Wife says George Zimmerman has changed since trial

MIAMI (AP) -- Shellie Zimmerman said Thursday that she hasn't been able to find her estranged husband to serve him divorce papers and that she doesn't know what he's capable of because he has changed since he was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Shellie Zimmerman said on NBC's "Today" Show on Thursday that she is conflicted over her George Zimmerman's assertion that he killed the 17-year-old Martin in self-defense. But she said she believes the evidence and respects the jury's verdict.

Martin, who was unarmed, was fatally shot in February 2012 after getting into a scuffle with Zimmerman as he walked home from a convenience store in Sanford, Fla. Shellie Zimmerman later pleaded guilty to perjury for lying about the couple's finances after her husband's arrest. She was sentenced to probation and community service.

"After standing by him, he kind of left and I guess kind of went on a victory tour without me," Shellie Zimmerman said. "I thought I was living a life with him and that we were going to kind of rebuild after all this, and he had other plans for me."

Zimmerman told Lauer she doesn't believe her believe her husband profiled Martin, who was black. However, she said she now "doubts" his innocence on the self-defense claim.

Shellie Zimmerman, 26, also said she stands by her account of a Sept. 9 altercation with her husband at the house they shared in Lake Mary. She told a 911 dispatcher that her husband was threatening her with a gun.

The dispute took place just days after she filed for divorce. Shellie Zimmerman, her father and a friend were removing items from the home when her husband showed up and began taking photos.

"I didn't see a gun, but I know my husband," she said. "I saw him in a stance and a look in his eyes that I've never seen before. His shirt was half-way unbuttoned and he was putting his hand in his shirt and saying, `Please step closer, please step closer.' So I think that just logically I assumed he had a gun on him."

She added later: "This person that I'm married to and that I'm divorcing, I kind of realize now that I don't know him and I really don't know what he's capable of."

George Zimmerman hasn't stayed at the home since then, and his whereabouts are unknown even to his wife and her attorney.

No charges were filed in that dispute, though deputies are still trying to retrieve footage of what happened from an iPad smashed by George Zimmerman during the argument.

Ex-Guatemala soldier on trial in US

AP Photo/HOPD

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- A former Guatemalan soldier testified in a U.S. courtroom Wednesday that he saw one of his officers fire a rifle and throw a grenade inside a well to silence the screams of dying victims in a massacre carried out by the army three decades ago.

The witness, Gilberto Jordan, said he saw then-2nd Lt. Jorge Sosa standing near a well in the village of Dos Erres after they had been given an order to kill everyone there while on a mission for a special forces unit of the army in 1982.

Federal prosecutors contend that Sosa helped command the massacre and lied about it on his application to become a U.S. citizen. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison and lose his citizenship.

Speaking in Spanish through a translator, Jordan sobbed as he told the courtroom that as he took a small boy to the well to be killed, Sosa told him it was "a job for a man."

Sosa, who was superior in rank to Jordan but not the most senior officer there, later shot into the well and threw in a grenade as people were screaming from within, according to the witness.

"The people that were there half dead were all screaming," said Jordan, adding the killing went on all day. "When he threw the grenade the people that were there were quiet because they were killed."

The killing of 160 men, women and children in the midst of the Central American nation's bloody 36-year-old civil war is now central to the case being heard in Riverside County, 60 miles east of Los Angeles. About 200,000 people were killed during the war, mostly by state forces and paramilitary groups.

In opening statements Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeannie Joseph told jurors that Sosa was part of a patrol that descended upon Dos Erres searching for stolen weapons and decided to kill all of its residents after some of the soldiers began raping the women and children.

The villagers were taken to a well and hit over the head with a sledgehammer before being thrown inside. When one of the villagers cried out, Sosa fired his rifle and threw a grenade inside, Joseph said.

Sosa sought U.S. asylum in 1985, claiming that Guatemalan guerrillas were after him. The asylum was denied and he ended up moving to Canada. He later returned to the U.S, married an American, got a green card and eventually citizenship after filing an application in 2007.

Prosecutors claim that the former Riverside County resident concealed his involvement with the Guatemalan military and the massacre when he was asked, during the citizenship application process, about his previous affiliations and whether he'd ever committed a crime. He's charged with making a false statement and obtaining naturalization unlawfully.

"The government will present an overwhelming amount of evidence establishing the crimes the defendant committed at Dos Erres while a member of the Guatemalan military," Joseph told the court. "The government will show the defendant obtained citizenship by lying on his application and during his naturalization interview."

But defense attorney Shashi Kewalramani said Sosa told U.S. officials about his role in the Guatemalan army when he applied for asylum in 1985.

And while some of the evidence presented in the case will be horrible, so is war, Kewalramani said - and that's not what the case is about.

"It's not a war crimes tribunal. We're not here to decide that," he told jurors. "It's `Did he lie?'"

Sosa is one of four former members of the Guatemalan army arrested by U.S. officials in connection with the Dos Erres massacre.

Jordan, the witness in the government's case against Sosa, is currently serving time in federal prison for lying on his U.S. naturalization application about his role in Dos Erres.

Pedro Pimentel was deported from the U.S. and sentenced in Guatemala to 6,060 years in prison for the massacre. The fourth, Santos Lopez, is detained as a material witness in the government's case against Sosa, according to court documents.

Trial delayed for Army general facing sex charges

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) -- The Fort Bragg court martial of a U.S. Army general facing assault charges has been postponed.

The trial of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair had been scheduled to begin next Monday. A statement from Fort Bragg on Tuesday said the judge overseeing the case rescheduled the trial for Jan. 7 after a request from Sinclair's defense team.

Sinclair's chief civilian lawyer Rich Scheff said the delay was triggered by several procedural issues, including the appeal of pretrial motions denied by the trial judge.

Sinclair has pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges including forcible sodomy, indecent acts, violating orders and adultery. Most stem from a three-year affair with a female captain who says Sinclair twice forced her to perform oral sex while she served under his command in Iraq and Afghanistan.