Nine

On the 26th, Frye went to Orange Memorial hoping to interview the suspect.  He met Ralph "Terry" Hadley III, a young local attorney whom Zeigler and his family had hired earlier that day.  Hadley was becoming known as a skilled criminal lawyer; before going into private practice he had worked under the Orange-Osceola state attorney, Robert Eagan, who would prosecute the case.

Frye asked Hadley for permission to interview Zeigler, Hadley refused.  But a day or two later Hadley did report Zeigler's version of the incident.

This is the story that Hadley related in part to Frye that day, and that Zeigler has maintained to this day:

Zeigler said that Eunice and her parents went to the store without him, in the Edwardses' Ford.  Zeigler stayed at home, waiting for Edward Williams.  According to Zeigler, the appointment with Williams was for 7:00, not 7:30, and Williams was late.  Zeigler said he left a note for Williams and went to buy bourbon for the party, driving Dunaway's car.  But he changed his mind before he got to the liquor store.  He turned around and came home.

Zeigler said that Williams was waiting for him when he returned, and they drove to the store in Williams's truck.  The store was dark when they arrived.  Zeigler walked in ahead of Williams, entering the northwest hallway, and was assaulted by at least two men as he entered the showroom.  He lost his glasses and was unable to see the darkness. He may have fired one shot from the .22 automatic at his side, but the pistol jammed, and he threw it at his assailants.  He was knocked back into the hallway, and he reached into a drawer where he had recently put the .357 Colt.  He may have fired that gun—he didn't know how many shots—and then he himself was shot and knocked to the floor, and he lost consciousness.

According to Hadley, Zeigler said that the assailants were gone when he regained consciousness at the back of the store.  He crawled along the floor near the back of the showroom, went into his office, found his spare pair of glasses, and phoned Don Ficke, who he knew would be at the Van Deventer home.  The keys with which he opened the door, when Ficke and Thompson arrived, were the set that he had given to Eunice before she left with her parents.  He had found them there in the lock.

Hadley suggested to Frye that retribution against Zeigler, not robbery, might have been the prime reason for the killings.  He said that Zeigler had been compiling information on organized loan sharking in West Orange's migrant labor camps, and had made enemies.