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Lawyers: Evidence Proves Sarasota Man Didn't Kill Child

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By TODD RUGER

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: December 16, 2008

A man found guilty of murdering his girlfriend's 2-year-old argued today in court that medical evidence proves he is innocent.

Joseph Zeigler, then 18 years old, had been left to watch the sleeping girl while her mother ran a 15-minute errand in 2004. Seven minutes later, Zeigler called the girl's mother to say that Alexis, was throwing up and bleeding.

Prosecutors say medical evidence made it clear the head injuries and signs of strangulation found on the girl were fresh. Jurors found Zeigler guilty of first-degree murder, and he is serving a life sentence in prison.

On Tuesday, Zeigler's attorney told a three-judge panel that the jurors overlooked the presence of reactive astrocytes in the girl's brain that show the serious brain injury happened well before her death.

The astrocytes, which help the brain recover from a serious injury, do not appear for at least an hour after the injury. There was a 20- to 25-minute time window between the girlfriend leaving on the errand and the time Alexis died, which suggests the brain injury happened before Zeigler arrived to take care of the girl.

"That's not something a jury could say, 'We're not going to accept this,'" said Matthew Conigliaro, Zeigler's attorney. "This is science."

The Attorney General's Office said focusing on the astrocytes ignores all the other evidence that shows Alexis' injuries were fresh, and not suffered sometime in the previous week.

The medical examiner testified during the 2006 trial that a brain injury would have been noticeable to even the casual observer, Assistant Attorney General Anne Sheer Weiner said.

The injuries were so serious Alexis would not be acting even close to normal, and the mother, Melissa Marshall, had testified Alexis ate pancakes and watched television right before her death.

The area of reactive astrocytes has not been studied in great detail, Weiner said. And doctors kept Alexis alive artificially for up to 73 minutes, which could account for their presence.

Marshall attended today's hearing, and was close to tears after it.

"She was my child," Marshall said. "I live this every day."

Also at the hearing was Adam Tebrugge, Zeigler's trial attorney, who had argued that seven minutes was not enough time for Zeigler -- a mellow guy who was close to Alexis - to get angry enough to kill.

Doctors had diagnosed Alexis with an ear infection eight days before her death. Assistant Public Defender Adam Tebrugge tried to convince jurors that the child may have had a skull fracture that doctors did not detect.

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