Rachel Jeantel, a friend of Trayvon Martin who was on the phone with the 17-year-old on the night of his death, revealed new information while testifying on the witness stand Thursday.
During the George Zimmerman murder trial, 19-year-old Jeantel admitted in open court that she did not write a letter that was sent to Martin's mother describing what she allegedly heard on a phone with Trayvon. The truth was revealed when defense attorney Don West asked Jeantel to read the letter out loud in court.
"Are you able to read that at all?" West asked.
"Some but not all. I don't read cursive," Jeantel responded.
According to reports, Jeantel's testimony is a key prosecution witness who stated she believed the Martin-Zimmerman incident was racially charged. The teenager told the court that Martin told her he was being followed by a white man.
She testified that Martin described the man following him as "a creepy-ass cracker" and that he thought he had evaded him. When Zimmerman was still following Martin, Jeantel said she told him to run.
"I say, 'Trayvon,' and then he said, 'Why are you following me for?'" Jeantel testified. "And then I heard a hard-breathing man come say, 'What you doing around here?' ... And then I was calling, 'Trayvon, Trayvon.' And then I started to hear a little bit of Trayvon saying, 'Get off, get off.'"
Jeantel claimed she heard Martin being hit in their phone converstation.
West continued to poke holes in Jeantel's stories, focusing on her lies in the cross examination. He asked the witness if she told investigators before that she heard what sounded like somebody being hit at the end of her call with Martin.
"Trayvon got hit," Jeantel said.
"You don't know that? Do you? You don't know that Trayvon got hit," West responded to Jeantel's testimony. "You don't know that Trayvon didn't at that moment take his fists and drive them into George Zimmerman's face."
Zimmerman, 29, is on trial for second degree murder in Martin's Feb. 26, 2012 death. To watch the live stream of Zimmerman's court proceedings, click here.
