Brown's Bar in a recent photo. In 1975, the bar was owned by Zeigler's black friend, Andrew James.

Was the Ku Klux Klan Involved in the Tommy Zeigler Murders? Is the Klan Still Involved Today?

By Ray McEachern with Guidance from Leigh McEachern and Tommy Zeigler

Black voter activism precipitated the homicides of H. T. & Harriet Moore on Christmas Day, 1951, by KKK elements from Winter Garden/Apopka/Ocoee, Florida.

Black voter activism set Mississippi Burning in 1964.

Black voter activism targeted W. T. Zeigler (and family), for homicide in Winter Garden on Christmas Eve, 1975.

“If you don’t hire them – they’ll starve.  When they starve – they’ll steal.  When they steal – you just shoot’em.  That’ll solve the “N” problem!”  (Stated philosophy of Jason Kersey, Grand Dragon of the Florida Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.)

Race relations have always played a major role in the Zeigler case. That is as true today as it was 33 years ago. In 1975, whiteTommy Zeigler was seen as a champion for the black race, befriending them, extending credit, working to stop exploitation of migrant laborers, even standing up in court as a character witness for a black man falsely accused of selling drugs in his place of business. The jury that convicted Tommy was composed of 6 blacks and 6 whites. They were reluctant to find a white man innocent when it would mean that three blacks who testified against him were complicit in the murders, and one of the murder victims who was black was also involved in the attack that killed Tommy's wife and her parents and left Tommy shot through the abdomen. Even today, the judge who took control of the case in 2004 is a black man married to a black woman* who works for the white state attorney, Lawson Lamar, who has been trying to have Tommy executed for 33 years. If there is one unifying theme to explain why a man could have been denied justice by the courts for all these years, it is surely the behind the scenes power of The Invisible Knights of the Ku Klux Klan!

*(Esther Marie Whitehead is an assistant state attorney married to Judge Reginald Whitehead. Judge Whitehead, for unknown reasons, took control of the case from white Judge Grincewicz after the latter had granted a Zeigler petition for DNA testing that State Attorney Lawson Lamar opposed.)

In the nineteen seventies, Tommy Zeigler  was a successful furniture store owner in Winter Garden, a central Florida  town on the banks of Lake Apopka between the small towns of Oakland and Ocoee. Former Orange County Sheriff Dave Starr,  a known Ku Klux Klan member, lived in Oakland, and Ocoee had been the scene of a terrible race crime in the 1920's. Anger at blacks led to the killing of many black citizens and to the burning of their homes because they had the temerity to vote. No black citizens again lived within Ocoee city limits until the eighties. 

Tommy  Zeigler offered blacks credit at his store on equal terms with whites. He was instrumental in the election of a new mayor of Winter Garden through his efforts to get out the vote in the black community. That election in the early seventies led to the narrow defeat of Mayor George Barley who lived near the Zeiglers on the same street. Mayor Barley’s wife was so humiliated by her husband’s loss that she moved to another town, leaving her husband to face the ridicule alone.  Zeigler also was pressuring the new police chief of Winter Garden, Don Ficke*,  to stop the loan sharking centered around the two Reddick migrant labor camps, one named "Harlem Heights," the other called "Top Hat." Jacob “Shorty” Reddick had been the owner of the two largest migrant labor camps in west Orange County before he was murdered in his grocery store in a still unsolved murder in February 1970. Shorty Reddick’s much younger wife and her new husband, now ran the Reddick enterprise.

* (Don Ficke is now a real estate agent in Tallahassee. Thirty-three years later he refuses to speak to anyone about the case perhaps out of fear of retribution.)

When bar owner and Zeigler friend, Andrew James, was charged with selling drugs in his bar, Zeigler believed James was being framed by Reddick* allies who wanted to take over his liquor license. Andrew James had the only black-owned bar in the area, and Zeigler believed the Reddick allies  wanted to take control of it for their loan sharking operation. A year earlier,  Zeigler  had helped Andrew James keep his business, called Brown’s Bar after its first owner, when James needed a zoning variance to make improvements. Now, Tommy  found him a local attorney, Ralph Hadley, and testified as a character witness on his behalf at the trial. Zeigler even convinced Winter Garden Police Chief, Don Ficke, to testify for James as well.  When the trial ended with Andrew James keeping his bar, the house of Herbert Baker,  James’s accuser, was fire bombed. 

*(Reddick's son-in-law, Jimmy Pitchford, is said to have owned a white Cadillac in 1975, a car like the one seen by Ken and Linda Roach in front of the Zeigler Furniture Store the night of the murders. Reddick's granddaughter, Jamie Pitchford, is now an employee of the State Attorney, Lawson Lamar.)

 Four months after the racially charged James trial ended, the Zeigler’s were targeted for murder. Tommy Zeigler survived the attack that left his wife,  her parents, and a black store customer dead on the floor of the store. Four days later, while Tommy lay in hospital intensive care from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, he was arrested for the murders.  The presiding judge at Zeigler’s trial six months later was Maurice Paul. Prior to becoming a judge in 1973, Paul had been a lawyer for the state beverage agency and was a friend of Herbert Baker. Judge Paul, who had testified at the Andrew James trial as an opposing character witness to Tommy Zeigler, refused to allow another judge to preside at Zeigler’s trial. Not only was this a violation of the  Code of Judicial Conduct, it was an obvious conflict of interest. 

Thus, it is likely  that the murders in the Zeigler Furniture Store on Christmas Eve in 1975 were the result of a Ku Klux Klan inspired attack on William Thomas Zeigler. Tommy Zeigler has been on Florida’s death row for 33 years.  He has never had a new trial despite mounting evidence of his complete innocence. Zeigler has always claimed that he was the victim of an attack on him and his family which left his wife and her parents dead and Zeigler  with a serious gunshot wound to the abdomen.  Tommy now believes that, when his attackers learned he had survived,  elements in law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan conspired to frame him. A rush to judgment on the part of State Attorney Robert Eagan and the refusal of Judge Maurice Paul to step aside, perhaps because of personal animosity toward Ziegler for his role in the James trial, contributed to this miscarriage of justice. The state attorney failed to turn over an exculpatory police report which called into question the state’s theory that Zeigler had shot himself just before or just after calling police. That report, discovered years later, stated that the blood around Mr. Zeigler’s entry and exit wounds was dry when the police arrived within 3 to 4  minutes of the phone call. At trial, the policeman who wrote that report claimed that the blood was still wet.  Dried blood from both the entry and exit wounds, as the written report clearly states, meant that Mr. Zeigler had been shot an hour or more before he regained consciousness and called police.

 Leigh McEachern was Chief Deputy of the Orange County Sheriff Department in the 1970's. Leigh was present at the scene of the murders for which Mr. Zeigler was convicted the day after the crime and was a witness to Mr. Zeigler’s arrest while he was in the hospital recovering from his wounds. Leigh has always believed there was a rush to judgment in the Zeigler case and that he was not given the benefit of a fair trial.  Ray McEachern, the brother of Leigh, is a Citizen Advocate for Tommy Zeigler, and is the webmaster of a web site, www.freetommyz.com , which maintains information about the case. The McEachern brothers are the principle spokesmen for some 400 people who have signed a petition to Governor Charles Crist pleading for Zeigler’s  release.

Leigh and Ray McEachern grew up in Plant City, Florida, and as children they were frequent visitors with their grandfather to the 5000 acre Samsula, Florida,  ranch of their grandfather’s youngest brother, Jason Kersey. Jason Kersey was  well known in the community near New Smyrna Beach, Florida,  as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan from the forties to the sixties. While too young at the time to understand the Klan,  they recall hearing Jason use racial epithets that they knew their grandfather, George Kersey of Palm Harbor, Florida, strongly disapproved. They also recall visiting a community meeting hall with Jason’s children, Richard and Edward,  who were their own age. The sign over the door to the meeting room read, “SNPJC” which Edward  told them stood for “Samsula Night Prowlers and Jukers Club.” It is likely that name was a euphemism for a Klavern hall.  Leigh now believes that his great uncle, as a wealthy Klan leader,  may have financed the  murders of civil rights activists, Harry and Harriet Moore, who lived in the area and whose house was firebombed on Christmas day in 1951.

 The Moore murders may have played a role in the murders in the Zeigler Furniture Store in Winter Garden on Christmas Eve 1975 for which Tommy Zeigler was convicted in 1976 and sent to death row where he remains to this day.  A report on the Harry and Harriet Moore murders prepared by then Attorney General Charles Crist in 2004 concluded: 

“It is also possible that other members of the Klan, especially the Orlando and Apopka

Klaverns, participated in the conspiracy to murder the Moores. The record shows Moore and

his activities were discussed at several Klan meetings and members were not pleased with

Moore’s growing success at changing the existing political structure. While the murders may

not have been officially sanctioned by the Klan and the perpetrators were considered

“renegades,” other members of the Klan definitely knew Moore was being targeted.

It is also sadly evident that some members of area law enforcement were Klan members

and/or sympathizers and may not have supported the FBI’s investigation. The damage 

caused by that regrettable state of affairs is still evident today, as this investigation 

concluded that a number of witnesses were reluctant to be completely candid with 

this investigation for fear of retribution.” (Emphasis added.)

Leigh McEachern started his career in law enforcement in St. Petersburg as a vice detective. He was later the acting police chief of Winter Park before becoming Undersheriff of Orange County after Governor Askew appointed his close friend, Mel Colman, to fill the unexpired term of Sheriff Dave Starr, who according to a Public Broadcasting System report, was a known Ku Klux Klan member. One of Leigh’s first policy changes was to assign black deputies to areas where they had previously been restricted from patrolling, the most notable of which was the town of Ocoee.

 Leigh may also have angered  powerful people when, in 1976, as the result of Zeigler’s suggestion that loan sharks may have wanted him dead,  he assigned  undercover detective Tom DeMars to investigate the loan sharking which was exploiting mostly black grove workers in west Orange County. It was not until after the Zeigler trial that the DeMars investigation turned up evidence that Charlie Mays, a black store customer who was one of the four people found dead in the Zeigler Furniture Store on Christmas Eve, had been the shooter in the February 1970 unsolved murder of Winter Garden store owner, Shorty Reddick.  The investigation resulted in the arrest and conviction for loan sharking of Reddick’s former wife, Carol Reddick Lovett, and her new husband, but the connection to the Zeigler case was not discovered until recently. It may also be significant that klansman and former sheriff, Dave Starr, lived in Oakland, adjacent to Winter Garden on the west side. Starr was known to be a frequent customer of the Reddick  Store in Winter Garden.

In addition to the Reddick stores, now named Carol’s Country Store, the Reddick enterprise  also included the two largest migrant labor camps, Harlem Heights and Top Hat,  in West Orange County with migrant quarters for some 500 laborers. Charlie Mays, who also lived in Oakland, was a crew boss for the Reddick labor camps and distributed cash loans to the migrant laborers, as needed, that were provided by the Reddick enterprise. The laborers would cash their weekly pay checks at the grocery store where Reddick would deduct for food, loan payments, and rent, at interest rates approaching 500 per cent. A line from the Tennessee Ernie Ford song, Sixteen Tons, describes the plight of the migrants: “Oh, Lord, don’t you call me cause I can’t go. I owe my soul to the company sto.”

As noted, Shorty  Reddick was murdered in his store in February 1970. The crime has never been solved, but the case is still actively under investigation according to a recent  response  from the Orange County Sheriff.  When Detective Tom DeMars went undercover impersonating a grove worker, he obtained information that Carol Reddick, Shorty’s much younger wife, had hired Charlie Mays* to shoot her husband for $5000. According to the information, Carol Reddick had her boy friend take Shorty’s revolver the day before Reddick’s murder and fire it into a lake. He then returned it to the store where it was kept behind the counter. When Shorty Reddick’s body was found, it appeared he had tried to defend himself since his revolver contained recently fired empty shell casings. However, no bullet holes were found in his store. 

*(Charlie Mays' son, Ernie, was hired to work in the Carol's Country Store in Oakland after the murders. He is alleged to have told the store manager that his father took a gun with him when he went to the Zeigler Furniture Store the night of the murders.)

This story bears a striking similarity to the story told by Edward Williams in the Zeigler case. Edward Williams was a  black handyman who frequently worked for Zeigler, and had gone with Zeigler on Christmas Eve to help with delivery of several Christmas presents. Williams testified that  “Mr. Tommy” attempted to shoot him as Williams entered the back door of the furniture store, but the gun was empty. Williams then claimed Zeigler gave him the gun as a gesture to try to persuade Williams to enter the store. Williams took the gun, scaled the fence in back of the store, and the next day turned the gun - one of the murder weapons - in to the police. Charlie Mays, the black man alleged to be the Reddick shooter, was found dead in the store with a gunshot wound to his abdomen and his head severely beaten. Zeigler believes that he may have shot Mays after being attacked, but he did not beat him to death. That beating, Zeigler believes, was administered by Mays’ confederates who could not allow him to live after he was severely wounded. 

Ironically, Tommy Zeigler, who treated blacks with respect in a time when many still did not, who worked for black participation in his home town politics, who stood up for justice for a black friend in a court of law, and who strived to stop exploitation of black migrant workers, became a symbol of white hatred toward the black race. His conviction for killing a black store customer based on the possibly perjured testimony of three blacks, who were likely to have been involved in the crime, made his case one that no judge, either white or black, could overturn without fear of being labeled racist or an Uncle Tom. If racism has led to the wrongful conviction of many innocent blacks, then political correctness has caused Tommy Zeigler to spend the majority of his life on death row.