- Prologue - Page 4

The case is far from dormant.  As this is written, in the spring of 1992, several legal issues still are unresolved.  Moreover, the actual events of the crime remain uncertain.  A trial verdict decided the legal issue of guilt, but did not end the debate about what actually happened in the W. T. Zeigler Furniture Store during two hours of Christmas Eve in 1975.

The record tells the story of the crime, to the extent that anyone except those who were actually involved knows it.  It is the foundation of this story.  But a paper trail has limits; I was certain that after fifteen years, after an investigation and a prosecution and a trial and a long series of appeals, the record contained nothing new. Surely every facet had been well examined and fully comprehended.  If the truth was still being debated after so much time, I could not expect to come any closer to the ultimate solution of the mystery.

But I was wrong.