- The Defense - Page 100

service, one of Eunice's aunts told the Zeiglers that Tommy was about to be arrested.

On the 29th, Perry Edwards, Jr., and deputy from Georgia came to Winter Garden and tried to claim Eunice's body from a funeral home. Tom and Beulah refused to relinquish the body.  Eunice was Tommy's wife; he and his parents believed that she should be buried in the Zeigler family plot at a local cemetery.

That afternoon, Tommy Zeigler was arrested in his hospital bed at West Orange Memorial.

Eunice's funeral was on Wednesday, December 31, at the First Baptist Church in Winter Garden.  Originally the family had planned a small, closed-casket service.  But after Tommy's arrest, a closed casket seemed to imply shame or guilt.  Beulah believed that they had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide.  And she was certain that Tommy was not guilty.

So the casket stayed open during the ceremony.  Tommy Zeigler was not present.  He was still hospitalized, in police custody.

The Zeiglers decided to postpone burial.  On Wednesday, January 7—at the same time that Professor MacDonell examined the crime scene—sheriff's deputies escorted Tommy Zeigler to the funeral home to view the remains of the wife he was accused of killing

She was buried the next day.  Zeigler was not allowed to attend.

Months later, Beulah Zeigler realized that she had never properly mourned Eunice.  It was not from neglect, she thought, and certainly not a lack of feeling.  But so much else was happening.  Every time she confronted the fact of Eunice's death, she also faced the reality that her son was accused as a murderer.  It became a matter of priorities. Eunice was gone.  Tommy was fighting for his life.