We know St. Skittles supporters aren’t the brightest bulbs, but even they should realize the guy spells his last name with two n’s and he doesn’t live in Sanford.
Death threats were the last type of phone calls George A. Zimmermann, 78, thought he’d get after serving for 55 years as his Pennsylvania community’s preacher.
And he never thought he’d be mistaken for the man headlining news these days: George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Fla., neighborhood watch volunteer acquitted in the February 2012 fatal shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin.
Zimmermann, 78, retired to Deland, Fla., 16 years ago from his post at Georgetown United Methodist Church in Paradise, Pa. He says his time in Florida had been relatively peaceful and uneventful – until the phone calls began trickling in.
According to Zimmermann, he started receiving the calls immediately after Zimmerman (with one n), 29, shot the teenager.
“In the beginning, I received four or five calls,” Zimmermann says. “I’d say, ‘Hey, you got the wrong person. I don’t live in Sanford.’ And then it stopped.”
Until the first night of the trial.
On June 25, Zimmermann was awakened by two calls in the middle of the night from protesters, although he says they were tame in comparison to the one he received on July 14, a day after the verdict was reached.
“Hey (expletive), you’re the one who killed Trayvon Martin, when your (expletive) get out, you’re dead,” the caller said in a message left on the answering machine. “Wherever you go, you’re dead. Wherever you’re trying to hide, you’re dead. Watch your (expletive) move. You think you’re free. You’re not. You better get ready to dig a 6-foot hole, cause you know you’re fixing to go,” the caller added, according to a report by Daytona news station WFVT.