New Trayvon Martin evidence: Teens DNA Not Found on Zimmerman's Gun
Thursday, September 20, 2012 at 03:56AM State evidence released today in the George Zimmerman second-degree murder case shows new details from a state crime lab that found Zimmerman's DNA on Trayvon Martin, the teenager he shot to death, and Trayvon's DNA on him.
But the gun that Zimmerman used to kill Trayvon that night – a gun that Zimmerman told police the teenager had reached for - revealed no evidence that Trayvon touched it.
State scientists checked several parts of the 9 mm handgun: its grip, trigger, slide and holster. They found Zimmerman's DNA and that belonging to other unidentifiable people but none that matched Trayvon, records show.
The gun evidence is important because Zimmerman told Sanford police he opened fire only after the 17-year-old pinned him to the ground and reached for the gun he wore holstered on his waist.
In a re-enactment for Sanford police the next day, Zimmerman did not say or show that the two had struggled over the gun, only that Trayvon had extended his hand toward it.
Prosecutors today released to the public several hundred pages of evidence. It included no bombshells.
The DNA evidence was among the most compelling because it confirmed that Zimmerman and Trayvon had been in extremely close contact.
Several neighbors reported seeing one on top of the other in a fight that left one of them screaming, Zimmerman with a broken nose and small gashes to his head and Trayvon dead from a gunshot wound to the heart.
Special Prosecutor Angela Corey released some DNA evidence May 17 but more details today. Records from the FDLE's Orlando lab show scientists there found a Trayvon-Zimmerman DNA mixture in a blood stain on Zimmerman's red-orange jacket.
Zimmerman's DNA was found in a stain on Trayvon's shirt. Scientists found on that same piece of clothing a Zimmerman-Trayvon mix of DNA, they reported.
The new evidence also reveals that the local president of the NAACP sent Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee an email three days after the shooting, asking to meet and discuss Trayvon's shooting.
It's unclear when or whether that meeting with Turner Clayton Jr. happened.
Lee and his agency's investigation into the shooting were harshly criticized by local and national civil rights leaders and Trayvon's family. Lee was fired a few months later.