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Orlando Sentinel: It's not George Zimmerman crying for help on 911 recording, 2 experts say
As the Trayvon Martin controversy splinters into a debate about self-defense, a central question remains: Who was heard crying for help on a 911 call in the moments before the teen was shot?
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.
'Scientific certainty'
On a rainy night in late February, a woman called 911 to report someone crying out for help in her gated Sanford community, Retreat at Twin Lakes.
Though several of her neighbors eventually called authorities, she phoned early enough for dispatchers to hear the panicked cries and the gunshot that took Trayvon Martin's life.
George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, shot Trayvon, an unarmed 17-year-old, during a one-on-one confrontation Feb. 26.
Before the shot, one of them can be heard screaming for help.
Owen, a court-qualified expert witness and former chief engineer for the New York Public Library's Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, is an authority on biometric voice analysis ? a computerized process comparing attributes of voices to determine whether they match.
After the Sentinel contacted Owen, he used software called Easy Voice Biometrics to compare Zimmerman's voice to the 911 call screams.
"I took all of the screams and put those together, and cut out everything else," Owen says.
The software compared that audio to Zimmerman's voice. It returned a 48 percent match. Owen said to reach a positive match with audio of this quality, he'd expect higher than 90 percent.
"As a result of that, you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it's not Zimmerman," Owen says, stressing that he cannot confirm the voice as Trayvon's, because he didn't have a sample of the teen's voice to compare.
Forensic voice identification is not a new or novel concept; in fact, a recent U.S. Department of Justice committee report notes that federal interest in the technology "has a history of nearly 70 years."
In the post 9-11 world, Owen says, voice identification is "the main biometric tool" used to track international criminals, as well as terrorists.
"These people don't leave fingerprints, but they do still need to talk to one another," he says.
'The home run'
Though the term "biometric analysis" may sound futuristic, it basically just means using personal characteristics for identification. A fingerprint scanner is an example of a biometric device.
Much as the ridges of a human hand produce a fingerprint, each human voice has unique, distinguishable traits, Owen says. "They're all particular to the individual."
Another benefit of modern biometric analysis, Owen said, is it doesn't require an "in context" comparison. In other words, Owen didn't need a sample of Zimmerman screaming in order to compare his voice to the call.
The technology Owen used to analyze the Zimmerman tape has a wide range of applications, including national security and international policing, he said. A recently as January, Owen used the same technology to identify accused murderer Sheila Davalloo in a 911 call made almost a decade ago.
Owen testified that it was Davalloo, accused of stabbing another woman nine times in a condo in Shippan, Conn., who reported the killing to police from a pay phone in November 2002.
Davalloo was convicted, according to news reports.
Owen says the audio from Zimmerman's call is much better quality than the 911 call in the Davalloo case. Voice identification experts judge the quality based on a signal-to-noise ratio; in other words, comparing the usable audio in a clip to the environmental noises that make a match difficult.
And the call on which the screams are heard is better quality than is necessary, Owen says.
"In our world, that's the home run," he says.
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."
Zimmerman's call to authorities minutes before the shooting provides a good standard for comparison, Primeau says, because it captures his voice both at rest and in an agitated state.
'CSI' effect
Only one person alive knows exactly what transpired in the moments immediately before Trayvon was fatally shot: Zimmerman, who has claimed he fired in self-defense.
Zimmerman told police he was walking back to his SUV after a brief foot pursuit of Martin, and the teen confronted and attacked him, punching him and slamming his head into the pavement.
Arriving police said Zimmerman was bloodied. One officer wrote in a police report that he overheard Zimmerman telling a paramedic, "I was yelling for someone to help me, but no one would help me."
Angela Corey, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, has yet to decide whether to charge Zimmerman, send the case to a grand jury or decide against charging.
If Zimmerman's self-defense claim is tested at trial, legal experts say a forensic identification of the voice in the 911 audio could be key evidence, either in Zimmerman's favor or to his detriment.
Still, Maine-based audio enhancement expert Arlo West says that today's juries sometimes seem reluctant to accept evidence that's any less conclusive than what they're used to seeing on television.
"I call it the 'CSI' effect," he says, referring to "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," the popular ? if not always realistic ? forensics-based TV drama. "You get in front of a jury, and they expect a miracle."
jeweiner@tribune.com or 407-420-5171
Re: Orlando Sentinel: It's not George Zimmerman crying for help on 911 recording, 2 experts say
Shocking.
Right? What if Trayvon was trying to frame poor George Zimmerman and make it look like he was a racist turd? He could have arranged the entire thing to push the "black people agenda".
And space aliens could have come down from Jupiter and shot Trayvon while Zimmerman stood there, having been hit by an alien freeze ray. And then the aliens scrambled his memory of the event so nothing he said made a damn bit of sense.
It's possible.
I wonder if there is a Youtube, a voicemail greeting, a voicemail message left, a home video, or a school project that has Trayvon's voice for comparison.
I think this is what is pissing me off so much right now. I mean, initially, I was pissed off because it was pretty obvious that this guy was a racist piece of sh*t who let his own wannabe policeman complex get him in a situation that ended up with an innocent man dying. And I was mad that the police just let him go.
But now... as more evidence comes out, and Zimmerman tries to cover up what he did, I am convinced there probably wasn't even much of an altercation. Zimmerman was never in fear of his life - he didn't just start something with a young kid that escalated b/c he followed the kid and got in a confrontation with him. It seems to me he killed this kid in cold blood, and as the evidence leaks out, he tries to make it look like he was doing it in self defense. And it's calculated and disgusting.
I'm probably not articulating this well - I guess what I'm saying is it's one thing if he started this and it eventually escalated into him murdering this young man. I think that's awful, and reprehensible and he should be in jail. But doing it in cold blood and trying to spin it as self defense after the fact is just worse to me.
ETA: And I should put self defense in quotes...I never thought it was really in self defense since he had a gun and outweighed Martin. I mean more that there was actually an altercation/heat of the moment type thing. I'm starting to think that even THAT didn't happen.
Can someone who remebers crim law better than me help out? DH and I can't agree...IIRC, you can't START a fight AND claim self defense. If you're the initial aggressor, don't you lose that defense? Unless the other person also pulled a weapon, I guess.
Anything you can achieve through hard work, you could also just buy.
Somebody --- another kid, a friend, or a family member, has to have a video -- aren't people always taking videos at parties and family get togethers?
Doesn't his phone have a voicemail greeting?
couldn't have said it better myself!
lol!
Self defense expired as soon as he was told not to pursue and decided to do it anyway. Defending himself would have been him driving in the other direction.
And where is this guy, anyway? Does he have police protection? Every day I am more and more surprised he hasn't been dragged into the street and beaten to death by an angry mob.
Oh, that is fantastic. This...this is wine. Yeah. Look what all these idiots are drinking. Look at these dicks! Obviously it's not really delicious, like hot chocolate or Coke, but for wine...brilliant.
Nah, Trayvon isn't smart enough to frame him. Trayvon probably shot himself to get out of the hood.
That is how I remember it too. You can't provoke a fight and claim self defense. But, when you add in a shittily (is that a word?) drafted law ... this is what you get. All of these questions should be questions for a jury, not a police officer, to decide. But, Stand Your Ground changed that apparently.
FFS... I am so sick of hearing about how we need more evidence. Really? What else would you like? A Scorsese film of the entire incident? Come the F on.
This is not Casey Anthony here. They had a body, a shooter, and scores of 911 calls including one from the shooter who clearly pursued the victim after he was told not to BY.THE. POLICE. Is this really that hard? Good God am I pi****ed off.
He's either going to need to be in very successful hiding, under police protection, or in solitary confinement--likely for the rest of his life now. Otherwise he pretty much faces angry mob on the street or angry mob in jail.
DH thinks the police are now holding off on an arrest, hoping he dies one way or another before they have to worry about it happening under they protection.
Given the comments posted on this article, I'm not. One of many reasons I'm ver glad to be out of Florida.
This isn't true.
Self-defense only comes into play once there's an actual altercation. Zimmerman simply following Trayvon doesn't indicate an altercation.
I personally happen to think that GZ probably started the altercation once he came into contact with Trayvon, so self-defense / stand your ground wouldn't apply because you can't claim self-defense when you start sshit. And even if Trayvon actually DID start the altercation, there is no way that a reasonable person would have felt his life was in endangered by a skinny 140 lb kid carrying a bag of freaking skittles, so it still wouldn't apply.
But GZ just following Trayvon doesn't negate the possibility that he could have claimed self-defense.
"You don't get to be all puke-face about your kid shooting your undead baby daddy when all you had to do was KEEP HIM IN THE FLUCKING HOUSE, LORI!" - doctorwho
But. You can't use deadly force just for getting punched in the nose. You can only use deadly force if your life (or someone else) is being directly threatened. If Trayvon was truly beating the crap out of him, bashing his head into the sidewalk and causing him to nearly lose consciousness, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to use deadly force (though it ought to be for a jury to decide, I think). But...that's clearly not what happened here, as he didn't even need stitches and appears to have virtually no visible injuries plus didn't even need to go to the hospital. If you were being beat to the point of unconsciousness, you would look a hell of a lot worse than he did. He didn't even look like he'd been in a bar fight. So the argument that he needed to use deadly force in this situation holds no water even if Trayvon was the aggressor and it happened the way he said it did (which I seriously doubt, but unfortunately it's his word against Trayvons and Trayvon isn't here to tell his side).
No, no - I totally agree with you.
I've just seen a lot of people throw out the "he can't claim self-defense because he was following Trayvon" argument, and that part's simply not true.
Fair point on skinny people being strong, though.
"You don't get to be all puke-face about your kid shooting your undead baby daddy when all you had to do was KEEP HIM IN THE FLUCKING HOUSE, LORI!" - doctorwho
Living in FL, I am not really surprised he hasn't been arrested, given some of the things I've heard people here say. It's sickening.
I wonder why they haven't done a voice comparison to Martin? I would have thought they would have contacted the family to get one, and that likely in this day and age someone would have a sample on a video somewhere.
Zimmerman's story is obviously falling apart (and I don't think not having a Martin comparison changes that), but I don't understand why they'd piecemeal this and not drive it home with getting the lock it's Martin.
This is me, forgot to log out of the AE I didn't get a chance to use on Friday.