Defrosting Cold Cases

Los Tocayos Carlos … the namesake Carlos … The Guardian has an excellent article about a Texas capital punishment case involving a wrongful conviction, switched identities, an unsolved murder, evidence not tested for DNA, sloppy police procedures and an execution. “Carlos DeLuna was arrested, aged 20, on 4 February 1983 for the brutal murder of [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Capital Punishment, Carlos DeLuna, Carlos Hernandez, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Finger Printing, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Knife Attack, Los Tocayos Carlos, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Texas, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

Something has been bothering me immensely in the Zeigler case. I know, many things bother me in this case! But this is something I have not blogged about before. It is about the life term insurance policies and Zeigler’s bank accounts. It has been stated over and over again that taking out two life term [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

What are the consequences of the false arrest report and the lies told by Detective Frye under oath? We have to go back to the initial trial when Mr. Zeigler was defended by Mr. Ralph V. Hadley, III. Mr. Hadley started the Zeigler trial from the assumption that the documents he had received were correct. [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

The False Arrest Report The post below is based on the documents filed in Mr. Zeigler case as per the previous post. The documents were sent to me by Mr. Zeigler’s lawyers and I thank them for that. On Dec 29, 1975, Detective Frye from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office wrote in his arrest report: [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

There is a new and exciting turn of events in the case of William Thomas Zeigler. As loyal readers know, Mr. Zeigler has been on death row for the 1975 quadruple murders that took place on Christmas Eve inside his family’s furniture store in Wintergarden, Florida. When I started my posts about this case in [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

The request for further DNA testing in the case of William Thomas Zeigler was denied by Judge Whitehead March 12, 2012.  The hearing for that request took place last Dec 1, 2011, see here. Judge Whitehead had previously ruled that Zeigler should receive state-funding for a blood spatter expert to testify whether a new round of [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Death Row, Dennis H. Tracey. III, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, John Houston Pope, Miscarriage of Justice, Paul Kish, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

If you click on the link here you can see that the request for DNA has been denied. It states: “Denying Successive Petition for DNA Testing Pursuant to FLA.STAT. 925.11(1)(a).” NOTE: for some reason the page keeps changing. If you see the general search page, go to “all cases records search” and fill in Tommy’s [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Forensics, Identification, Miscarriage of Justice, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

We had a very hot Cold Case Live Chat today with Andrew Wade who introduced us to fire investigations. Amongst the many questions Andrew answered a few issues stood out. Those issues feature in many arson cases on appeal right now. As I said before, a V-pattern does not necessarily point to the fire’s origin. [...]

Tags: Andrew Wade, Arson Detection, Cameron Todd Willingham, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Fire investigations, Forensics, Identification, Miscarriage of Justice, UK

From the New York Times: “In an opinion that harshly criticizes the tactics of the police and prosecutors, an Illinois appellate court on Friday night reversed the conviction of Juan Rivera, who has spent 19 years in jail for the 1992 rape and murder of an 11-year-old baby sitter in a suburb of Chicago. There [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, DNA, DNA Database, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, Finger Printing, Forensics, Identification, Illinois, Investigations Division, Juan Rivera, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Rape kits, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

This is the original crime scene diagram made by private detective George Anan who was hired by the defense in 1976 and who searched the furniture store together with attorney Vernon Davids. In a two-week examination of the store, Davids and Annan found a .38 caliber slug and a .38 caliber exit hole in the [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Crime Scene Diagram, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, DNA Database, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions