JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The murder of Tina Heins has been solved after more than three decades, State Attorney Melissa Nelson announced Thursday.
Michael Shane Ziegler, a close friend of Heins’ Navy sailor husband, is now charged with the sexual assault and murder of the 20-year-old, who was four months pregnant when she was stabbed 27 times in her Mayport apartment in 1994.
Nelson said Ziegler evaded justice for more than three decades -- allowing another man to be wrongfully imprisoned for the crime for nearly 14 years.
WATCH: Press play below to watch the entire cold case announcement
Heins’ husband, Jeremy, was on duty at Mayport Naval Station when his wife was killed in the early morning hours of April 17, 1994.
But Jeremy’s brother, Chad Heins, told police he was sleeping on the living room couch at the time and only woke up when fires that had been set in the apartment triggered the smoke alarm.
Chad Heins put out the fires, found Tina stabbed to death on her bed and called 911, Nelson said.
According to Nelson, all the evidence initially pointed toward Chad Heins being the killer. He was 19 years old at the time.
“There’s no way I could have did it. I loved her too much,” Heins said back then.
Chad Heins was convicted in 1996 of Tina’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison. He served nearly 14 years before advancements in DNA testing in the early 2000s helped free him from prison.
DNA found under Tina’s nails, from hairs collected from her body and from bodily fluids on her sheets did not match either her husband or her brother-in-law, Nelson said.
Chad Heins was released from prison in December 2007.
He was later convicted in a tax fraud scheme that took place while he was in prison.
Nelson said after Chad Heins’ release from prison, the DNA evidence from the crime was run through CODIS, the national DNA database, each week for years with no matches.
Investigators also interviewed “countless people” connected to Tina, collecting DNA from each. But no match was found.
“When I returned to the state attorney’s office in 2017, our goal to identify the man under Tina’s nails, on her body and in her sheets was a priority,” Nelson said.
Then, after the arrest of the Golden State Killer in 2018, using genetic genealogy, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement recommended that Nelson and her team contact a Texas lab in 2021 that specialized in identifying profiles from minute samples.
“A profile was developed, and the lab began genetic genealogy searches,” Nelson said. “Through genetic genealogy, Othram Labs identified a likely match.”
Nelson said her team’s detectives and forensic experts confirmed the match to Ziegler, who served with Tina’s husband in the Navy aboard the USS Leyte Gulf.
“Michael Ziegler was her husband, Jeremy’s, very close friend. In fact, he stood witness at their courthouse wedding just five months before Tina was killed,” Nelson said. “For three decades, Ziegler remained under the radar, but his biological footprint endured. And with persistence and advancements in science, we finally caught up to him and caught him.”
Ziegler, now 52, was indicted on first-degree murder and sexual battery charges in Tina’s death on Aug. 28 of this year.
He was living with his mother outside Atlanta, Georgia, when he was taken into custody on Sept. 4, with help from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Clayton and Newton County sheriff’s offices, the US Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force, and Georgia State Patrol.
Ziegler, a retired merchant marine, now sits in the Duval County jail without bond.
“It wasn’t easy, but the men and women who carried this case never gave up. Now, 31 years later and with the help of advanced DNA technology, we are able to announce this arrest,” said Edwin Cayenne, director of investigations and Homeland Security for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. “While Tina’s life was tragically cut short, we hope this development brings some measure of peace to her loved ones.”
Ziegler’s next court appearance will be at 9 a.m. Oct. 7.