AFRICANGLOBE – Rachel Jeantel, the young woman who was on the phone with Trayvon Martin the night he was shot, testified on Wednesday at George Zimmerman’s trial that Trayvon Martin was aware that he was being followed.
“A man was watching him … He kept complaining the man was watching him,” the 19-year-old told the prosecuting attorney, relating her conversation with Trayvon Martin of the night of Feb. 26, 2012.
Jeantel said Trayvon Martin told her the man watching him was a “creepy-ass cra*ker.” She recalled suggesting that the man might be a rapist. She went on to say that Trayvon Martin told her he was going to try to elude the man, and that the teen left the area but that he was still being followed. Jeantel said she told him to run, but Trayvon Martin replied that he was close to his father’s fiance’s house. Shortly after, Trayvon Martin told Jeantel he would run home and then the phone went dead.
Later in her testimony, Jeantel said that when she called Trayvon Martin back, he told her “the n*gga is behind me.” Jeantel said she heard a bump and then the sound of “wet grass.” She said she heard Trayvon Martin say “get off,” the call was cut off and she never spoke to Trayvon Martin again.
When asked whose voice was screaming for help on the 911 audio, Jeantel said she believes it was Trayvon Martin.
Both Jeantel and Trayvon Martin’s father became emotional during the testimony, wiping their eyes with tissues. Jeantel became agitated when she described hearing about Trayvon Martin’s death and while discussing her decision not to attend his wake or his funeral.
“I didn’t want to see the body,” she said.
Jeantel also grew visibly frustrated by defense attorney Don West‘s questions on cross-examination.
Jeantel, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, admitted that she lied about her age, claiming to be a minor because she did not want to get involved.
Jeantel also insisted she declined to meet with Trayvon Martin’s mother because she did not want to “see somebody cry.”
During a confrontational exchange with West, she dismissed apparent discrepancies in her previous statements to attorneys by saying that she was distraught during her interview with the Martin family lawyers and that it “didn’t mean nothing to me.”
She bristled when West asked why she didn’t attend the services for Trayvon Martin.
“You gotta understand,” she told West. “I’m the last person — you don’t know how I felt. You think I really want to go see the body after I just talked to him?”
By: Danielle Cadet
