Intermediate Range

Book excerpt: On the rainy Sunday evening of February 26, 2012, the lives of two individuals collided at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, a gated townhouse community in the Orlando suburb known as Sanford, Florida. George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old insurance underwriter and neighborhood watch volunteer, grew suspicious of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old high schooler who was temporarily staying at the home of his father's fiancee who lived in the small gated subdivision. Martin, unarmed and dressed in a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt, was walking home after going to a nearby 7-11 store to buy a can of Arizona Iced Tea and a bag of Skittles. Martin had committed no crime, but Zimmerman, concerned about recent burglaries and thefts in the neighborhood, called police to report "a real suspicious guy" who Zimmerman said was "up to no good . . . or [was] on drugs or something." Minutes later, Trayvon Martin lay dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest. After Sanford police and prosecutors, unable to refute Zimmerman's claim of self defense, declined to charge him with the killing, Florida's governor appointed a special prosecutor, Jacksonville State Attorney Angela Corey, to investigate the case in the wake of protests and racially-charged anger that spread from coast to coast. Bypassing a grand jury, Corey filed second-degree murder charges against the neighborhood watch volunteer in a case that had become arguably the most controversial event of the decade. Now, forensic expert and crime scene reconstructionist Michael A. Knox tells the story of the forensic evidence in the killing and explains what that evidence really says about the fateful events that February evening in Sanford, Florida. Can the prosecution truly prove beyond a reasonable doubt that George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin? Intermediate Range is a riveting account of the forensic evidence in the killing, much of which has been overlooked, misunderstood, or ignored by the public and the news media.