Was the person the stucco workers followed and Zimmerman saw in front of Taaffe's house on 2/2/12, Emanuel Burgess? I don't think that name was given during O'Brien's testimony.
On this
video, O'Brien's testimony about the stucco guys is 9:26-12:44 (Mantei's direct), and 15:53-17:20 (O'Mara's cross). O'Brien didn't name the person arrested, or give the name or address of the person whose home was burglarized, or specify what was stolen, or where the 'stucco guys' were working at the time of the burglary. These omissions make the 'stucco guys' incident hard to identify.
Twin Lakes Burglary Reports, pp. 1-5.
Emmanuel Burgess was arrested on 2/7/12, for the 2/6/12 burglary of the home of Tatiana Deamicis, 1540 Retreat View Circle.
A report for the 8/3/11 burglary of the home of Olivia Bertalan, 1840 Retreat View Cir., is on pp. 12-13 of the Burglary Reports.
Map Case Details, Olivia Bertalan, 1840 RVC.
Case Details, Tatiana Deamicis, 1540 RVC.
If I'm reading these documents correctly, the first says that in the Bertalan case. Emmanuel Burgess was convicted of burglary and grand theft. The second says that in the Deamicis case, Burgess was convicted of grand theft, dealing in stolen property, resisting an officer without violence, and giving a false identity. Both say that Burgess was born in July, 1993.
Testimony of Olivia Bertalan in the trial of George Zimmerman
(video). More on Emmanuel Burgess at the
TalkLeft blog. Reuters, 4/25/12On February 6, the home of another Twin Lakes resident, Tatiana Demeacis, was burglarized. Two roofers working directly across the street said they saw two African-American men lingering in the yard at the time of the break-in. A new laptop and some gold jewelry were stolen. One of the roofers called police the next day after spotting one of the suspects among a group of male teenagers, three black and one white, on bicycles.
Police found Demeacis's laptop in the backpack of 18-year-old Emmanuel Burgess, police reports show, and charged him with dealing in stolen property.
Discrepancies:
As mentioned previously, O'Brien said he could only guess at the date, and his guess was 'a couple of months' before the shooting (12:06). The burglary of 1540 RVC was on 2/6/12, about three weeks before the shooting.
O'Brien said the stucco guys were working on walls (10:04). Reuters says Burgess was spotted and reported by 'roofers'.
O'Brien said the burglar was arrested 'days' after the burglary (15:53). Burgess was arrested on 2/7/12, the next day after the burglary.
Parallels:
As mentioned previously, Mantei said the incident was in 2012, putting it in January or February (9:26).
In both stories, the burglar was spotted by men who were there to do some kind of construction/maintenance work, and arrested on a later day.
O'Brien said the burglar was someone 'we had seen numerous times before' (10:11). In his
2/2 NEN call, GZ said: 'And now, this gentleman was walking in the neighborhood. And I've seen him before, on trash days, going around picking up trash.'
O'Brien said the burglar was '17 or 18' (16:40). Burgess was born in July of 1993. He would have been 18 in February of 2012.
O'Brien said the stucco guys were having lunch at Kohls, saw the burglar 'walking down the street', and followed him 'to the development' (11:25, 16:06). Burgess was arrested in a cut through connecting RATL with Colonial Village (Burglary Reports, p. 4). That's a likely place for entering RATL from the direction of Kohls.
If Donald O'Brien's 'stucco guys' story does not correspond to the 2/7/12 arrest of Emmanuel Burgess, for the 2/6/12 theft of a necklace and a laptop computer from the home of Tatiana Deamicis, 1540 RVC, then it corresponds to the arrest of whom, on what date, for the theft of what, on what date, from whose home, at what address? In all the reporting on the Zimmerman case, has there been mention of another burglary arrest that might correspond to O'Brien's stucco guys story?
Until I hear of such a case, my opinion is that the stucco guys story is the 2/7/12 arrest of Emmanuel Burgess, as half-remembered by O'Brien over a year later.
