The mother of Trayvon Martin reacted Thursday to an interview a juror in the George Zimmerman trial gave to ABC News, in which she admitted that she ultimately, she didn’t hold out for a conviction.
The Juror, known only as B29, or “Maddy,” since she revealed herself — including showing her face — to ABC’s Robin Roberts, said Zimmerman “got away with murder” in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, but that Florida law, as understood by the jury, made it impossible to convict.
“I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury. I fought to the end,” she said during the interview, for which ABC News aired clips on Thursday. “That’s where I felt confused, where if a person kills someone, then you get charged for it. But as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can’t say he’s guilty.”
Zimmerman was acquitted on second degree murder and manslaughter charges July 14th.
Maddy, a nurse’s aide and the lone non-white juror on the panel, said she is having trouble sleeping after the verdict.
“It’s hard for me to sleep,” she told ABC. “It’s hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin’s death. And as I carry him on my back, I’m hurting as much Trayvon’s Martin’s mother because there’s no way that any mother should feel that pain,” she said.
Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton issued the following statement Thursday night on behalf of herself and Tracy Martin:
It is devastating for my family to hear the comments from juror B29, comments which we already knew in our hearts to be true. That George Zimmerman literally got away with murder.
This new information challenges our nation once again to do everything we can to make sure that this never happens to another child. That’s why Tracy and I have launched The Trayvon Martin Foundation to try and take something very painful and negative and turn it into something positive as a legacy to our son.
The full interview with Juror B29 airs Friday morning.
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