Rachel Jeantel, a teenage friend of Trayvon Martin, was forced to admit that she did not write a letter that was sent to the victim's mother describing what she allegedly heard on a phone call with him moments before he was shot, ABC News reported.
Jeantel was asked to read the letter out loud in court with defense attorney Don West asking her: 'Are you able to read that at all?'
'Some but not all. I don't read cursive," Jeantel responded. (In fact she was unable to read any parts of the letter except for her name). The testimony was an attempt to raise questions as to the veracity of her testimony, who had been a key prosecution witness in a case that has been classified as racially charged. Jeantel had been the last person to speak on the phone with moments before he was shot to death by Zimmerman on February 26, 2012. Jeantel told the defense attorney that she lied about going to the hospital, since she did not want to see Martin's body.
Jeantel is seen as a critical witness to the prosecution because she was the only person able to say that he noticed a strange man following him, and that he was scared. Jeantel said Martin described [Zimmerman] as a 'creepy ass cracker.'
Jeantel added that she told Martin was walking home during halftime of the NBA All-Star Game when he became unnerved since he was being followed.
The interrogation of Jeantel was meant to get a better sense of the timeline on the night Martin was killed. Zimmerman's legal team has said from the outset that he shot Martin out of self-defense after the teenager had confronted him, knocking him down and banging his head on the sidewalk. Prosecutors, meanwhile, have alleged that Zimmerman profiled and followed Martin before killing him. Some observers wonder why the former neighborhood watch captain had a gun at all.
