Shellie Zimmerman, the estranged wife of George Zimmerman, said on Thursday that she now has "doubts" about the innocence of her husband, who was acquitted in the Trayvon Martin murder trial. Her change of heart follows a domestic dispute in which she complained that her husband had threatened her with a gun. She later refused to press charges.
"I think anyone would doubt that innocence because I don't know the person that I've been married to," Shellie Zimmerman said in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
Earlier this month, the police responded to a 911 call by Shellie, who claimed that her husband had a gun, saying, "I don't know what he's capable of." She also said that he had punched her father in the nose and had broken her iPad. No gun was found on the scene, according to police, but Shellie stands by her story.
"I did not see a gun but … I know my husband. I saw him in a stance and a look in his eyes that I've never seen before. His shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and he was putting his hand in his shirt and saying, 'Please, step closer, please step closer,' and so I think that just logically I assumed he had a gun on him," she said.
Shellie Zimmerman said that this domestic incident with her husband has left her conflicted because, while she believes the evidence and respects the jury decision, she has now seen a side of her husband that leaves her with doubts: "I'm conflicted on that. I believe the evidence, but this revelation in my life has really helped [me] take the blinders off and start to see things … "
She questions whether her husband believed that his life was in danger the night he fatally shot the unarmed Trayvon, but Shellie Zimmerman still firmly believes that racial profiling was not the cause. "He did not profile Trayvon Martin," she said, adding her affirmation that had Trayvon been white, the tragic outcome would have been the same.
Read more at NBC News.