A former neighbor in Virginia, George Hall, a retired Presbyterian minister, also spoke up in March in defense of Zimmerman -- a man he hadn’t lived next to for 11 years.

“Their parents taught them to treat everybody with respect,” Hall told the AP at the time. “I’m tired of hearing about this race thing. It could be an element in it ... but I never would have thought of him as being a racist. His father was in the Army and was a white American, and his mother was Peruvian. That makes him 50% Peruvian. A lot of stuff I hear, it irks me because people are drawing their own conclusions with very little evidence.”

Also included with the release of the jailhouse tapes on Monday was the detail that Zimmerman had 145 other phone conversations while in jail before his release in April. His attorney, Mark O’Mara, plans to argue against the release of those tapes next week.

“It is our contention that the calls are not only irrelevant to the charges against Mr. Zimmerman, but they could jeopardize friends and family of Mr. Zimmerman who are unrelated to the case,” Zimmerman’s defense said.

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