The Murders of Robin Cornell and Jan Story<\/p>\n
On May 10, 1990, at around 11 p.m., Jan left home to spend time<\/a> with her then-boyfriend (and later husband), Donnie Battista. Robin, a fifth grader, wanted to have a sleepover with a friend, but Jan refused because Robin had not cleaned her room. Jan\u2019s best friend, Story, who had just moved in two days prior<\/a>, was home that night and playing babysitter for the few hours Jan was away.<\/p>\n Battista only lived a few blocks away from the home, so Jan\u2019s plan had been to watch a football game with him and then come home in the late night so she could wake up there for her morning shift. However, she fell asleep on the couch, waking up around 4 a.m. in a panic about not making it to work on time. She rushed home to iron her nurse uniform only to discover a horrific scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n The door wasn\u2019t locked the way she had left it, and when when she looked at her ironing board, she saw that someone had moved framed pictures of Robin and Story onto it.<\/p>\n Jan went upstairs and discovered Robin in her room<\/a>, naked and strangled to death with her own undergarments. Story had also been raped and killed, but Jan didn\u2019t know that until police officers, responding to the scene, told her later.<\/p>\n Cape Coral police officers were able to retrieve viable sperm cell DNA samples at the scene, but there were no matches.<\/p>\n Several early leads in the case dead-ended quickly. In 1994, the Cape Coral Police Department briefly looked into Frank Thaniel Potts, a migrant worker who was arrested that spring for murder in Alabama after skeletal remains were found<\/a> at his cabin in the woods. But Potts was quickly ruled out<\/a> when his blood type turned out to be type A; the double murder in Cape Coral had been committed by someone who was type O.\u00a0<\/p>\n Investigators looked at others<\/a>, like serial killer Donald Leroy Evans, but ties were similarly weak.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then suddenly, in 2016, the case broke open.<\/p>\n The Connection to Joseph Zieler<\/p>\n In August 2016, 54-year-old Joseph Zieler and his 25-year-old son, Zachary, got into a heated argument in the town of North Fort Myers, Fla. Enraged, Joseph shot Zachary with a pellet gun. After Zachary was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery, police arrested Zieler for felony aggravated assault<\/a>.<\/p>\n A 2009 Florida state law requires felony defendants to submit their DNA into a state database<\/a> even if they have not been convicted of a crime. When Zieler\u2019s was submitted, the DNA analysis showed an overwhelming overlap with the sperm cells from the double murder. It was a level of match that could be expected in one in 83 quintillion people<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a recorded jailhouse conversation, Zieler told his wife to pack her bags for a quick escape.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, that escape would never happen. Zieler was charged<\/a> with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of sexual battery and burglary.\u00a0<\/p>\n At trial, Zieler maintained his innocence and asserted that his DNA could\u2019ve been at the scene if he\u2019d had consensual sex with either of the adult women<\/a> in the home, though Jan adamantly denied the idea. Zieler also said that he had been arrested and was jailed in Maryland at the time of the killings; the state of Maryland said they had no record in support of that alibi.<\/p>\n The jury convicted Zieler on all charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a 10-2 vote, Zieler\u2019s jury voted to give him the death penalty. Afterwards, Jan told reporters<\/a>, \u201cI felt like I needed to be [Robin and Story\u2019s] voice and I wasn\u2019t going to let either one of them down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n