Tommy Zeigler Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Tommy Zeigler - Research Paper Example Based on the events that took place on the evening of Christmas Eve, Tommy Zeigler was convicted for the four murders and put on death row. However, he considers that the chief witness misrepresented him, on the stand, to implicate him and that he was additionally pressurized by law enforcement officers in a bid to conclude the case (Newton, 2008). All sides across the divide concur that Zeigler called the municipal council at 9.20 that night to inform him of the attack. At around 9.18 p.m, he contacted and appealed to converse with Don Ficke notifying him of the robbery had transpired at his store and shot, was seriously wounded, and needed urgent medical help (Stacy, 2012). Detective Donald Frye wasted no time in analyzing the crime scene. There was a mixture of contradictory evidence manifested by pools of blood in varied places in the scene, bloody footprints, several disposed-off guns and a series of injuries at distinct locations for each body (Ames, 2007). It was apparent to the detective that the spray outlines at the scene implied two distinct lettings of blood, with Charlie May's grave gunshot wounds indicating to have been carried out in a period of 15 minutes subsequent to the earlier violent incident. Based on a track of blood directing flowing from the telephone Zeigler had employed to call for help to the chair in which he sat when help arrived, Frye also concluded that Zeigler ought to be considered a prime suspect. Frye considered that Tommy shot himself in the abdomen subsequent to calling Don (Anderson, 2013). Frye established a solitary responsible to explicate the circumstantial evidence and speedily set out to â€Å"prove† his theory (Ames, 2007). As a result, experts assert that it was neither handled accurately nor comprehensively processed (Stacy, 2012). Donald Frye’s Account Frye based his assertion of the night’s events entirely on the combined testimonies of the two men. Frye theorized that Zeigler had pre-meditated to murder Eunice for financial gain (she had $500,000 life insurance policy that he had taken out on his wife a few months before and that her staged murder coincidentally demanded the deaths of Perry and Virginia Edwards. Frye belie ved he murdered Mays and attempted to massacre Thomas and Williams to link them to the robbery (Stacy, 2012). He had also requested Edward Williams to help him deliver some Christmas presents that night. Williams’ testimony read that Zeigler had arranged to meet him at 7.30 p.m at his home. Frye believed that, in the period between 7.00 and 7.24, Zeigler first murdered his wife, then Perry and Virginia Edwards. According to Felton Thomas, when he and Mays arrived to collect the television, Zeigler approached him and proposed that they pursue a drive together (Anderson, 2013). The three went for a ride to an orange grove in which the suspect presented three guns to Thomas and Mays requesting them to try them out. This was considered as a delicately veiled ploy to acquire their fingerprints on the murder weapons. Nevertheless, when the weapons were found, they had been wiped clean. Williams claimed that he saw Zeigler arrive accompanied by two men (Felton Thomas and Charlie May s)