- The Defense - Page 111

In March he accepted without much protest when Hadley wanted him to undergo a session at a clinic near Tampa.  The arrangements were already made.  Annan drove Zeigler to his appointment with the psychiatrist, Theodore Machler.  Hadley kept the details deliberately vague, to give Zeigler as little chance as possible to prepare for what was about to happen.

 Machler specialized in the treatment of amnesia.  In a procedure known as narcotherapy, he would probe the memory of his subjects while they were in a semiconscious state induced by the drug Brevital Sodium.  He met Zeigler at his office in the clinic, told him about the therapy, and informed him, "If you're trying to hide something, and you think you can beat me, you'd better walk out now."

Zeigler stayed.  His session is preserved on videotape.

Zeigler lay on a hospital gurney, with a microphone propped on his chest.  After the first injection, Machler continued to add small doses.  Zeigler appeared to be barely conscious, and at times he dozed off.  Machler sometimes had to repeat questions two or three times before Zeigler would answer in a slurred, halting voice.

Hadley had briefed Dr. Machler on the case and had given the psychiatrist a list of areas that he would like to have explored.  Mainly, he was interested in what had happened when Zeigler walked into the store.

Zeigler related his day at work and the switch of cars with Curtis Dunaway.  Eunice left with her parents in the Edwardses' car, he said.  He described starting for the liquor store, turning around on Bay Street, and finding Edward Williams parked in the driveway when he got back.

He put the car in the garage and rode in Williams's truck.  The route he described to the store was the same one Williams claimed, up Park Avenue to Route 50, then east to Dillard.

But now Zeigler's account diverged from Williams's.  Zeigler said that he did not get out in front, but rode around back with Williams and opened the gate.

"Start seeing things as though they're happening," Machler urged him.

Zeigler slipped in and out of the present tense.  Several times he came close to entering the building and walking up the dark hallway, but he seemed to back away from the memory.  More than once his breathing became so labored that the microphone slipped off his chest.  His voice remained mostly colorless, though.

Finally, as Machler prodded him.  Zeigler stepped into the store:

"I unlock the hall door.  Edward is backing his truck up to the bay door....I tried to turn the lights on, the store was dark.  The exit lights were off, the store was dark."

"How do you feel?" Machler asked.

"I figured there was a power failure," Zeigler answered.  "Edward was backing his truck....I walked into the store, thinking Curtis [Dunaway] had turned off the back lights.  I got hit over the head."