Evidence doesn’t show slain teen’s DNA on gun

Finding may contradict defense’s story.

ORLANDO — State evidence released Wednesday in the George Zimmerman second-degree murder case shows a state crime lab found Zimmerman’s DNA on Trayvon Martin, the teenager he shot to death, and Martin’s DNA on him.

But the gun Zimmerman used to kill Martin that night — a gun Zimmerman told police the teenager had reached for — revealed no evidence that Martin touched it.

State scientists checked several parts of the 9 mm handgun: its grip, trigger, slide and holster. They found Zimmerman’s DNA and that of other unidentified people, but none that matched Martin’s, records show.

The gun evidence is important because Zimmerman told police in Sanford, Fla., that he opened fire only after the 17-year- old pinned him to the ground and reached for the gun he wore holstered on his waist.

The 28-year-old Zimmerman killed Martin Feb. 26. Zimmerman said he acted in self-defense. Prosecutors say Zimmer- man, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, followed the black teen on the assumption he was about to commit a crime — despite being warned by a police dispatcher not to — then murdered him.

Prosecutors on Wednesday released to the public several hundred pages of evidence. The DNA evidence was among the most compelling because it confirmed that Zimmerman and Martin had been in extremely close contact.

Several neighbors reported seeing one on top of the other in a fight that left one of them screaming, Zimmerman with a broken nose and small gashes to his head and Martin dead from a gunshot wound to the heart.