Q: (DAVIDS): Where did you first see Mr. Williams that night?

A: (ROGENIA THOMAS): Well, I seen him at the Kentucky Fried Chicken.  He was standing outside of the Kentucky Fried Chicken.  My sister and I drove up and was going to get something to eat and he was standing on the outside....He was standing there nervous-like, shaking.  Really, I don't know what was wrong with him.  Because it scared me, you know. So he was—my sister got out of the car and she went jiving with him the way you usually do when you're playing around.  He keeps saying help me, just like that.  I looked at him, like I got afraid of him myself.  Like he was shook, nervous, and mumbling with his words.  He kept saying help me, help me....He was talking like he didn't want to stay around there and tell us anything.  He said, just help me.  I want you to take me to my car at the Exxon gas station on Route 50.  We said okay.

Q: Is that the first thing he asked you to do?

A: Yes.

Q: He didn't ask you to take him to Orlando?

A: No, because his car was at the Exxon gas station. And he asked us to take him there.  So we took him. We asked him what was wrong and he told us when we got inside the car, when we were riding along....He was telling us a white man pulled a gun on him and the gun went off three times, snapped three times but it didn't go off.  That's what he told us.  He told us that when the man pulled the gun and the gun didn't go off, the white man fell on his knees and begged him not to tell the police.  That's what he told us....

Q: That's what he said, a white—

A: A white man pulled the gun on him, pulled three times but it didn't go off.  The white man fell on his knees and begged him not to tell the police.... He pushed him and took the gun and jumped the fence and that's where he wind up at, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Three times Davids questioned the young woman on this point.  Did Williams say that Tommy Zeigler tried to kill him?  No.  Did he say that the man he worked for had tried to kill him?  No.  Was she sure? Yes, she was sure: Edward Williams said that "a white man", had tried to kill him in the furniture store.

She added that the time was between 9:00 P.M., and 9:30.

To the defense, this seemed curious behavior.  As Williams told it, his friend and employer of more than a decade—a man known to nearly everyone in Winter Garden—had just tried to kill him.  Yet Williams said that "a white man tried to kill me."  Hadley and Davids thought that something frightened Williams that night.  But they didn't believe that a mere three clicks in a half-dark store could