History of  The Tommy Zeigler Case 

 In the 1970's, the Orange County, Florida (Orlando) citrus belt attracted large numbers of mostly black migrant fruit pickers. Winter Garden, a town on the banks of Lake Apopka, contiguous to the town of Ocoee on the east was in the heart of citrus country. Ocoee had been the scene of a serious race riot in 1920 when many blacks were killed and their homes destroyed.  No blacks lived in the city limits of Ocoee until the eighties and it is reported that, as late as the seventies, a sign at the town’s entrance read, “Nigger, don’t let the sun set on you inside city limits.”  The area was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity. Orange County Sheriff, Dave Starr, was known to be a member of the Klan and some city officials of Winter Garden were also reported to be members. Dave Starr lived in the tiny town of Oakland, also contiguous to Winter Garden on the opposite side from Ocoee.  Sheriff Starr resigned in the early seventies after more than twenty years as sheriff. 

 Even as late as 2004, then Attorney General Charles Crist (now governor) found that police were reluctant to talk about the fire-bombing death of civil rights worker, Harry Moore, because of a fear of retribution. (See the executive summary of his report, page 8.) 

1: Money lenders were making huge profits  using local businesses to fund short term loans to migrant workers. The practice was known as loan sharking.

2: Some store owners of businesses frequented by migrant workers used migrant crew bosses to distribute loans to migrant workers.

3: Crew bosses insured that workers cashed their weekly pay checks at these stores. The stores deducted the loan and interest at annual interest rates approaching 500%.

4: White Winter Garden  furniture store owner, Tommy Zeigler, extended credit to blacks on equal terms with whites.

5: Zeigler was trying to stop the loan sharking in West Orange County which exploited the migrant labor population.

6: Winter Garden store owner, Shorty Reddick, was shot and killed in a never-solved robbery. Reddick’s gun, with which he tried to use to protect himself, was discovered to be loaded with empty shell casings. There were rumors that the store was used for loan sharking.

7: Zeigler helped a black friend, Andrew James,  get a zoning variance to modernize his bar. James had one of the only black-owned bars in West Orange County. The loan sharks wanted his liqour license.

8: After Andrew James brought his bar up to code, he was  accused of allowing the sale of drugs in his new bar.

9: Zeigler helped  James find a lawyer and served as a character witness at James’s trial.

10: Circuit court judge, Maurice Paul, opposed Zeigler as a character witness for the man who accused Andrew James of selling drugs. NOTE: The Canon Judicial Ethics says, “A judge must not testify voluntarily as a character witness because to do so may lend the prestige of the judicial office in support of the party for whom the judge testifies.”

11: Andrew James was not adjudicated as guilty and kept his bar.  The house of James’ accuser was set on fire by an angry mob.

12: Zeigler was  threatened by a Winter Garden policeman who was later found guilty of a crime.

13: Long time Orange County sheriff and known Ku Klux Klan member, Dave Starr,  resigned from office. He lived in the tiny town of Oakland next to Winter Garden. He knew Zeigler and was said to be a customer of the Shorty Reddick store.

14: Oakland hired Robert Thompson, a former Gov. Claude Kirk security chief, as police chief.

15: Undercover Orange County detective, Tom DeMars, while investigating loan shark activity, was told that Charlie Mays was the shooter in the Shorty Reddick homicide. There were reports that someone had taken Reddick's gun the day before the crime and fired all of the bullets in a nearby orange grove, leaving the gun loaded with empty shell casings. (Note the similarity between this and the Zeigler murders a few years later.)

16: Charlie Mays was a migrant worker crew boss also living in the town of Oakland. Crew bosses were often used by the loan sharks to assist in the loan sharking.

17: Oakland Police Chief, Robert Thompson, delivered a Christmas basket to the Mays family on Christmas Eve day.

18: On Christmas Eve 1975, four months after the Andrew James trial, Tommy Zeigler was shot in the stomach during what appeared to be a robbery in his darkened furniture store. Zeigler’s wife, Eunice, Eunice’s parents from Georgia, and crew boss and store customer, Charlie Mays, were found dead in the store with Tommy.  Mays and Eunices’s father were both shot and bludgeoned. There were an estimated 28 bullets fired inside the store from five different hand guns. All but two of the guns were owned by Zeigler.

19: Oakland Police Chief, Robert Thompson, was first to arrive on the scene. He took Zeigler to the hospital and examined his stomach wounds made by a large caliber weapon. Zeigler's through and through bullet wound missed his liver by less than an inch.

20: Chief Thompson wrote a report that night stating that the blood from Zeigler’s entry and exit wounds was dry when he took Zeigler to the hospital.

21: While still in the hospital, Zeigler was charged with  the murders and with shooting himself in the stomach with a .357 magnum revolver to cover up his crime. Since the wound was on the right side, Zeigler would have had to hold the gun in his left hand to fire the weapon. Zeigler is right handed.

22: Circuit judge Maurice Paul was assigned to try the case. He apparently saw no conflict of interest despite his prior opposition to Zeigler in the Andrew James case a few months earlier.

23. The prosecution offered Zeigler a plea deal of 20 years. Zeigler refused to accept it.

24. According to Orange County Undersheriff, Leigh McEachern, an exparte conference was held just prior to the start of the trial with Judge Paul attending. At this unethical ex parte conference the Undersheriff reported that Judge Paul told State Attorney Bob Eagan, "You get me one murder conviction and I'll fry the son-of-a-bitch."

25: The trial was held in June 1976. Chief Robert Thompson testified that the blood from  Zeigler’s wound was wet when he took him to the hospital contrary to his written report. Wet blood supported the prosecution theory that Zeigler had shot himself just before being rescued.  Thompson quits his job after the trial.

26: The prosecution withheld the police report that said the blood around Zeigler’s stomach wound was dry. (The report was found in 1989.) Other testimony favorable to Zeigler was also withheld from the defense, including a witness report that substantiated Zeigler’s claim of possible police involvement in the crime. In addition, the state attorney ordered the sheriff department not to question Zeigler about the loan sharking.

27 On Christmas Day, Edward Williams, a black handyman hired by Zeigler to help make Christmas Eve deliveries, turned over a gun owned by Zeigler claiming that Zeigler gave him the gun after Zeigler had tried to shoot Williams with it. He claimed Zeigler forgot to reload the gun after killing the other victims. This was similar to the Shorty Reddick homicide that also included a gun that was loaded with spent shell casing.

28: The prosecution told the jury that the blood under the arm of Zeigler’s shirt came from his dead father-in-law. Zeigler claimed the it must have come from Charlie Mays because he had fought with him in the darkened store before someone else took the gun away from Zeigler and shot him in the stomach.  The prosecution also claimed the blood soaking Charlie Mays’ pants legs was Mays’ own blood. Mays and Zeigler’s father-in-law both had Type A blood. No other typing was done until recent DNA testing. 

29:  During jury deliberation, Judge Paul is reported to have arranged for one juror to take VALIUM apparently to prevent a possible hung jury. The jury convicted Zeigler, but recommended life in prison.

30:  Judge Paul overruled the jury and sentenced Zeigler to death.

31: A few years later,  Judge Paul became a federal district judge in Tallahassee. He is still there.

32: Years of appeals, most originating in the 9th Circuit which is still controlled by the same state attorneys who convicted Zeigler,  never allowed the suppressed evidence to be considered, DNA testing was finally ordered in 2003.

33: The DNA tests proved the prosecution was wrong about the blood on Zeigler’s shirt and the blood on Charlie Mays’ pants legs. The shirt blood belonged to Mays with whom Zeigler had claimed to have had a violent struggle. The blood on Mays came from Zeigler’s father-in-law whom the prosecution had claimed had been killed  an hour before Mays entered the furniture store.

34: In 2007, the Florida Supreme Court denied Zeigler a new trial based on the DNA. Supreme Court Justice Charles Wells participated in the decision despite the fact that he had been a close personal advisor to Orange County Sheriff Mel Colman at the time of the murders and therefore had independent knowledge of the case.

NOTE: The list is not in precise chronological order.