Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: Well, last thirty years, I'm one violent, I'm n violent.
You know.
Speaker 1: This is season twelve, episode two eighty three of a
little show we like to do here called Sword and Scale,
the show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.
Very jet lagged after my recent trip to Belarus, so
you might hear me pause in all the wrong places.
Flew in Via, Lithuania for a quick vaca that's near
led Via. By the way, if you're a big geography
buff anyway, we better get served on the story. The
house on Byron Avenue was typical of the quiet North
Fort Myers neighborhood in Florida. A simple, weather worn home
of only about five hundred square feet, this quiet residential
home is where Bonnie Nicely had been living with her
boyfriend Joseph Zeiler since nineteen ninety. Their twenty five year
old son had also lived on the property. On the
night of August twenty sixth, twenty sixteen, the household erupted
into an argument. Bonnie was used to the strained relationship
between Joseph and their son. Arguments between them had escalated recently,
and she could hear them shouting at each other in
the hallway. They had all three been drinking, but Bonnie
was plenty sober enough to know where this yelling was headed.
It was getting out of control. Bonnie nicely gave her
account of the night's events in her recorded statement, which
was taken at three point thirty three am on August
twenty seventh, twenty sixteen. She said her twenty five year
old son and his girlfriend spent time drinking at a
local pool hall, and after they got home, Joseph and
their son began arguing. According to Bonnie, the two men,
both drunk, started swinging and grabbing at each other. Bonnie's
account was that Joseph followed their son to the bedroom,
where he pressed his left forearm against his son's neck,
pinning him down on the bed while repeatedly striking him
in the face with his right hand. Their son fought back,
biting Joseph on the left forearm and right fingers to
break free, while Bonnie, desperate to stop the assault, scratched
Joseph's face as she tried to pull him away. When
their son managed to get loose, Joseph retreated to his bedroom,
seemingly ending the altercation. Joseph's version was slightly different. It
was a more complete version that started at the beginning,
long before the night of the attack.
Speaker 3: Then with my girl twenty six years. I love her,
you know, I got her pregnant and throm my best
with them, really tried to do my bust with them,
just to NonStop is NonStop. I mean, it's all the time.
And I understand I'm guilty too. I drink, but I
don't drink every day. And it's just gotten too much. Man.
He's mean, he's arrogant, he's belligerent, he's he you know,
it's a constant. The house is just constantly full of struss.
It's constant strust.
Speaker 1: Their son and his girlfriend both worked, so the income
was appreciated, but the bickering wasn't.
Speaker 3: Well. This is his very first girlfriend. It's high school
and she's forty five, she's a lot older. I was
going to work on what I'm trying to tell him,
you know, right from wrong, and how you're supposed to
treat your parents, you know. But he be rights her.
He's mean nor and he don't hit her, but he
is very verbally abusive to her.
Speaker 1: Mostly, according to Joseph, his son verbally targeted his much
older girlfriend, but he treated his parents even worse when
he drank. And apparently this man drank a whole lot.
Speaker 3: After about three or four, he starts getting belligerent, you know,
and I mean about six, and he starts getting derating
and fully like, you know, and I'm I'm just sick
of it, you know, I'm scared of it. The last
time he beat me up really well, he lot me
up real good. And you know that it was a
couple of years ago. And you know what happened was
is I never really kind of raised him with any
physical discipline, you know, like old school way my father
raised me. You don't talk back to your father, you
don't disrespect your families, or you get smacked. And of
course you can't do that no more, you know. And
and it's just been building forever. The last time he
beat the shit out of me, you know, and I
cut my hands at my side.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to that night. They all went to
a pool hall slash bar, but Joseph says he in
a common law wife left after a couple of drinks,
whereas his son stayed there with friends. Joseph says he
even warned the friends that his son already had six
beers in him and they better not let him drink
much more than that. A couple of hours later, though,
his son called for a ride because you know, he
was too drunk to drive.
Speaker 3: I said something a pistol off his mood. Chance instantly
at the bar, he started acting dark and you know,
bledge run. So he got home. Hisamar asked him, please,
I gotta go to work tomorrow. Please, if you guys,
please do not fight tonight. Don't cause any trouble tonight.
I need to get some sleeps. They hadn't had no sleep,
so we went in our vasom late the hun Everything
was smooth, and they started fighting, you know, and I
just had enough. I hit him.
Speaker 1: Bonnie's version is that their son bit Joseph, who then
went to the bathroom and came out holding a pellet gun.
Bonnie couldn't remember seeing him pumped the weapon, but she
distinctly heard the sound of it firing as he raised
it towards their son, who was now standing in the hallway.
Joseph aimed, the gun fired and hit his son on
the chest. Stun their son, Zach clutched his chest because
he knew he was wounded. Without a word, He left
the house with his girlfriend and drove to Lee Memorial
Hospital for treatment, where he was immediately taken into surgery
and admitted to the intensive care unit in critical condition.
But that's not exactly how Joseph says it went down.
Speaker 3: It was quick, you know, to the point while we
were at it, he started biting me.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I mean he's started on on me. He bit me
here on the finger first and put me on the arm.
Then he tried to bite me and my writ my
bent and I you know, I had it, you know,
a pustim in the face a couple of times got
off and I thought it was done. Else thought it
was done. But he is one of them, heavile that
won't he don't never let nothing go. I was done,
it was done, and I had enough, you know, and
I figured his time to give him the to ask
woman he needed. I'm sorry, you know, that's the way
my daddy did me. And I finally had enough. Man,
I'm fifty four years old, and I figured out I
don't whoop his ass. Now he's gonna walk all over
me the rest of my life. So I did. I
whipped his ass. I gave him a good ass meat
and he deserved it, he needed it. And then I
walked away. I got up, went my room, I closed
the door.
Speaker 1: Next, he says, Zach came back for more when he
barreled his way past his mom and girlfriend, knocking them
over on his way to attack Joseph again. That's when
he reached for the pellet gun.
Speaker 3: He says.
Speaker 1: He attempted to shoot his son in the shoulder, but
missed and hit him in the chest. A pellet gun,
if you don't already know, is similar to a babe gun.
I have one in the glove compartment of my cyber truck,
which I keep there in case crazy is trying to
mess with it. It operates with the use of air
pressure that's built up by a pumping action. It could
be in the form of a pistol or rifle. In
this case, it was a rifle, and it operates with
the use of air pressure via a CO two cartridge
or by pumping it. In this case, it was a
rifle style pellet gun with pump action. The more you pump,
the stronger the force of the pellet, and these weapons
are marked as non lethal, but in some cases they
can kill you. In fact, they're used for killing rodents
and other vermin on rural properties, but they can be very,
very harmful when you point them at someone, and you
should never do that unless you intend to hurt them
and possibly kill them. Joseph was using the Silver Strike,
a well known multi pump air rifle made by Sharon
and Products, Inc. It's been popular since the mid twentieth
century and can shoot with enough force to damage small targets.
In this case, it hit at close range next to
Zack's heart wave.
Speaker 3: But I didn't realize that I did. I'd actually heard him,
I said, I mean, it's a public gun. For christ
I can't get away from them. The only way I
can get away from the noise in that house is
to go out in that room turn the erican, so
I can't hear nothing. And that's why theficer was asking me.
I didn't hear any sirens. I didn't know there's try
him out of there. I actually just I didn't even think.
I certainly didn't even think I hit him with a
public on. It doesn't what I was trying to scare them.
Speaker 1: When officers from the Lee County Sheriff's Office arrived, they
found the residence bloodstained with droplets in the hallway and
across both bedrooms. After a search of the property, deputies
found Joseph hiding in a standalone shed outside the main house.
He was lying on a cot with a pellet gun
and a tin can of pellets beside him. At first,
the cops thought he was deliberately hiding from them and
refusing to answer their shouts at the door of the house,
but he wasn't even in the house, and instead he
had run from his own son and was hiding from him,
not the police. He maintained that Bonnie had also struck
him during the fight, with their son, climbing on top
of his back and scratching and hitting him in an
attempt to break the two of them up. According to Joseph,
he listens to his common law wife and when she
told him to stop, he did. It was their son
who pursued him.
Speaker 3: I mean I walked away. They told me to stop,
and I stopped. My girl tells me to stop, I stopped.
Speaker 1: Regardless of whose story you found more truthful, the fact
stood on its own that Joseph had discharged a pellet
gun and aimed it at his own son injuring him.
What were the police going to do? Just walk away
and let them sort it out for themselves. I mean
they can't. So they found probable cause to charge Joseph
Zeiler with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He was
formally arrested on August twenty eighth, twenty sixteen, and booked
into the Lee County Jail without incident. They took him
through all the usual procedures, fingerprinting, mugshot, cheek swabbing, all
the fun stuff. He wasn't used to being behind bars.
For a man who'd lived quietly for so many years,
that jail was a cold, unforgiving place with a lot
of noise. Noise was exactly the thing he tried to avoid,
and also the reason he spent a lot of time
in his man cave shed, because his son and girlfriend
were always fighting and he wanted some peace and quiet. Now,
noise wasn't really his concern. As he sat in that
stark concrete cell. He had no way of that detectives
were uncovering something far beyond a family argument, something that
had been buried in silence waiting to be found. There
were files, details, and unanswered questions that resurfaced in ways
no one had expected. As the investigation unfolded, what detectives
found would reach beyond Joseph, bringing in people who thought
the past was long since buried for now, though he
sat quietly unaware of the pieces that were about to
fall into place. In North Fort Myers, Florida, Joseph Zeiler
had led a quiet life for years after an incident
in nineteen ninety eight left him with head trauma. A
legal settlement allowed him to afford a modest home where
he lived with his longtime partner, Bonnie Nicely. The two
met back in May of nineteen ninety and within a month,
Joseph had moved in with her. Following the accident, Bonnie
became both his caregiver and power of attorney, managing his
affairs as he struggled with memory issues. Though his driver's
license was valid, he'd been advised not to drive. Bonnie
and Joseph weren't the only ones living in the home,
though their twenty five year old son, Zach, and his
much older girlfriend also made a home there. In that
five hundred square foot house. According to Joseph, their son
was a heavy drinker who turned belligerent during binges. On
August night in twenty sixteen, a family argument turned violent.
What began as a tense evening at a local bar
ended with Joseph's son in the hospital and Joseph behind bars,
charged with aggravated battery. To detectives, it seemed like a
straightforward case of domestic violence, a regrettable but isolated incident.
But as Joseph sat in his cell, the investigation took
an unexpected turn. A routine DNA collection linked him to
something far more sinister, forcing open the door to a
long cold case that no one, lease of all Joseph
Zeiler saw coming. For years, this case had haunted investigators
and left two families broken and grieving, and now new
questions were being presented. Detectives had to ask who was
Joseph Zeiler really and what secrets had he managed to
hide for so long. It was nineteen ninety in Lee County, Florida.
Jan Cornell was a single mom of an eleven year
old daughter named Robin, and she recently invited her friend
Lisa's Story to move in and become her roommate. Robin
had asked her mother if she could have a sleepover
with a friend that night, but Jane told her no
because she hadn't cleaned her room. Jan told Robin and
Lisa that she was going out for the night to
watch a football game at a friend's place. As she
walked out the door. Hours later, Jan had fallen asleep
on her friend's couch. Having lost track of time, she
rushed home. She only had minutes to get to her
job as a nurse at Cape Coral Hospital. When she
got home, it was around four am. A worldview changed forever.
Both her roommate and her daughter were dead. Jane Cornell
had not planned to be out this late. She'd spent
the previous day helping her new roommate, Lisa, settle into
her new apartment, but around ten forty five pm, Jane
decided to head to her boyfriend's house to watch the
basketball playoffs. She told Lisa and her eleven year old daughter, Robin,
that she'd be home soon, but Jane fell asleep and
didn't wake up until four am, when she realized she
needed to get home and get ready for her morning
shift at the hospital. We all hope that emergency operators
are trying to do their best in these situations, but
ordering someone to calm down when they've walked in on
this kind of unexpected horror is just not going to work.
As she approached the front door, Jan realized something was off.
The doorknob, locked that she usually avoided because it was faulty,
was locked. She usually used the dead bolt, and she
couldn't get in with her key. She knocked, hoping someone
would open up. For a minute, she thought she heard
footsteps on the stairs, but the door didn't open. Getting
more anxious every time she knocked, Jan walked around the
apartment to the sliding glass door and saw that it
was slightly open and the vertical blinds were moving back
and forth as if someone had just walked through. Inside.
Jan's eyes fell on something that dropped her in her tracks.
Four framed photographs of her daughters placed in an unsettling
display on the open ironing board in the living room. Typically,
these pictures, three of Robin and one of her older
daughter were arranged on top of their stereo cabinet. Her
panic escalated when she called out the names of Robin
and Lisa and got no response.
Speaker 3: Why you cannot vacuum.
Speaker 5: I have.
Speaker 6: My daughter, ma'am.
Speaker 1: It's a cruel irony expecting calm from someone who's just
found the unthinkable, a dead child. After seeing the framed
photographs out of place, Jan made her way up to
the second floor, her heart racing with fear and confusion.
As she reached the top of the stairs, she rushed
into her bedroom, where Robin slept with her. She found Robin,
her precious eleven year old, lying on the floor. Robin's
body was positioned on her stomach, knees tucked beneath her,
her buttocks exposed, with a pillow placed under her. The
sight was so unimaginable that Jan could hardly process it.
Her maternal instincts took over as she rushed to her
daughter's side, thinking, please, God, let her be alive. Jan
immediately turned Robin over, positioning her flat on the floor,
and began performing mouth to mouth resuscitation, her hands trembling
with every breath she forced into her daughter's lungs. Robin's
skin was cold, and in her heart, Jan understood, but
even with that knowledge, she couldn't stop. A mother's instinct
would not let her give up, not while there was
even a shred of hope all this time. She screamed
for Lisa to help her, but Lisa never came. Here's
the lead detective on the case.
Speaker 7: She immediately went to her. She was cold, she was
not breathing. She was screaming for Lisa to come and help.
Jane was able to get the phone and call nine
one one. Lisa still was not coming. Of course, first responders,
the police officers were there first, and then medics and realized,
of course at that point that Robin had been killed,
and one of the she had asked something about what
about Lisa, you know, why where is she? She didn't
realize Lisa also had been killed.
Speaker 1: Within moments, sirens broke the silence and Cape Coral police
arrived at the apartment. But for Jan, standing over her
daughter's lifeless body, the damage was already done. The horror
of that moment was something she would carry with her
for the rest of her life. Both Lisa and Robin
had been violently assaulted, sexually and suffocated. As investigators arrived
and began combing through the apartment, Jan remembered things from
the days before that now seemed like signs she'd missed,
leading up to the murders, Janet sense if something was off.
For instance, one night, she had been jolted awake by
noises outside her condo as she was sure that someone
was prowling around her place. On May ninth, she was
at her bedroom window trying to get her cat to
come back in. She spotted a man standing near the patio.
This was a white male in jeans, a T shirt,
and a hat. He stared at her for an unusually
long time before giving her a creepy smile and walking away.
After Jan's nine to one one call, investigators from the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Cape Coral Police Department
came to process the scene in painstaking detail. They captured
every corner on video, took fingerprints, and gathered hair samples.
This would be an intensive investigation that would leave no
stone unturned. Learn First, detectives talk to everyone living in
the neighborhood surrounding Jan Cornell's apartment, asking if anyone saw
or heard anything unusual, especially if they had seen the
man in jeans and hat. They worked to track down
anybody who matched that description, checking records and questioning every
person who might have noticed suspicious activity in the area,
but nobody seemed to know anything. Despite ongoing fears of
the residents and the immediate community, the case came to
a standstill cold. This is Robin's mother, Jan Cornell, years
after the murders, in a twenty thirteen interview with Cape
Coral police.
Speaker 3: Not giving up.
Speaker 6: I'm not going away.
Speaker 3: I'm not giving up.
Speaker 6: And thankfully I've been able to keep the Cape Coral
Polace Department on board with my.
Speaker 3: Promise. I've told them all about my promise. I promised to.
Speaker 6: Day I had to say goodbye that for as long
as I was alive, I would never stop looking for
or hurt them. And like I said, I've managed to
establish a relationship and keep the keep call a place
on board and they're still looking as well. We'll just
keep doing this as long as you know, we can
reach out and ask people, because I'm convinced in my
heart and soul that someone still in this community may
have a knowledge of who did this crime. And they
keep holding back and holding back, and every year I
say it's time, it's time, please come forward.
Speaker 1: In their search for suspects, investigators first focused on a
man named Robert David Jackson, who had lived nearby and
had a history of disturbing behavior. Local people knew him
and called him Peeping Tom because of the obvious he
was caught looking in through windows around the neighborhood. His
ex girlfriend gave a statement saying she knew of his
weird habits and that he was interested in perverse sexual activities.
This was important as a sex toy was found at
the scene. She also noted his very nervous demeanor following
the murders, making her worry about his potential involvement. She
said that Robert allegedly spent the night of the crime
with friends, but was in a hurry to leave town
soon afterward and fled to Mississippi. With suspicions mounting detectives
worked with the authorities in Mississippi, coordinating a stakeout to
intercept the Robert as he returned to his trailer. Robert
was cooperative and signed a consent form for searches, including
hair and blood samples. In his interview, he claimed he'd
spent the night of the murders with two friends at
local bars and had no connection to the crime scene.
And you know what, for once he was telling the truth.
When his samples were tested, the forensic results failed to
link him to the crime. In addition to this guy,
the investigators had built case files on other individuals in
the neighborhood, including known offenders and nineteen additional possible suspects
who were questioned and asked to give fingerprints and hair samples,
but none of these leads matched the forensic evidence from
the scene, leaving detectives and the family without answers for years. Finally,
the killer did come forward, but not in the way
jan would expect. She had no idea that just a
few years later, this mystery would be solved, this nut
would be cracked. This is Joseph talking about the sunny
shot and almost giving away a secret. Listen carefully, so.
Speaker 3: He's no breaking their he said, pulled knives on me
before I'm scared of he can be went and you know,
the last thirty years, I'm bum violent, I'm man violent,
you know all. I want to just live in peace
to my house.
Speaker 1: Let's hear that part one more time.
Speaker 3: The last thirty years, I'm bum violent, I'm man violent.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: It was almost thirty years since the murders. Twenty six
years had gone by between nineteen ninety and twenty sixteen,
the physical evidence, collected and meticulously preserved, was packed away,
just waiting for advancements in forensic science to shed new light.
When Joseph Zeiler was taken into custody for shooting his son,
a now routine DNA cheek swab, something unheard of in
nineteen ninety, linked him to the nineteen ninety crime scene,
reigniting an investigation that had gone unsolved for decades.
Speaker 8: Let me just make sure that I understand you're currently
in custody with the Lee County at the Lee County Jail.
Speaker 9: First allegations with your son is correct. Yes, Okay, I
am not here to talk with you at all about that.
Speaker 8: I would like to talk with you about a couple
other cases that your name has come up in that
you might have some information and might be able to
help us with.
Speaker 1: But Joseph wasn't prepared to help anyone with anything ever
since his nineteen ninety eight accident, He says he basically
doesn't remember much, like even the fundamentals.
Speaker 9: Okay, were you born here?
Speaker 3: I was born and Alan born where? I have a
hard time with my memories.
Speaker 1: He briefly touches on his current relationship with Bonnie, but
he somehow forgets that he has an ex wife. He
also forgets where he was born and where he worked.
Speaker 10: Where did you work at before that?
Speaker 3: I don't rather remember, or did you, gentle memor where
you worked at? No?
Speaker 9: No, okay.
Speaker 11: The reason that I asked about Lorraine or Laurie is
because you and she appeared to have a home not
far from the hospital here in Cape Quarrel years back.
Speaker 3: I remember living in Cape Quarrel. This is the first
time I've done her.
Speaker 9: You got a couple of addresses here in the Cape.
Speaker 1: Jan, Lisa and Robin lived about a block away from
Cape Coral Hospital where Jan worked.
Speaker 8: Well back in nineteen ninety we had a pretty big
case here in Cape Quarrel where somebody broke into an
apartment and I was hoping that you could maybe talk
to me about what you remember about that apartment complex,
if you saw anybody suspicious, if you were around there.
Speaker 3: If you could help me with that.
Speaker 9: If you have the picture of the does that look
earlier to you at all?
Speaker 3: Nothing at all?
Speaker 9: This is an attack side of this is the front door?
Speaker 3: Well, ma'am familiar to man.
Speaker 9: Mhm.
Speaker 10: Look at it real hard. You remember this case, right, No,
you never seen anything on the news about it.
Speaker 3: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 12: Much TV at home, not monks, every mady there's they
do these big stories about what happened here.
Speaker 3: No, not that I can recall.
Speaker 10: The actually you live with. If you go down Hancock,
they put.
Speaker 12: Up a billboard just recently about this what happened.
Speaker 10: Already noticed that.
Speaker 3: No, sir, so I don't like. Don't leave my house
there not walks, stay within a couple of block area
and I walk my dog.
Speaker 10: Your driver's license is good. It look like you just
renewed it a few years ago.
Speaker 3: I think you can drive.
Speaker 10: You have the ability to drive a car.
Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to drive. But I never said a
license away.
Speaker 1: From Joseph either did remember where it was lying. And
it's always a careful balance. Detectives walk when they're interrogating.
It's like lighting a fire. You have to start with
a simple spark and slowly build it up, feeding it
just enough to keep it going without smothering it. You
push too hard and the fire dies out. You go
too easy and it never catches. They know it's all
over as soon as a suspect asks for an attorney.
Detectives have to pay attention to every flicker, turning up
the pressure just enough, hoping that the truth will finally
ignite before the flame is snuffed out.
Speaker 10: I mean, it just looks like you have a lot
inside of you. Yeah, I can understand right now. It's
you're probably you're probably afraid well, but eventually everything.
Speaker 12: Kind of catches up with you. Thanks in the past,
the vestu late, you know, come to light. I always
think to being honest about it just kind of relieves
everything that people keep inside of them, you know, it's
it's what happened. There is just probably not something that
somebody meant to do. I really don't know what you're
talking about, sir, Well, I'm just staying up for instance,
that this would have had to meet with someone for
you know, plenty something years, and just probably something to
really want to get off their chest.
Speaker 1: You've heard enough interrogations to know what's coming next.
Speaker 10: Right, you believe in God.
Speaker 12: Right, it's always good to clench your sins before you
go to meet God. Well, I think that's the best
thing is to confess sins and go see the man
with a clear conscience and.
Speaker 3: Pray and give that mind saw off on my own even.
Speaker 10: Well, now it's kind of the time to do that.
Speaker 3: Don't understand what you're signing.
Speaker 10: I mean you kind of you kind of know why
you're here, right, No, No.
Speaker 3: I what you're talking about? Well, let's I don't know
what imply on.
Speaker 1: The detectives found themselves face to face with either someone
who didn't have much memory left or else was very
consistent with his line they weren't getting anywhere. Joseph insisted
that he stayed out of trouble for a long time,
and the only offense he could recall was the one
he was just arrested for shooting his son in alleged
self defense. When they brought up a charge in Illinois
for burglary back in the eighties, again he had no recollection,
so they asked, was he good at figuring out locks?
Speaker 3: I don't remember over paying a burglar or.
Speaker 9: And that's all old stuff.
Speaker 8: So, I mean, it's not like you know, and we're
not in Illinois, so it's not like I'm going to
charge you with it. I'm just asking you know how
how your brain worked and.
Speaker 3: Being any kind of burglar at all. I haven't she's
with my memory. I don't remember.
Speaker 9: I know, that's what she keeps saying. And I'm sure
that you do have some memory issues. I think that
you're also trying to play that card right now.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: The next round of questions involved his personal and sexual life.
They wanted to know if he'd ever cheated on Bonnie,
whether he was a one woman kind of guy, or
what his preferences were, you know.
Speaker 9: Like, do you like children in a sexual way?
Speaker 3: No, I don't like children, normal, realizes with my wife,
and I'm very happy to stay at home.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, Joseph, Bonnie, their son, and their son's
girlfriend were living in Fort Myers, not Cape Coral, even
though Cape Coral was less than ten miles away. You'd
think Joseph lived in a cave on the other side
of the world. According to him, he didn't watch much TV,
didn't go very far, and when he did he was
usually on his bike. It sounds like me, doesn't it. Anyway?
As for nineteen ninety, that was buried in the distant past,
a year, he seemed to have wiped from memory like
an old hard drive scrub clean. To hear Joseph tell it,
those years were long gone erased, leaving no trace for
anyone to find. But, as he would soon learn, some
things don't stay hidden forever, and there are some sins
you can't just pray away. Detectives then asked about porn.
He freely admitted using it, explaining that Bonnie knew it
and didn't mind. It was just part of life, nothing more,
he claimed. But then the conversation shifted a bit. Out
came the photos of Robin and Lisa, to young faces
that had been frozen in time since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 9: If you haven't seen them ever, I don't know who
they are.
Speaker 12: I know you don't know who they are. We're asking
you when you saw them.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen them. I'm now what you're putting here
on the table.
Speaker 10: Well, look at him.
Speaker 3: I am looking at him.
Speaker 9: Should jog your memory.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 1: But see, that's assuming he had a memory, And that
was the mystery, because if he's lying, he's damn good
at it.
Speaker 10: I don't know who they are a little bit I
can tell you. I can see in your eyes.
Speaker 3: Well, he could be wrong, because I don't know who
they are.
Speaker 10: I know I'm not wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't recall ever seeing this girl before.
Speaker 10: You've seen her before.
Speaker 9: No, Kirk's telling the truth. You've absolutely seen her before.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't recall seeing her before.
Speaker 12: Well, like I said, once you get this off your chest,
you're gonna feel like the whole way of the world
is gone from the back of your shoulders.
Speaker 3: I don't carry any way. I pray every evening.
Speaker 1: It had to be frustrating to know that they had
DNA fingerprints and hairstrands all connecting Joseph to the murders,
and yet could it be possible that he had no
memory of it? You heard him say he prayed every evening.
Was it also possible that he remembered the crimes, thought
he'd gotten away with it and actually tried to turn
over a new leaf, that is, until he shot his son.
Speaker 10: Because her mother thinks about she's the one that praised
every day.
Speaker 3: She's the one.
Speaker 12: That's going through every day, not you. Her mother every
day goes through what happened to her daughter.
Speaker 13: All right, So look at her.
Speaker 3: I have looked out her. I have looked out of
her and tell us the truth about what happened. I
have no idea what you're talking about. I've never seen
that girl before in my life.
Speaker 9: Her name is Robin. She's not just a little girl.
Her name is Robin.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 9: Robin was a sweet, wonderful girl, all right.
Speaker 10: Didn't deserve what happened. No one deserves what happened.
Speaker 9: Correct.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what happened, or I don't know
what she I'm flying.
Speaker 1: Robin was a sweet girl. According to her mom, Jan,
she was a typical eleven year.
Speaker 6: Old crossing over wanting to be that tomboy that could
beat boys at everything. She was just starting to think
to herself, maybe I shouldn't be so good at this stuff.
Because she could beat boys at running, she could beat
them at swimming, she could beat them at soccer. She
was pretty good, well rounded. She was just starting to
ask boy questions. Every now and then. I'd still catch
her playing with dolls. I'd say, what are you doing?
She'd say nothing, and I'd still catch her dressing and undressing,
and she still had dolls. So she was and she
did very well in school, very easy going no matter
what situation came up. She wasn't one of these kids
that bulked at it. She just would get in the
car and let's go do whatever it is. Has to
be done. But for the most part, Robin was very happy.
I have very few memories of her ever throwing a
fit or giving me a hard time. It was she
was pretty happy, go lucky, like to prank. She was
a big prankster.
Speaker 1: She was friendly and had lots of friends at school.
More than twenty five years later, these friends still think
of Robin and stay in touch with jan.
Speaker 9: This is a eleven year old little girl. This is Robin.
Speaker 12: Okay about what her mother's gone through every single day
for the past twenty five years.
Speaker 9: I'll just be breaking your.
Speaker 3: Heart right now, I can. I don't believe if I
was seeing one of these girls. I don't really know
what's I'm lying here.
Speaker 8: I'm not implying anything I'm selling. I'm telling you. I'm
saying that you know Robin, I don't know her. You've
seen her, you've met her.
Speaker 3: I don't know these girls.
Speaker 9: Do you remember touching her?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: No, Nothing was making this guy crack. And if they
could just get him to admit anything, but he wouldn't.
If they could just get him to acknowledge that he
gave his DNA and they had him as a match,
but he couldn't or wouldn't even admit to remembering being swabbed.
Speaker 8: Do you remember being swabbed by the detective that you
had a long conversation with, that you told him what
happened between you and your son. I'm not getting into that,
but that you talked to him about what happened between
you and your son, That you talked him about your accident,
the settlement, the house that you bought, all kinds of
those details, and you remember him swabbing with a big.
Speaker 9: Long cue tip the inside of your mouth.
Speaker 3: I don't remember any of that converse. I've I mean,
you're saying that I settle that stuff, but I can't
remember saying I don't remember the full procedure of what
they did to me.
Speaker 8: Okay, right, well, I guarantee you that that's exactly what happened. Okay, okay,
because that is procedure.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 9: Do you understand how DNA works?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 9: Do you know what DNA is?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 9: You have no clue at all.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 8: Now, okay, so DNA to you could mean really just
about anything.
Speaker 10: Okay, just explain with DNA.
Speaker 9: What is your understanding of DNA?
Speaker 3: I don't happening. I'm just standing enough.
Speaker 10: DNA what is DNA.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether he remembered anything or not. He
knew exactly what was up when they mentioned DNA.
Speaker 8: So when you were swabbed, when they took your d
that went to a database, all right, and your DNA
was found on my crimesy from a previous you know,
back in nineteen ninety. So this is the time, Joe,
that I need for you to really take a nice
deep breath and realize it.
Speaker 9: It's time for the lies to stop.
Speaker 8: It's time for this saying I don't remember, I don't recall.
Speaker 3: I'd like to speak to much.
Speaker 1: For jan it was always about the DNA. Even back
in this twenty thirteen interview, she hadn't lost hope. She
knew that advancements in this research would eventually bring answers.
Speaker 6: Whenever my phone rings and I know it's the police department,
or I'll get a text from christialis who's my detective,
and she'll just say call me, I'm like, you know,
I always get that little bit of but she says
she's not going to do that. Has she's coming to
my door. But you know, some of the leads look
really good, but it's going to come down to the DNA,
and if we have the DNA, would send it in
and it comes back and non matching.
Speaker 3: No matter how good it looked, He's not our person.
Speaker 1: When that said, No matter how much or how little
Joseph Ziler remembered or how many times he insisted on
his innocence, DNA doesn't lie. And his DNA was all
over the place, including on and in Robin. The probability
of it being anyone else was astronomically low. There was
no escaping the science. But would Joseph's had trauma and
alleged loss of memory be mitigating factors in a trial
or would the jury see him for what he was?
A cold sexual predator, burglar, and killer. For decades, the
brutal murders of eleven year old Robin Cornell and thirty
two year old Lisa's story haunted the quiet community of
Cape Coral, Florida. The two were brutally assaulted and suffocated
in their home in nineteen ninety, their innocent lives stolen
in an act of violence that left officers sobbing as
they left the heartbreaking scene. Despite the painstaking and instigation,
including forensic work and interviews with dozens of potential suspects.
The case went cold until twenty sixteen. It was then,
during an unrelated domestic dispute, that Joseph Zeiler's DNA was
collected and linked to the nineteen ninety crime scene. Joseph,
who had lived quietly for years denying any connection to
the murders, was suddenly at the center of a case
that had remained unsolved for more than twenty five years.
It was his third interview. He was already in jail
for shooting his son with a pellet gun in an argument.
According to Joseph, his son was a drunken bully who
had been belligerent and Joseph had enough. Now he was
faced with the reality that the police had DNA on
him from this incident and were arresting him for the
nineteen ninety murders of Robin and Lisa. Joseph claimed to
have no memory of anything occurring before a nineteen ninety
eight head injury, but detectives didn't believe them. Still, he
confessed to nothing. In his final interview with detectives, Joseph
seemed almost resigned. He spoke in calm tones, reflecting on
life and morality, as if he were an outsider to
his own story. Not once during the three interviews did
he get mad, yell, or have an outburst.
Speaker 3: I couldn't thank you up on that side. I'll talk
to me the last one. Arm or kid, What do
you like.
Speaker 1: For someone who would be standing trial for two of
the most brutal murders Florida has ever seen? Joseph seemed
like he was anything but a monster. He began reflecting
on how blessed he'd been to have a home and
how he was worried about Bonnie now living there alone
with their alcohol son. He maintained that he knew he
would need to let her go. It was almost as
if he was facing the gallows in these moments and
knew he'd come to Jesus soon because he's repented.
Speaker 3: She is a very beautiful and kind of moment, so
she deserves to put her lives that I argue one on.
Speaker 13: That place to here, that's not the purtiest. It's all yeah,
I'm sure what I could. I was plussed.
Speaker 1: It really seemed like this was a confessional. Joseph went
on to plead not guilty in the trial, but for now,
saying I enjoyed it while I could. I was blessed, sure,
felt like he knew he was never going to go
home again. And then the conversation took a bizarre turn
into moral speculation.
Speaker 3: I don't think she cole inherried least start out that.
I think, you know, it's just a product of years
of environment, product in their environment. Absolutely, I totally agree
with you.
Speaker 9: I mean, you know, I think you know, you.
Speaker 3: Go into a hostle field and babies and man remember
bad Unfortunately saying as to other things, you know, yeah, well,
I just don't think that anybody means to start out
inherently bad. I totally agree with you, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 13: And you know, and I've been doing these investigations for
a long time, and you know, I've I've talked to
a lot of people who actually have done very bad stuff, and.
Speaker 3: You know, and I've talking to them.
Speaker 13: They're just not you know, they're they're not the evil
monster that people may think they are.
Speaker 3: They just say or something.
Speaker 13: They may they may be someone who did something bad,
but you know, you know, like me and you were
having this conversation, they're not a a bad person.
Speaker 3: Sitting in front of me.
Speaker 1: For the record, he was using a hypothetical situation about
another person. He said, they are not a bad person
sitting in front of me, because Joseph was a different story.
There's no way the detective is sitting there thinking that
the man across from him was anything other than evil,
knowing what he did to Lisa's story in Robin Cornell, No, I.
Speaker 9: Agree, I agree. I think you know, everybody has a
story to tell him. You know, they got a history
and the reasons for real.
Speaker 3: You can't fly on other people for your for your reasons.
And I would never began to try to make any
kind of excuses for you know, anything like that. It's
just that people just don't start out inherent really bad.
It's just the way it is. Yeah, nobody's born. What's up?
What's the that's fun? Animals?
Speaker 1: Did Joseph really believe in accountability or was he just
setting the stage for sympathy at his trial. During the
trial in May of twenty twenty three, testimony from a
psychiatrist painted a different picture. Zyler's strict, authoritarian father, combined
with a head injury that caused memory loss and depression,
created a volatile mix of repression and anger. To the expert,
this wasn't about being born evil, but about how a
lifetime of unchecked damage can warp a person's mind.
Speaker 14: This is a complicated person to grow up with when
you're supposed to be learning about rules of society and
being frightened to break rules in the home because of
the risk to yourself. So I think that makes him
very confused regarding his father.
Speaker 1: But for the families of Lisa's story in Robin Cornell,
no amount of psychological insight could undo the harm Joseph
had caused. Lisa, who had just moved into jan Cornell's apartment,
was remembered by her boyfriend as a kind, thoughtful person
with a bright future ahead of her. One of the
few gifts she left behind was a watch she was
going to give him for his birthday. It was engraved
with love from Lisa and was never recovered. It was
stolen from the crime scene by this killer, who also
caused unspeakable harm to an eleven year old girl in
her final moments. This was Lisa's boyfriend at the time,
remembering what happened in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: She was a very outgoing person of vivaceous personality, very caring, compassionate,
a lot of fun to be around. She was just
to get all American girl, hard worker. We had planned
on getting married around her birthday, in the middle of September.
Speaker 3: Have you actually said a date, yes? Or September fifteenth?
When's your birthday?
Speaker 15: Maybe eleventh, the day after she was found deceased, right, yes, sir.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. My heart was broken, you know,
and I loved her very much, still do.
Speaker 1: Lisa's boyfriend wasn't the only one to take the stand
during the trial. Of course, Jan Cornell gave a heart
wrenching testimony. Most of the time, defense attorneys don't allow
their clients to take the stand, but Joseph Zeiler was
so adamant that he was innocent that there was no
stopping him. But of course, he was not expecting his
own incriminating words to quote come back and bite him
in the ass. Between September eighth and fifteenth, twenty sixteen,
Joseph Zeiler made five recorded calls to his girlfriend Bonnie
Nicely from jail us don directing Bonnie to get him
out of jail, telling her to claim he was too
incapacitated to flee. Tell the bondsman, you're my caretaker, he said,
and get power of attorney, so you can access my
safety deposit box. As the calls went on, Zeiler's calm
instructions turned even more specific. If anything comes down that
is upsetting you, if anything embarrassing comes down, you need
to pack a bag and run. You warned her, the
house is going to be converged on. Do you understand
what we're talking about Back in nineteen ninety I did
go through this before and nothing bit me in the ass,
So there's a very good chance at won't. These cryptic references,
along with repeatedly saying that he would deal with it
if his pass caught up with him, gave detectives a
window into Joseph's thoughts. On September twenty second, Joseph called
Bonnie in a panic cape Carl, Cops, you're trying to
pin some shit on me. Bonnie, who had no idea
he was a killer, was visibly shaken and later agreed
to meet with detectives. The calls revealed what his interviews hadn't.
Joseph wasn't just hiding something. He was terrified of what
was about to come to light. He started out calmly,
thinking he had control of the courtroom and claiming that
an unknown blonde hair found at the scene must have
belonged to his brother. But when it was pointed out
that blood analysis determined he was the killer, his demeanor
shifted dramatically. The man who had once calmly told detectives
that he didn't believe people were born bad now faced
the courtroom with defiance and cruelty, and sometimes the middle finger.
His testimony was less about defense and more about provoking
and blaming.
Speaker 4: The only way my DNA could have gotten her was
me sleeping with check and Leanne Deller.
Speaker 15: Did you sleep with jan Cornell and miss Dellar?
Speaker 3: It's possible because I was here. Well, now you were here.
Speaker 4: I mean I was here in December eighty nine. I
testified to that earlier. And what I believe happened is
I slept with Jack Cornell and Leanne Dellar, and there
are just too much of a pig not to wash
your seats.
Speaker 15: It was January, February, March, April, May of nineteen ninety
and then, well, okay, I don't want to get a
compound question. Your DNA would have still been there five
months later.
Speaker 3: Yes, And that's.
Speaker 15: Because they're pigs and they don't wash their sheets exactly.
Speaker 9: You know that.
Speaker 4: Well, I assume that, just like you're assuming not that.
Speaker 9: But just so the record's clear.
Speaker 15: When I said they're pigs and they wash their sheets, that's.
Speaker 3: What you said. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Whereas the interview room at the police station showed a meek,
mild and well mannered person with head trauma and memory loss,
now his memory, he was suddenly sharp enough to recall
that he had been in the area a few months
before the murders and had slept with Jan. For the record,
Jan had never slept with Joseph Zeiler in her lifetime.
In fact, she'd never even seen him.
Speaker 4: Well, she's calling me a rapist and a murderer, so
what I can't I can't write that.
Speaker 3: I mean, she'd called me a rapist.
Speaker 4: And a murderer, and I'm calling her a pig for
not washing her sheets.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor got rid of any notion that this vile man,
Joseph should be taken seriously.
Speaker 5: None of his testimonies backed up by any evidence. All
the evidence actually points the other directions his guilt.
Speaker 1: Robin and Lisa's family still wonder even today about the
true motive of the assault and murder. They wonder if
he was stalking them, if they had unknowingly met him
and caused him to want revenge. Or maybe this was
just a simple burglary that had gone wrong. Maybe it
was all three.
Speaker 9: What was his motive?
Speaker 5: If I had to explain why a child molester molest
children because they're sick, I couldn't answer that. But the
beautiful part is I don't have to answer that. I
don't have to tell you why he did it. On
May of nineteen ninety, he murdered them.
Speaker 9: In Cape Coral. What was his motive? I don't care,
thank you.
Speaker 1: On June twenty sixth, twenty twenty three, Joseph Zeiler was
sentenced to death for the nineteen ninety murders of eleven
year old Robin Cornell and thirty two year old Lisa's
Story in Cape Coral, Florida. The sentencing followed a jury's
recommendation for the death penalty, with ten out of twelve
jurys in favor. During the sentencing hearing, the once call
man who prayed every evening decided to elbow his attorney
in the face for their proving that maybe he was
inherently evil.
Speaker 3: After all, some people never gets the opportunity and the
story the things off and so I appreciate and so
constantly I understand that situation. No one starts our life
fly in't a bad way.
Speaker 1: No, this may be true, but they most definitely can
end up in a bad way. During that same interview,
he said one more thing that was both prophetic and chilling.
Speaker 3: Got the eyes of the Lord and just a just
a man trying to make flu eyes. How that effects.
Speaker 1: Little Robin's eyes were blue, Joseph Ziler's were not. Joseph
Zeiler denied being born evil. He sat across from detectives
and calmly insisted that he believed no one is inherently bad,
but his actions could not have been more demonic. The
violence he inflicted, the lives he stole, and the families
he shattered painted a picture that even he will never forget,
whether he admits it or not. We hope you like
that one. We think it's gonna be one of the
ones you remember for a long time. There's a few
episodes of Sword and Scale that just can't get out
of your head, you know. I think that was one
of them. So you're welcome, by the way, if you
really like the show, and you want to help us out.
If you want to support the arts, head on over
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dot sord and Scale dot com. This story was written
and researched by our producer, Valerie Vernon. That's it. I
got nothing else. I'm just gonna sit here till the
music stops because it's a rule FCC three one eight.
Speaker 16: So oh look it's time. Okay bye s.
Speaker 8: Shaking, stagg
Speaker 3: Shaking, shaking, ship shaking, shaved, moved and moved,