NEW YORK, July 15 (UPI) -- The parents of George Zimmerman, acquitted in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black Florida teen, told ABC News their son is no racist and is in hiding.
George Zimmerman, 29, and his family have received an "enormous amount of death threats" since his Saturday acquittal in the February 2012 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, Robert and Gladys Zimmerman told ABC in an exclusive interview aired Monday evening. They said their son has gone into seclusion and they haven't seen him since he left the courthouse in Sanford, Fla.
They also said they don't feel safe enough to return to their Orlando home.
"Under the circumstances, we have not been able to talk to him," Gladys Zimmerman said. "To tell you the truth, we don't trust anything, not even the phones."
"We have had an enormous amount of death threats. George's legal counsel has had death threats, the police chief of Sanford, many people have had death threats," Robert Zimmerman said. "'Everyone with Georgie's DNA should be killed' -- just every kind of horrible thing you can imagine."
"Even for us, we have not been living a normal life for the past months, it is hard," Gladys Zimmerman said. "We have lost everything, everything -- the whole family, not only George. The whole family. We have lost everything," she said, adding "only time will tell" if her son will be able to return to a normal life.
"This is America, and we went through all of this with the judicial system," Gladys Zimmerman said. "They wanted an arrest for my son. They got an arrest. Now let's, you know, find a verdict ... now they have a verdict. ... He went through the whole process they were pushing for, and now they are not happy with the verdict, and I pray. I pray for them, for God to touch their heart."
George Zimmerman has "never been taught to be a racist," Robert Zimmerman said. "Color is the last thing to come to his mind."
Gladys Zimmerman said the family is "deeply sorry for this tragedy" and prays "for Trayvon Martin to be in a better place."
"He is always in our prayers," she said.
A jury of six women found Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter. Zimmerman, a Hispanic-American neighborhood watch volunteer, contended he shot Martin in self-defense.
