Eleven

The preliminary hearing in Florida v. Zeigler was scheduled for January 16.  Florida law required that a defendant either be indicted or be given a preliminary hearing within twenty-one days of arrest.  The state attorney, Robert Eagan, chose a preliminary hearing.  The deadline was January 18, a Sunday.  So Friday, January 16, was the last practical day the hearing could be held.  Otherwise Zeigler would have to be released, though he could be arrested again later.

The state attorney's office needed all the time it could get.  So far the FBI Lab had not returned any results.  In particular, there were no findings from the ballistics section.  The prosecution hoped to show that Eunice and her parents had been killed by Tommy Zeigler's pistols.  But until the FBI Lab came back with its report, none of the recovered bullets could be matched to any of the eight firearms. Professor MacDonell studied the crime scene on January 7, after which police relinquished the store to the defense.  But MacDonell's report would not be ready in time for the hearing.

Frye and Denny Martin continued to work.

Thomas Hale, an acquaintance of the Zeiglers, told Frye that at around 7:15 P.M. on Christmas Eve he had seen Tommy and Eunice at Route 50 and Dillard.  Hale said he was in the inner southbound lane of Dillard, waiting for the light to change, when Tommy made a left turn off Route 50.  The two cars passed within three feet of each other, with Zeigler continuing north up Dillard, toward the store.  Hale said that Eunice was beside Tommy in the front seat.

This was a breakthrough.  Hale was the first witness to place Tommy and Eunice together near the furniture store at the time of the murders.  The testimony contradicted Zeigler's assertion that he had stayed at home while Eunice drove to the store with her parents.

By inference, Hale's story supported the accounts of Felton Thomas and Edward Williams.  The left turn that Hale noticed, from Route 50 onto Dillard, suggested the same indirect route to the store that both Williams and Thomas described.

Frye interviewed Rogenia Thomas,1 one of the two young women who had met Williams outside the Kentucky Fried Chicken.  She basically corroborated Williams's story, although later there was some disagreement about whether he had actually mentioned Zeigler's name to her.

1              Apparently no relation to Felton Thomas.