighed about the same, and Zeigler was more than twenty years younger than Williams.  Yet Zeigler never tried to fight or wrestle the man whose knowledge could wreck him forever, who had to be killed if the plan was to succeed.