Chad Heins

The Crime

On the night of April 17, 1994, 20-year-old Tina Heins, who was four months pregnant, was murdered in the apartment she shared with her husband, Jeremy, in the Mayport neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida.

At the time, Jeremy, a Navy sailor, was aboard the USS Leyte Gulf at the nearby Mayport Naval Station.

Jeremy’s 19-year-old brother, Chad, had recently moved from Wisconsin to temporarily stay with the couple until he and his fiancée could find a home in the Jacksonville area. That evening, he had come home around 12:30 a.m. after a night of drinking and playing pool, and fell asleep on the couch. Tina arrived about two hours later. They chatted briefly before he went back to sleep.

Around 5:45 a.m., Chad was awakened by a smoke alarm and found three small fires burning — one in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one on the couch where he slept. He extinguished the fires and disarmed the smoke alarm, but noticed that the front door was ajar.

Concerned that the smoke alarm had not roused Tina, Chad went to the bedroom and found her murdered, covered in blood. She had defensive wounds on her hands.

The Investigation

Tina had been a receptionist at the Sea Turtle Inn in Atlantic Beach. The hotel owner told police that on the night of the crime, she had left work around 1:30 a.m. Chad was supposed to pick her up, but because he fell asleep and didn’t show up, a coworker drove her home.

On April 20, 1994, Chad was charged with first-degree murder and attempted sexual battery. Police cited his inconsistent statements as a reason to suspect him. Reportedly, Chad told Jeremy, “I messed up … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it.”

The Trial

On Dec. 9, 1996, Chad went to trial in Duval County Circuit Court. The prosecution sought the death penalty, arguing that it was impossible to have slept through the attack in the 600 square foot one-bedroom apartment. 

Chad’s defense attorney explained that his apology to his brother was an expression of remorse for sleeping through the attack and failing to stop it.

The prosecution had no physical evidence implicating him. No blood was found on his clothes or under his fingernails, and he had no scratches or scrapes on his body. The murder weapon was never found. 

A forensic analyst testified that DNA testing performed on three hairs collected from the victim’s bedroom showed that the hairs came from one person, who was neither Chad nor his brother.

Two jailhouse informants testified that Mr. Heins had confessed his guilt to them while they were in the Duval County Jail.

On Dec. 20, 1996, Mr. Heins was convicted by the jury of first-degree murder and attempted sexual battery. The jury declined to impose the death penalty and Mr. Heins was sentenced to life in prison.

In March 1998, the First District Court of Appeal of Florida upheld the convictions and sentence.

The Exoneration

In 2001, Mr. Heins wrote to the Innocence Project, which took the case with help from the Innocence Project of Florida. In 2003, along with attorney Robert Beckham of Holland & Knight, the Innocence Project filed a motion for DNA testing on skin cells collected from underneath the victim’s fingernails. 

In June 2005, the test results showed that the male DNA under the victim’s fingernails did not belong to Chad or his brother. Additional tests revealed that the DNA from the fingernail scrapings and the three hairs came from the same person.

In July 2006, Innocence Project attorney Nina Morrison and Mr. Beckham filed a motion seeking to vacate Chad’s convictions based on the new test results. In the motion, the defense also indicated that the prosecution had failed to disclose a fingerprint that had been discovered on the bathroom faucet. The fingerprint did not match any of the Heinses.

On Dec. 12, 2006, Duval County Circuit Judge L. Page Haddock vacated Chad’s convictions. However, because State Attorney Harry Shorstein declared that he intended to retry Chad, he was not released.

While preparing for the retrial, the Innocence Project sought further DNA testing on semen from the victim’s bed sheets. In November 2007, the test results indicated that the DNA from the semen matched that of the fingernail scrapings and the hairs. 

On Dec. 4, 2007, the prosecution dismissed the case and Chad was finally released. He had been incarcerated for 11 years. He did not receive compensation for his wrongful conviction.

Over the years, law enforcement continued to submit the unidentified DNA profile to the FBI DNA database, but no matches were found. Finally, in 2021, 4th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Melissa Nelson ordered testing with the Texas-based laboratory Othram, which successfully constructed a DNA profile from the evidence.

On Sept. 4, 2025, police arrested 51-year-old Michael Shane Ziegler in Covington, Georgia. Mr. Ziegler, a Navy veteran, was a close friend of Jeremy Heins and was stationed near their apartment at the time of the murder. 

In October 2025, Mr. Ziegler pleaded not guilty to the murder and was ordered held without bail pending a resolution of the case.