'Scientific certainty'
On a rainy night in late February, a woman called 911 to report someone crying out for help in her gated Sanford community, Retreat at Twin Lakes.
Though several of her neighbors eventually called authorities, she phoned early enough for dispatchers to hear the panicked cries and the gunshot that took Trayvon Martin's life.
George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, shot Trayvon, anunarmed17-year-old, during a one-on-one confrontation Feb. 26.
Before the shot, one of them can be heard screaming for help.
Owen, a court-qualified expert witness and former chief engineer for the
New York Public Library's Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, is an authority on biometric voice analysis — a computerized process comparing attributes of voices to determine whether they match.
After the
Sentinel contacted Owen, he used software called Easy Voice Biometrics to compare Zimmerman's voice to the 911 call screams.
"I took all of the screams and put those together, and cut out everything else," Owen says.
The software compared that audio to Zimmerman's voice. It returned a 48 percent match. Owen said to reach a positive match with audio of this quality, he'd expect higher than 90 percent.
"As a result of that, you can say with reasonable scientific certainty that it's not Zimmerman," Owen says...
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...cation-expert-reasonable-scientific-certainty
Not all experts rely on biometrics. Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio engineer and forensics expert, relies instead on audio enhancement and human analysis based on forensic experience.
After listening closely to the 911 tape, Primeau also has a strong opinion.
"I believe that's Trayvon Martin in the background, without a doubt," Primeau says, stressing that the tone of the voice is a giveaway.
"That's a young man screaming."
http://content.usatoday.com/communi...xperts-say-911-tape-supports-trayvon-martin/1
