Zimmerman changes details, makes claims inconsistent with other evidence

Zimmerman changes details, makes claims inconsistent with other evidence

By Rene Stutzman and Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel





6:22 p.m. EST, June 27, 2012

George Zimmerman talked to Sanford police a half-dozen times, going over what happened the night he killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. In the retelling, parts of his story changed. His account also does not line up with other evidence.



Here are some of the most prominent inconsistencies:



Where the confrontation happened



In his first recorded interview with police the night of the Feb. 26 shooting, Zimmerman said Trayvon popped out at him from "the bushes."



By the time he re-enacted the shooting less than 24 hours later, however, Zimmerman was much more precise, and the spot he pointed out had no bushes nearby.



As he walked police through what happened where, he said Trayvon approached him from his left rear and at a spot near the intersection of two sidewalks.



What Trayvon said



In that first taped interview with Sanford police Investigator Doris Singleton, Zimmerman said that when he and Trayvon came face to face on that sidewalk, Trayvon said, "What the [expletive][is] your problem, homey?"



During the next 24 hours, Zimmerman's version of what Trayvon said would change slightly, becoming less offensive with each telling.



In another interview later that night, he told Investigator Chris Serino that Trayvon said, "You got a problem?"



During the re-enactment the next afternoon, he told police that Trayvon yelled, "Yo, you got a problem?"



Also, a 16-year-old Miami girl told prosecutors she heard something different. She said she was on the phone with Trayvon at the time and heard him say, "What are you following me for?"



Dispatcher asked him to find Trayvon



After first spotting Trayvon and dialing a nonemergency police number, Zimmerman parked his truck while he talked with the dispatcher, asking that an officer come to the scene.



While still on the line, he drove a short distance down the street before parking again.



Why did he move his truck?



During the re-enactment the day after the shooting, Zimmerman told detectives it was because he had lost sight of the 17-year-old, and the dispatcher asked him to find him.



A review of Zimmerman's recorded call with the dispatcher, though, shows there was no such request.



Did he follow Trayvon?



In his call to police before the shooting, Zimmerman can be heard huffing and puffing as if he had been running or walking fast.



"Are you following him?" the dispatcher asked.



"Yeah," Zimmerman answered.



"OK, we don't need you to do that," the dispatcher said.



"OK," Zimmerman said.



But after the shooting, he offered a different reason for getting out of his truck. Serino pressed him for an explanation three days later.



I was "just going in the same direction he was," Zimmerman said. He had exited his truck, he said, to get a street address for authorities.



"Did you pursue the kid? Did you want to catch him?" Serino asked.



"No," said Zimmerman.



Serino challenged him further: "How do you not know the three streets in your neighborhood [where] you've been living for three years?"



Zimmerman replied that he had a bad memory and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.



Other inconsistencies



Investigators also pointed out to Zimmerman in a Feb. 29 interrogation several other discrepancies, but he did not clear them up:



•He had said that during their struggle, Trayvon covered Zimmerman's nose and mouth with his hands, but in a recorded 911 call from a neighbor in which someone can be heard screaming for help, none of the cries sound muffled.



•Zimmerman had injuries but not ones that matched the severity of the attack he described, according to Serino. If Trayvon had been banging Zimmerman's head on the sidewalk, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer should have had skull fractures, not just cuts, Serino said.



•There were no defensive wounds on Zimmerman's hands and just one small scrape on a finger of Trayvon's left hand, Serino said — little evidence of life-and-death struggle.



rstutzman@tribune.com or 407-650-6394. jweiner@tribune.com or 407-420-5171.



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