Why is he being portrayed as a Johnny come lately? Because March 23 is when Fox News Tampa, which got the video from Fox Orlando, first published its report and aired John's interview, without mentioning it had taken place the month before. The Fox Tampa version is the one most shown and referred to by the media. But as you can tell from the original Orlando video itself, the interview occurred the day after the shooting. The reporter, Keith Landry, says so in the video numerous times, and the news anchor makes it clear it's a report on the shooting which had taken place the day before.

The article that accompanies the Orlando video says "published Feb. 27" and "updated on March 26." Trayvon's father and his fiance are in the video (screengrab here), looking at the spot Trayvon was killed the night before, talking about the shooting "last night." So much for those who insist his father wasn't notified the next day. Reuters quoted Tracy Martin as saying he called the police to inquire about Travon who hadn't come home, and they had three cars come, including one with a chaplain, by 8:00 the morning after the shooting. It also says the shooting took place 100 yards from Ms. Green's home.

Outrageously, the Fox News Tampa article dated March 23 and updated March 26, which it says it got from its sister station in Orlando, claims:

A witness we haven't heard from before paints a much different picture than we've seen so far of what happened the night 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed....Our sister station, FOX 35 in Orlando, has spoken to that witness.

Fox Tampa not only ignores that the interview between the Fox Orlando reporter Keith Landry and John took place the day after the shooting, it mis-states that John is someone who hasn't been heard from before. To this day, it hasn't corrected its false reporting.

[Note: While the Fox news Orlando article dated Feb. 27 that accompanies the video misidentifies Brandy Green, Tracy Martin's fiance, saying she is "Tracy Martin, Trayon's mother", when Tracy Martin is Trayvon's father and Trayvon's mother is Sybrina Fulton, it's not an error that impacts the story, the video doesn't confuse them, and the error in the article may be understandable since it was written before the Martins became household names. Still, Fox Orlando should fix that.]

I'm not saying John's interview means he is correct. But knowing that it occurred within a day of the shooting increases its significance. We can rule out that his recollection is the product of product of "post-information," in which the reliability of a witness' memory is reduced because there has been a co-mingling of his or her actual memory of the event with information learned later, from the media and other sources. Also, unlike some of the other witnesses who have embellished or changed their account since the media onslaught of stories about the shooting, John's interview is consistent with what he said in his 911 call. He adds more details in the interview, but the added details don't contradict what he said in his 911 call.

You can listen to all the calls here. This appears to be John's call.

All of the 911 audio calls are accompanied by video taken by Fox News at the scene the night of the arrest, which clearly show where the shooting took place, the police officers on scene and more. There's even a shot of what may be Zimmerman's parked truck.

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[ Added: Change: I now think there were two witnesses named John, one who called 911 and observed the wrestling, and one who was interviewed by police and lived in a townhouse across from the other. I don't think the "John" who called 911 is the John who took the photo 3 minutes after the shooting. It could be the other "John." Please keep this in mind when reading the theory below as it was written when I assumed there was only one witness named "John."]

Now for some speculation on the new photo showing George Zimmerman's injuries. When I first read about ABC's new graphic image of Zimmerman's head injuries, taken 3 minutes after the shooting (video and news report here, warning, video plays automatically) I wondered whether John was the person who took it. Fox News would not yet be on the scene, and according to ABC, Zimmerman's statement to "the photographer" indicates he is a male. (He told the photographer, "Man, just tell her I shot someone.)

But after looking at other versions which had timestamps for the 911 calls (here and here), it seemed John was still on the phone with 911 and inside his house when the photo was taken at 7:19:07 pm, so I discounted it.

Now, having listened to John's call yet again, I think he may have returned outside while still talking to 911 on his cell phone. (He probably didn't have his cell phone on him when he first encountered the two men wrestling, as he had to run inside to call 911.) His call begins at 7:18:00 pm. Here's a transcript I did of the call (I'm not a professional transcriber, so the call is the better evidence.) D refers to the dispatcher.

D: Police Fire or Medical
John: Police, I just heard a shot right behind my house.
D: Where at?
John: [Gives his address]. And they're wrestling right in the back of my porch
D: You just heard one shot go off?
John: It's either that or a rocket or a window or something. The guy's yelling help and I'm not going outside.

The call then blacks out for 10 seconds, during which time John may have changed his mind and gone back outside. When it picks up:

D: Is that one or two words because it's not accepting it.

His answer is blacked out and then it continues with:

D: And you can hear somebody yelling for help?
John: I'm pretty sure the guy's dead out here. Holy...(my emphasis.)
D: Ok, we have several people calling in also. Anything else that you heard?
John: No, the guy yelling help, OMG. No, there's a guy with a flashlight in the backyard now. [Pause, as if he's walking up to look.] No, I think there's there's flashlights and there's a guy, I don't know if he's a cop, OMG,
D: Ok, there's several calls. You sure when you heard voices you just heard one person?
John: There's two guys in the backyard with flashlights and there's a black guy down and it looks like he's been shot and he's dead. He's laying and there's multiple people calling now I'm thinking.
D: Ok, I have several officers going out there right now, ok?
John: Ok, thank you. bye.

John's call ends around 7:19:43 about 3 minutes after the gunshot at 7:16:56. (You can hear the gunshot in both the first and second 911 calls, the time is 7:16:56 in both calls.) He might have reached Zimmerman by then, who asked him to call his wife and take the photo.

It's unlikely the police took the photo, because from the second 911 call which began at 7:16:00, you can hear the caller's frustration and agitation as she keeps asking when the police are going to get there, then tells the dispatcher they went to the front of her house, they're in the wrong place. At 7:19:15, her tone becomes relaxed, and she asks the dispatcher if "they see anything", indicating the police had arrived at the back of the house where the shooting took place.

The first officer on the scene said when he first approached Zimmerman, Zimmerman told him he had a gun, he took the gun, and then arrested him. It's unlikely he would have gotten around to taking a picture by 7:19:07. Or that Zimmerman would have asked the officer to call his wife so early in their encounter, or addressed the police officer as "Man."

While the time frame is still a little tight for John to have taken the photo of Zimmerman's injuries, unless his phone time differed from the dispatcher's time by a minute or so, who else could it have been? Yes, I'm just speculating, but more and more, John seems to have a very critical role: He told the 911 dispatcher he was outside and had seen the two men wrestling in back of his porch. The next day he told a reporter the man in the "red sweater" was on the bottom crying out to him for help. He ran inside to call 911, and on the way, heard a gunshot. And it was the "other guy" who was dead.

If John also took the photo of Zimmerman's injuries, he is probably the most critical of all the eyewitnesses.

None of the other 911 callers, including the 13 year old, were able to identify the men who were struggling. No one saw the shooting. None of the other callers claimed to see Zimmerman until after the gunshot. Even then, their accounts were inaccurate. One described a white tee-shirt. Another didn't see anything but was getting reports from her roommate through the door and told the dispatchers "the black man" was standing over the over man. In their 911 calls, none described the voice of the person who screamed as anything other than "male."

It wasn't until later, after the other witnesses knew a 17 year old had been killed and had seen media reports and talked to others, they embellished or changed their version of events. Trayvon's phone friend, who didn't come forward for weeks, and then gave her account not to police but to the Martin family lawyers, told the lawyers the phone went dead while Zimmerman and Trayvon were still talking. She can only speculate as to why the phone went dead, and has no idea what happened afterwards. Even if she later gave her account to investigators, she couldn't have resolved the critical issues.

From a legal standpoint, I don't see the argument that Zimmerman profiled and followed Martin as having any chance of success, either in defeating self-defense or establishing any crime, let alone second degree murder.

It seems to me like the state is going to need some strong forensic evidence, along with significant contradictions in Zimmerman's statements, to overcome Zimmerman's claim of self-defense. So far they haven't disclosed details of either one. The first person who will see them, if they exist, is Mark O'Mara, when he gets discovery. Until then, there may not be much more to discuss, but I'm keeping my eyes on John.