Twenty-one

Every day for almost two weeks, Pete Ragsdale and Vernon Davids examined the furniture store, floor to ceiling.

Gene Annan went looking for witnesses.  According to the state's theory, as the defense came to understand it, more than an hour and a half had passed from the time Zeigler brought his wife to the store to the time he shot himself after Edward Williams's escape.  During the time, Zeigler was supposed to have fired more than two dozen shots; left the store after the first three murders for some unknown reason, and then returned to meet Charlie Mays; attempted to break into the store; driven from the store to the orange grove and back; and made three trips between his house and the store.

Dillard was a major street.  On Christmas Eve, the Tri-City shopping center was open until 9:00, and the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant served customers even later than that.  Hundreds of people must have driven past the store while Zeigler was supposedly executing his plan.1

Moreover, the two-story back wing of the Winter Garden Inn directly overlooked the furniture store's rear compound, where Zeigler was supposed to have coaxed Mays over the fence and later begged Edward Williams to come back into the store.

Besides Thomas Hale, the prosecution had statements from Barbara Spencer, who heard the shots, while she sat in her parents' home nearby, and Barbara Woodard, who saw someone resembling Zeigler at the front of the store as she exited the shopping center on Christmas Eve. Surely dozens of others could contradict—or confirm—details of the state's theory and the statements by Williams and Felton Thomas.

In fact, four people close to Zeigler came forth with information.

Lee Jones had driven past the store at about 7:25, when Zeigler was supposed to have been killing Perry and Virginia Edwards inside. Jones was the bank executive who was in the hospital room on Christmas Day when Zeigler learned of Eunice's death.  He said that the store was completely dark; he took notice, because the store was always lit at night.

Jones said that he saw two cars parked in front of the store.  At this point, according to the state's theory, both the Edwardses' Ford and Curtis Dunaway's Oldsmobile should have been parked at the store. But Jones claimed that one of the two cars he saw was a dark automobile, a description that didn't fit the light green Ford or the two-tone Olds with its beige top.

Richard Smith, the physical therapist who had told Zeigler of Eunice's death, said that he and his wife, Patricia, had driven past the store at 7:57 on Christmas Eve.  The Smiths were exact about the time, because they had been hurrying home to greet guests who were due at 8:00, and had glanced at a time-temperature display outside the First State Bank on Dillard.

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1     Dillard Street is also a direct route to the First Baptist Church, which held its Christmas Eve service from about 7:30 to 8:30. Apparently neither prosecution nor defense ever canvassed the congregation to find out who had used Dillard to get to and from the church that night.