WATCH: George Zimmerman’s Girlfriend Reveals Disturbing New Details in Police Video


Last November, after a heated domestic dispute and a frantic call to 911, George Zimmerman’s girlfriend told police that he had threatened her with a shotgun. The allegations were eerily similar to those lodged by Zimmerman’s ex-wife following his acquittal on charges of murdering unarmed teen Trayvon Martin, and they seemed to signal a pattern of uncontrolled violence.

Zimmerman’s girlfriend, 27-year-old Samantha Scheibe, later recanted the accusations, saying in a sworn statement that she was “intimidated” during police questioning and believed investigators had “misinterpreted” her words. But a recently released video of Scheibe’s police interview casts doubt on her disavowal. It also adds credibility and violent new detail to Scheibe’s original account.

The officer who questioned Scheibe, Stephen LaGuardia of the Seminole County Sheriff’s office, did not come across as intimidating. And Scheibe’s description of events was detailed and vivid—not the kind of thing most people concoct on the fly. Having broken off the relationship, Scheibe said she told Zimmerman to leave her house. He began packing his belongings, including his AR-15 assault rifle. As he removed the clip and shoved it in his rifle bag, a bullet fell on the floor. Zimmerman then grabbed and cocked his shotgun, apparently so that there was a shell in the chamber, and stuffed it in the rifle bag, too.

Scheibe began carrying Zimmerman’s belongings outside “to get him out faster,” at which point Zimmerman grew agitated and retrieved the shotgun. “The bag was right there, let’s just say this is the couch, he grabbed it, unlocked it, opened it,” she explained, acting out Zimmerman’s gestures. Initially, she suspected Zimmerman might commit suicide. “I was trying to figure out, honestly, whether or not he intended to hurt me or himself.” But then, Scheibe said, he pointed the gun at her.

Scheibe also described Zimmerman smashing her table and her eyeglasses with the butt of the shotgun. And she revealed that she had “threatened to call the cops on him before” because “he has episodes.” During one such episode she claimed that Zimmerman—who was jealous that she had been texting her former boyfriend—choked her so violently that it bruised her throat. When asked why she hadn’t called the police then, Scheibe replied, “Because I feel like he always gets off.” These words turned out to be prescient: Last month, after Scheibe recanted her allegations, prosecutors dropped the domestic violence and assault charges against Zimmerman.

The entire video is worth a look.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate