Gavin did not subgroup these important specimens, although they were received before they were a week old.1

Furthermore, none of the other tests was time-dependent. Ballistic evidence, for example, could be tested anytime.  Even fingerprints tend to be far less fragile than dry blood samples.  The only possible conflict was with hair-and-fiber testing of the clothes; but even this should have been no impediment, since gathering hair-and-fiber evidence consists simply of brushing each piece of clothing over a clean sheet of paper.

In effect, the decision to delay blood grouping until after all the other tests were finished meant the destruction of evidence that was potentially the most important in the case, certainly the most perishable.

Five more forensic specialists testified through most of Tuesday, June 22.

An FBI hair-and-fiber examiner said that he found on Zeigler's right shoe a head hair identical to that of Perry Edwards.  But the value of this discovery was questionable, since Zeigler could innocently have picked up the hair at home, or even at the back of the store, another hair similar to that of Mr. Edwards was found on Mays's sweatshirt.

Two small fibers under the fingernails of Charlie Mays were similar to the fabric of Zeigler's shirt.  Don Frye believed this demonstrated Zeigler and Mays had struggled before Zeigler killed him. But the fibers equally supported Zeigler's version, since be claimed to have grappled with assailants in the back of the showroom.

The FBI's Robert Sibert testified to the major ballistics findings. The fatal bullets from the head wounds of Perry and  Virginia Edwards were matched to the Securities Industries revolver, while the bullet that had killed Eunice shared class characteristics of both RG revolvers.  The "grove bullet" and the Securities pistol shared an unusual rifling pattern that Sibert said he had never before encountered.  However, Sibert could not positively match the bullet and that pistol.

Sibert also testified that he had examined the entrance hole at the front of Zeigler's outer shirt.  He said that he found unburned power grains, gunshot residue, and "blast discoloration" around the edges of the hole, and concluded that the shot had been fired at a distance of less than six inches.

Stephen Platt, a forensic chemist at the Sanford Crime Lab, testified about the few items of physical evidence that were sent to that facility.  He said that he detected human blood, too little for typing, on the tissue from Curtis Dunaway's car.

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1  The specimens were from dry blood drops and smears around the showroom.  If gathered and processed correctly, they represented a complete picture of where each of the victims was shot and where he or she went after being shot.  They also could have proved, or virtually disproved, the existence of an unknown sixth bleeder at the scene.