- Almost True - Page 259

4.     The closing of the kitchen door after Eunice was shot.  The door could have been closed anytime after Eunice's death, but before Zeigler arrived on the scene.

5.     The bloody footprints.  The issue of the footprints is in doubt.  Even Professor MacDonell was unwilling to identify the prints as having been made by Zeigler.

And it may not matter.  An innocent man could have made those prints.  When Frye finds conflicts between Zeigler's story and the evidence in blood, he assumes that Zeigler was aware of his actions. Frye's argument goes like this: Zeigler says he crawled around the store, and the footprints show that he walked; therefore Zeigler is lying and must be guilty.

But we cannot assume that Zeigler was lucid.  Actually, we should assume the opposite.  Traumatic stress amnesia is a legitimate phenomenon.  Anyone who has ever been involved in a serious auto accident knows that abrupt violence can alter memory and distort perceptions.  If Zeigler is innocent, he was the victim not only of a sudden violent assault, but of the psychological shock of finding his world turned upside down.  He may very well have stumbled around the store.  He may have come across the body of his father-in-law, and discovered the body of his wife, and have no memory of it.  The assumption that Zeigler is capable of rendering a rational account of his actions is convenient, but it is not warranted.  Rather, if Zeigler is innocent we should not be surprised to find that his recollection is incomplete.

Frye made another observation on Christmas Eve.  He noticed that there were no straight-down blood spots on or around the body of Charlie Mays.  (These are the uniform low-velocity droplets that would drip from a wound.) To Frye, the absence of these droplets around Mays proved that Zeigler was lying.

Frye's words; the emphasis is added:

"Tommy Zeigler claims that when he entered the store and was pushed up against the wall, he was shot.  He in turn attempts to fire at Charlie Mays and shoots him.  He never did admit he shot him.  Okay.  Mays was laying there allegedly shot after Zeigler received his injuries.  Okay.  I mention again the bloodstain school.  If Tommy Zeigler had been injured before this man died, there would be his blood somewhere on the body or somewhere around it.  The test results showed no blood dripping or anything that indicated anything.  So, Tommy Zeigler was not injured when he killed this man."

Frye set forth this theory for the grand jury, his logical argument for an indictment.  He brought it out again in a deposition. It was one of the foundations of Zeigler's arrest.

It is a classic error in reasoning.  Frye assumes as fact the very hypothesis he is trying to prove: that Tommy Zeigler stood over Mays and beat him to death.