the weather authority Sun and clouds with a stray shower possible The Weather Authority says sun and clouds overhead will lead to another day with above-average temperatures.
FORT MYERS LCSO offering youth boxing program The Lee County Sheriff’s Office youth boxing program is your kid’s golden ticket to mastering the art of self-defense.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral man speaks on helping apprehend armed 13-year-old The man who helped apprehend an armed 13-year-old spoke on the incident.
NAPLES Naples Cars on Fifth event fuels $2M for local charity efforts For over two decades, car enthusiasts in Southwest Florida have gathered on Fifth Avenue in Naples.
MARCO ISLAND Caxambas Park boat ramp on Marco Island set to reopen Collier County announced the reopening of the Caxambas Park boat ramp on Marco Island.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral Animal Shelter to host Puppy Bowl 3 ahead of big game Ahead of the big game on Sunday, Cape Coral Animal Shelter will be featuring its very own Puppy Bowl III.
FORT MYERS From the ballpark to the beach: the Minnesota Twins are back for Spring Training 1700 miles later the Twins truck is here and the team from Minnesota is ready to spend the next six weeks here in Fort Myers.
the weather authority Warm stretch continues throughout this weekend The Weather Authority says if you are a fan of the warmer weather, you are going to love this weekend.
SANIBEL Sanibel’s red tide raises health alerts and wildlife concerns With great weather in the forecast, it’s shaping up to be a perfect beach weekend. However, visitors to the barrier islands should exercise caution.
NAPLES Naples Automotive Experience raises funds for St. Matthew’s House The Naples Automotive Experience brought excitement and philanthropy to the community, raising money for St. Matthew’s House.
MATLACHA Little Pine Island bridge work causes delays, FDOT promises progress Construction on the Little Pine Island Bridge has narrowed traffic to one lane, causing significant delays for drivers.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Support women’s heart health on National Wear Red Day The first Friday in February marks National Wear Red Day!
Ongoing repairs following Naples plane crash A deadly plane crash that occurred one year ago in Naples, Florida continues to impact lives in Southwest Florida. The tragic event involved two pilots who lost their lives on Interstate 75.
Naples jet crash, one year later: new details on emergency response Sunday marks one year since a jet crashed after its pilots attempted an emergency landing on I-75 just outside of Naples. “Your mind goes back to everything that happened that day,” said Heather Mazurkiewicz, public information officer with the North Collier Fire Rescue. “I think about the fact that there weren’t more lives lost.” At […]
the weather authority Sun and clouds with a stray shower possible The Weather Authority says sun and clouds overhead will lead to another day with above-average temperatures.
FORT MYERS LCSO offering youth boxing program The Lee County Sheriff’s Office youth boxing program is your kid’s golden ticket to mastering the art of self-defense.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral man speaks on helping apprehend armed 13-year-old The man who helped apprehend an armed 13-year-old spoke on the incident.
NAPLES Naples Cars on Fifth event fuels $2M for local charity efforts For over two decades, car enthusiasts in Southwest Florida have gathered on Fifth Avenue in Naples.
MARCO ISLAND Caxambas Park boat ramp on Marco Island set to reopen Collier County announced the reopening of the Caxambas Park boat ramp on Marco Island.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral Animal Shelter to host Puppy Bowl 3 ahead of big game Ahead of the big game on Sunday, Cape Coral Animal Shelter will be featuring its very own Puppy Bowl III.
FORT MYERS From the ballpark to the beach: the Minnesota Twins are back for Spring Training 1700 miles later the Twins truck is here and the team from Minnesota is ready to spend the next six weeks here in Fort Myers.
the weather authority Warm stretch continues throughout this weekend The Weather Authority says if you are a fan of the warmer weather, you are going to love this weekend.
SANIBEL Sanibel’s red tide raises health alerts and wildlife concerns With great weather in the forecast, it’s shaping up to be a perfect beach weekend. However, visitors to the barrier islands should exercise caution.
NAPLES Naples Automotive Experience raises funds for St. Matthew’s House The Naples Automotive Experience brought excitement and philanthropy to the community, raising money for St. Matthew’s House.
MATLACHA Little Pine Island bridge work causes delays, FDOT promises progress Construction on the Little Pine Island Bridge has narrowed traffic to one lane, causing significant delays for drivers.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Support women’s heart health on National Wear Red Day The first Friday in February marks National Wear Red Day!
Ongoing repairs following Naples plane crash A deadly plane crash that occurred one year ago in Naples, Florida continues to impact lives in Southwest Florida. The tragic event involved two pilots who lost their lives on Interstate 75.
Naples jet crash, one year later: new details on emergency response Sunday marks one year since a jet crashed after its pilots attempted an emergency landing on I-75 just outside of Naples. “Your mind goes back to everything that happened that day,” said Heather Mazurkiewicz, public information officer with the North Collier Fire Rescue. “I think about the fact that there weren’t more lives lost.” At […]
Thomas “Tommy” Zeigler is photographed on Florida’s Death Row at Union Correctional Institution, in Raiford, Fla., on June 21, 2018. A Florida prosecutor has agreed to allow DNA testing on evidence that helped convict Zeigler for the 1975 murders of his wife, in-laws and an acquaintance at the family’s furniture store and landed him on death row. (Cherie Diez/Tampa Bay Times via AP) A Florida prosecutor has agreed to allow DNA testing on evidence that helped convict a man for the 1975 murders of his wife, in-laws and an acquaintance at the family’s furniture store and landed him on death row. Monique H. Worrell, who was elected state attorney for the Orlando area in November, has agreed to allow testing that Tommy Zeigler and his many supporters believe will show he is innocent of gunning down the four on Christmas Eve. Previous prosecutors have contended Zeigler staged the massacre as a robbery to collect his wife’s life insurance policy. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Worrell’s office recently agreed to give all evidence in the case to Zeigler’s attorneys for testing at a lab certified by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. The agreement will now go before a judge, but is expected to be approved. In particular, Zeigler’s attorney wants to test his clothing to see if it has the victims’ blood on it and the fingernail clippings of his father-in-law, who fought his killer before being shot. A previous test in 2001 failed to detect any DNA from the victims on four small patches of his clothing, but prosecutors blocked attempts to do a full test, saying other evidence ties Zeigler to the murders. “I am hoping and praying that the test results come back with enough evidence to force the court to grant me a new trial!” Zeigler wrote in a Thursday email to the Times. Worrell reviewed the case when she lead the office’s conviction integrity unit and concluded Zeigler had not received a fair trial. “Can the state of Florida legally decline to support additional DNA testing? Absolutely,” Worrell wrote in a 2019 memo to her predecessor. “Can the state of Florida morally justify a decline to support additional testing? Absolutely not.” Her predecessor rejected her recommendation, but now the final decision was hers. The killings happened at W.T. Zeigler Furniture in Winter Garden. Prosecutors contended at Zeigler’s 1976 trial that he lured his wife, Eunice, to the store to kill her, and her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards, got in the way. A fruit picker Zeigler knew named Charlie Mays was killed, too. They had all been shot. They said Zeigler then shot himself in the stomach to make it appear that he, too, was a victim. They say he staged the robbery so he could collect on a $500,000 life insurance policy he took out on his wife just months before. Zeigler said then and now that he went to the store to make some last-minute Christmas deliveries. Unbeknownst to him, his wife and in-laws, who had come to look at a recliner that was to be her father’s Christmas present, were already dead in various places in the store. After finding the lights shut off at the breaker box, he was hit over the head and beaten by two men. He lost his glasses but managed to find and fire one of the guns he kept in the store. He believes Mays — who had cash from the store stuffed in his pocket — was one of the attackers and was killed in the gunfight. Zeigler says that when he came to after being knocked out, he was the only one left alive in the store. Whoever else attacked him had fled. Zeigler was found guilty on July 2, 1976, amid allegations of juror misconduct. One of the jurors, now dead, said in media interviews after the trial that she believed Zeigler was innocent and that she was harassed and coerced into voting guilty by other jurors who wanted to finish up in time for the nation’s Bicentennial celebration two days later. The jury then voted to recommend a life sentence, but the judge — in an exceedingly rare move in Florida — overruled the panel and sentenced him to death. Zeigler has twice been scheduled to die, but the execution was stopped — once with less than a day to spare. “The entire process has not been handled as it should have been,” David Michaeli, one of Zeigler’s attorneys, told the Times earlier this year. “And if you don’t have a criminal justice system that works for Tommy Zeigler, you don’t have one that works for me or you, either.”