An elderly couple has fled their Sanford-area home after a tweet—disseminated by Spike Lee—mistakenly gave their address as that of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and k!lled Trayvon Martin in Florida last month. The Orlando Sentinel reports that David (72) and Elaine McClain (70) received hate mail, threats, and visits from reporters looking for Zimmerman after their address was incorrectly pegged as that of the man who k!lled Martin last month in what he says was self defense.
Elaine McClain has a son named William George Zimmerman, no relation to the Zimmerman in question. The couple is currently living in a hotel.
The Smoking Gun traced the original tweet back to Marcus Davonne Higgins of California, who apparently sent a tweet containing the incorrect address to Lee and other celebrities with a request for a retweet. Lee retweeted to his 240,000 followers last Friday. He's since removed the retweet, but it continues to bounce around Twitter.
William Zimmerman (Elaine's son) told the Sentinel that he lived at his parent's residence briefly after college. He registered to vote, got a driver's license, and registered a car at that address.
Spike Lee tweets wrong George Zimmerman address in Florida