Trayvon Case Investigation

A leading expert in the field of forensic voice identification sought to answer that question by analyzing the recordings for the Orlando Sentinel.


His result: It was not George Zimmerman who called for help.

Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman. Another expert contacted by the Sentinel, utilizing different techniques, came to the same conclusion.

Zimmerman claims self-defense in the shooting and told police he was the one screaming for help. But these experts say the evidence tells a different story.

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Not all experts rely on biometrics. Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio engineer and forensics expert, is not a believer in the technology's use in courtroom settings.

He relies instead on audio enhancement and human analysis based on forensic experience. After listening closely to the 911 tape on which the screams are heard, Primeau also has a strong opinion.

"I believe that's Trayvon Martin in the background, without a doubt," Primeau says, stressing that the tone of the voice is a giveaway. "That's a young man screaming."

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(CNN) -- An "outraged" Florida prosecutor fired back on Monday at the family of Trayvon Martin, describing as "outright lies" their account that he and a local police chief met and decided not to follow a detective's advice and arrest the teenager's killer.

Earlier in the day, the Martin family delivered a letter to the U.S. Justice Department through attorney Benjamin Crump's office requesting a federal investigation of the decision not to arrest George Zimmerman after the fatal February 26 shooting.

The 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer has said he killed Martin in self-defense, saying the teen punched him and slammed his head into a sidewalk before the shooting, according to family members and police.

Martin's family and supporters say Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, profiled the boy, who is black, as "suspicious" and ignored a police dispatcher's request that he not follow him. The 17-year-old had a bag of Skittles candy and an iced tea at the time of his death.

In the letter delivered Monday, the Martin family said that a Sanford police detective "filed an affidavit stating that he did not find Zimmerman's statements credible in light of the circumstances and facts surrounding the shooting."

The family said Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee and State Attorney Norm Wolfinger met the night of the shooting and disregarded the detective's advice, letting Zimmerman go.

Neither Sanford police nor prosecutors have confirmed the existence of such an affidavit, which ABC News first reported. Sanford officials and special prosecutor Angela Corey's office declined comment.

But Wolfinger, who stepped aside in the case last month, vehemently denies that any "such meeting or communication occurred" between him and Lee.

"I have been encouraging those spreading the irresponsible rhetoric to stop and allow State Attorney Angela Corey to complete her work," Wolfinger said in a statement Monday. "Another falsehood distributed to the media does nothing to forward that process."

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The Trayvon Martin case has generated hundreds of news accounts, scores of speeches, millions of online messages, discussions and tweets — and a good bit of misinformation. Here are some of the recurring items:

Trayvon was trying to defend himself against a man who outweighed him by 100 pounds.

Outweighed, yes. By 100 pounds, no. George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who says he killed Trayvon in self-defense, outweighed him by 30 or 40 pounds, according to family members. A Sanford police incident report says Trayvon was 6 feet tall and weighed 160 pounds. A spokesman for the family's lawyers gave a slightly different set of numbers: 6 feet 1 and 150 pounds. Zimmerman is 5 feet 9 inches tall, according to the police report, but it is silent about his weight. A family member says he currently weighs about 190 pounds. Zimmerman used to be far heavier. A 2005 police report put his weight at 250 pounds, but security-camera video released last week by Sanford police show him to be much trimmer.


The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a broad investigation into civil-rights abuses by the Sanford Police Department in the Trayvon Martin case and for years of past abuse.

Not so. Since Trayvon's death Feb. 26, the NAACP and others have alleged widespread and long-standing civil-rights abuses by the department and asked for a broad investigation. But last week, DOJ spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa and FBI spokesman Dave Couvertier told the Los Angeles Times that there's only one civil-rights investigation under way: whether Zimmerman violated Trayvon's rights when he shot him.

Trayvon had no business walking through the gated community where he was shot and should not have been out at 3 a.m.

Trayvon was where he was supposed to be. He and his father were visiting his father's fiancée, who lives in the gated community. Trayvon had walked to a 7-Eleven and was returning to her townhouse shortly after 7:15 p.m. when he was shot. He was not out at 3 a.m.

The reason George Zimmerman was not arrested is because his father is a former judge who pulled some strings.

Zimmerman's father, 64-year-old Robert Zimmerman of Lake Mary, is a retired magistrate from Virginia. He told WOFL-Channel 35 last week that no one involved in the investigation knew about his former job, and he didn't tell them. Magistrates in Virginia are not full-blown judges. They used to be called justices of the peace. They have limited authority and conduct no trials. Some are not lawyers. They typically issue arrest warrants, search warrants and set bail.

Trayvon Martin was shot in the back of the head.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson got that wrong at a rally in Eatonville on March 25. Trayvon was shot once in the chest at close range.

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“You will recall the incident of the beating of the black homeless man Sherman Ware on December 4, 2010 by the son of a Sanford police officer. The beating sparked outrage in the community but there were very few that stepped up to do anything about it. I would presume the inaction was because of the fact that he was homeless not because he was black. Do you know the individual who stepped up when no one else in the black community would? Do you know who spent tireless hours putting flyers on the cars of persons parked in the churches of the black community? Do you know who waited for the church-goers to get out of church so that he could hand them flyers in an attempt to organize the black community against this horrible miscarriage of justice? Do you know who helped organize the City Hall meeting on January 8, 2011 at Sanford City Hall?? That person was GEORGE ZIMMERMAN.” – from a letter to Turner Clayton of the Seminole County NAACP written by “a concerned Zimmerman family member”

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ABC News acknowledged today that the police video of George Zimmerman being taken into custody following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin shows injuries to the back of his head. It says a forensic enhancement it commissioned allows the injuries to be seen.
Forensic enhancement wasn't needed. As I showed here, the injuries were noticeable from ABC's original footage. You just had to look. Here's the screengrab I got back on March 29. [More...]

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Maybe ABC can ask its forensic analysts to look at Zimmerman's jacket and nose. It looks to me like there's a large vertical streak of blood on the front of his jacket, which could be from a nosebleed. It also looks like there may be a bandaid across his nose, although I can't tell that for sure because it's faint and could be the light.
As I've opined before, I don't think the police video tells us what happened that night. It is just a piece of the story. But the media has not been responsible in its reporting. Good for ABC for acknowledging the video does shows head injuries. I just don't buy that it couldn't have looked closer and seen them when it first obtained the video.

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[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]he does not have a [/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif] (5.00 / 1) (#73)[/FONT]
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[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]"history of unnecessary violence." He was never convicted of a crime of violence. He was arrested in 2005 at a bar. He was with a friend and cops were conducting an undercover sting to nail minors getting drinks. He shoved an officer who had gotten into a beef with his friend. (The sting may have been blown, increasing the ire of the cops, but that's supposition.) The charge was reduced and then dismissed entirely after George took some alcohol classes. In his application to police academy, he said the officer shoved him first and he didn't know he was a cop. Regardless, shoving someone is not particularly violent and certainly not indicative of a tendency to shoot someone. In a second incident, he and his ex-fiance each filed for civil restraining orders against the other. Both requests were granted. There were no criminal charges or convictions.
[/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif] He does not have an unnecessary history of violence. [/FONT]

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In order to arrest George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the special prosecutor heading the investigation must show a judge that she has found probable cause.

Sanford police faced public outrage when they announced they found no probable cause to arrest the Neighborhood Watch volunteer.

So what exactly is it?

"It's a 'reasonable person' standard under the law," said John Tanner, former state attorney in the 7th Judicial Circuit, which includes Volusia County.


It is evidence that would convince a reasonable person that a suspect committed a crime.

For example: It's a rock of crack cocaine found in a man's pocket. It's a department-store security video showing a woman slipping a necklace into her handbag. It's a blood test showing a driver's blood-alcohol level above the legal limit.

Bob Dekle, who prosecuted serial killer Ted Bundy and is now a professor at the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida, characterized probable cause as "just above suspicion."

In the case of Trayvon's shooting death, it would be any piece of evidence that would convince a judge that Zimmerman probably committed a crime when he shot the unarmed teen in a gated Sanford community in late February.

That could be a witness, a piece of physical evidence or something else.

Sanford police were looking for evidence of manslaughter. Special Prosecutor Angela Corey will not say what charge or charges her team is reviewing.

Police can and do arrest suspects without probable cause, but judges must then order their release from jail. Senior Judge O.H. Eaton Jr. said that happened at least once or twice every weekend he was on jail duty reviewing Seminole County arrests for the previous 24 hours.

When that happens, police can rearrest the suspect, and prosecutors are free to file charges. But they must bring the case to trial within 175 days of arrest, according to Florida rules of criminal procedure.

That ticking clock is often an incentive for prosecutors to hold off on an arrest, they said. It gives them more time to collect evidence — for example, to get ballistics tests done if a gun is involved or to have fingerprints analyzed.

Prosecutors almost always demand more evidence than cops.

Though an officer needs only probable cause to make an arrest, prosecutors typically want enough evidence for a conviction — enough to convince a jury beyond every reasonable doubt that the suspect is guilty.

It is a natural point of friction between the two branches of law enforcement, said Ric Ridgway, chief assistant state attorney in the 5th Judicial Circuit, which includes Lake County.


"It's probably the single most frequent source of … disagreement between law enforcement and prosecutors, between victim's families and prosecutors," he said. "They look at it and go, 'We know he did it.' As a prosecutor, I say, 'Can you prove it?' "

Evidence standards

Because of those different evidence standards, prosecutors typically kick loose at least a quarter of the cases in which police make arrests, he said.

That happened in the case of four co-defendants in the Jessica Lunsford murder, Ridgway said. The 9-year-old Homosassa girl was abducted, raped and buried alive in 2005. Prosecutors convicted suspect John Couey, the kidnapper and killer, but Citrus County deputies and prosecutors disagreed about what to do with four of his roommates.

Deputies arrested them on charges of obstructing an officer — withholding information.

"We would not prosecute them," Ridgway said, because there wasn't enough evidence for a conviction.

Sometimes police and prosecutors work a long time to gather enough evidence before making an arrest.

A Seminole County grand jury in February handed up a murder indictment in a 21-year-old homicide: Betty Claire Foster was stabbed to death at the Casselberry computer store where she worked in 1991. David Lee Hedrick, 50, a computer and audiovisual specialist, is now in the Seminole County Jail, awaiting trial.

A Brevard County grand jury on Monday indicted a woman there on a first-degree-murder charge in a four-year-old homicide.

And in Orange County, Brett Ballard and his wife, Joy, have been waiting more than three years to find out whether the security guard who fatally stabbed their 20-year-old son, Marcus, in 2008 will be arrested and prosecuted.

Marcus Ballard was stabbed eight times in the torso and neck and several times on the palms of his hands, according to his autopsy. The security guard told deputies the men were fighting at a Pine Hills apartment complex and he used his knife to defend himself after Ballard had begun choking him.

Sometimes, mistakes

Police and prosecutors sometimes get it wrong.

An officer was dispatched to a Miami-Dade County neighborhood in response to a reported burglary. About that same time, a black 15-year-old, his brother and a friend ducked into a neighbor's carport because of a sudden rain, according to an appeals-court ruling.

The officer saw the boys, drew his weapon, and the 15-year-old took off running and hid. An officer soon found him, ordered him facedown in the mud, handcuffed him and arrested him on a charge of resisting an officer without violence, according to the ruling.

The Third District Court of Appeal in May 2010 reversed the juvenile court's finding in the case, ruling that the police officer should never have made the arrest.

There was no probable cause that the boys had committed a crime.

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CNN Reporter Who Was Sure Zimmerman Said "Coons" Two Weeks Ago Now Very Sure He Says "Cold"

—Ace

Yeah, you wouldn't want to have been sure before your first report.
He finally gets the point I made a couple weeks ago-- if you are expecting to hear a word, you'll hear it. So this time he doesn't say what word he expects the audience to hear.
It does sound like cold, though.
Then again, it's sounded like coons, punks, and even phones (suggested by Dan Riehl).
Maybe the broader point is that when a word is unintelligible, it's unintelligible. And you shouldn't try to frame a man for racial murder based on your guestimates about it.

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Sanford, Florida (CNN) -- George Zimmerman told his lawyers that he whispered "punks," not a racial slur, in the moments before he shot Trayvon Martin, his attorneys told CNN on Thursday.

Some people interpreted the police recording of Zimmerman's call to 911 as evidence the fatal shooting was racially motivated.

Zimmerman attorneys Hal Ulrig and Craig Sonner told CNN their client told them that he said, "F---ing punks."

Forensic audio expert Tom Owen, who analyzed 911 recordings, agreed the garbled word that raised controversy was "punks," not the racial slur some people said they heard

When Owen, chairman emeritus of the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used a computer application to remove cell phone interference, the word became clearer, he said. After discussions with linguists, he said he became convinced that Zimmerman said "punks."

Attorney: Martin had right to defend self
He provided CNN with a copy of the newly processed audio.

CNN also enhanced the sound of the 911 call, and several members of CNN's editorial staff repeatedly reviewed the tape but could reach no consensus on whether Zimmerman used a slur.

Martin's family and supporters say Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, profiled Martin, who was black, as "suspicious" and ignored a police dispatcher's request not to follow him. Martin did not live in Sanford, Florida, but he was there with his father, whose fiancee lives in Zimmerman's neighborhood.

Zimmerman, 28, fatally shot Martin, 17, on February 26. The case has triggered a nationwide debate about Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, race and racial profiling.

While Zimmerman's attorneys may welcome Owen's analysis of their client's 911 call, they disagree with his conclusions about what is heard on another 911 recording.

Zimmerman has said he was yelling for help, according to his family members and his account to authorities, as first reported by The Orlando Sentinel and later confirmed by Sanford police.

But Martin's relatives, including his cousin Ronquavis Fulton, have said they are certain the voice heard on the 911 call is Martin's.

Owen and another audio expert, Ed Primeau, analyzed the recording for the Sentinel using different techniques, and they said they don't believe it is Zimmerman who is heard yelling in the background of one 911 call. They compared the screams with Zimmerman's voice, as recorded in a 911 call he made minutes earlier describing a "suspicious" black male.

"There's a huge chance that this is not Zimmerman's voice," said Primeau, a longtime audio engineer who is listed as an expert in recorded evidence by the American College of Forensic Examiners International.

"After 28 years of doing this, I would put my reputation on the line and say this is not George Zimmerman screaming."

Owen also said he does not believe the screams came from Zimmerman.

He does not have a sample of Martin's voice for comparison, he said.

He cited software that is widely used in Europe and has become recently accepted in the United States that examines characteristics such as pitch and the space between spoken words to analyze voices.

Using it, he found a 48% likelihood the voice is Zimmerman's. At least 60% is necessary to feel confident that two samples are from the same source, he told CNN on Monday -- meaning it's unlikely it was Zimmerman who can be heard yelling.

The experts, both of whom said they have testified in cases involving audio analysis, stressed that they cannot say who was screaming.

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