Tommy Zeigler was wheeled into court on Wednesday for a scheduled weeklong evidentiary hearing to determine if his murder convictions from half a century ago will be tossed out, granting him a new trial or immediate prison release.

It was a full day of the packed courtroom audience listening to talk of gunshots, terms like blood spatter, droplets and “touch DNA.”

The audience viewed dozens of often grotesque crime scene photos that revealed the bloody bodies of Zeigler’s wife, Eunice; her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards; and Charlie Mays, a customer of the store where the murders took place on Christmas Eve 1975.

Spending most of the day on the stand was defense witness Richard Eikelenboom, a forensic scientist with Independent Forensic Services LLC. He interpreted the results of co

See Full Page