Some other of William's acts that night also were questionable. Why did he stop to urinate outside the building when two restrooms—which he himself had helped to build—were just a few feet away?  Why did he not try to call the police a second time from the restaurant?  Once he was away from Winter Garden, why did he not call the sheriff, or stop at one of the sheriff's stations?

He claimed to be so shaken that he could hardly drive.  Yet he managed to make his way more than a dozen miles to his friend Mary Ellen Stewart, who lived only a short distance from the 33rd Street sheriff's station.  The main sheriff's office is within half a dozen blocks of the intersection of Route 50 and Interstate 4; Williams said that he didn't go there "because I got in traffic"—at perhaps two hours before midnight on Christmas Eve.  Instead he took the freeway's 33rd Street off-ramp.  The sheriff's 33rd Street facility was located within a block of the freeway exit, yet Williams drove on to Stewart's home. Why did he not go directly to the police?

Furthermore, the drive to south Orlando should have taken no more than half an hour; that would have put him at Stewart's house by 10:00 P.M.  Williams swore that he and Stewart had only a short conversation inside her house, and that he went outside and waited for her while she made a telephone call to ask advice about what he should do.  Then she and her son-in-law drove with Williams to the sheriff's station.  This should have required only a few minutes.  Yet Williams apparently did not show up at the sheriff's station until well after 11:00 P.M.  He appeared at the Winter Garden police station around midnight.

In essence, why did Edward Williams wait nearly three hours to tell the authorities that someone had tried to take his life?

Mary Stewart deposition of May 7 only muddled the question.  She claimed that Williams spoke on the telephone to her pastor and a representative of the NAACP.  Williams denied having any telephone conversations.  He said that he told Mrs. Stewart only part of what happened at the store.  Yet in her original statement to the police, she repeated Williams's story almost verbatim, using many of the same phrases and locutions.

On the afternoon of May 25, Hadley and Vernon Davids deposed Williams a second time in the state attorney's conference room.  They also brought Dr. Allen Zimmer, the psychiatrist who had recently examined Zeigler. Zimmer was seated beside Hadley.  Hadley had asked him to observe Williams.  If the psychiatrist believed that Williams was lying or discomfited by a certain line of questions, Zimmer was to nudge Hadley, with his foot.

Jack Bachman, a state attorney's  investigator, represented the prosecution.

Williams seemed unhappy to be there.  Immediately after he was sworn he said: "I'd like to ask a question before I get started.  Could I?"