Ahmaud Arbery may have been innocently looking for a drink of water when he wandered into the home that was under construction on the day that he was killed in February.
“It now appears that this young man may have been coming onto the property for water,” Elizabeth Graddy, the attorney for homeowner Larry English, said in a statement. “There is a water source at the dock behind the house as well as a source near the front of the structure. Although these water sources do not appear within any of the camera’s frames, the young man moves to and from their locations.”
On Friday, Graddy released the footage of the house under construction from three security camera videos taken December 17th, more than two months before the shooting occurred. The footage shows a black man in a T-shirt and shorts at the construction site. In the final clip, he walks a few steps toward the road, then begins jogging. Another clip taken on February 11th shows a man in similar attire, less than two weeks before the murder of Ahmaud. Graddy said that person appears to be the same man shown in the December videos.
Graddy’s statements follow the lawyer for Ahmaud’s family, who released a new security video showing “frequent visitors” on the same property where Ahmaud visited.
“New video shows there were frequent visitors on the construction site where Ahmaud was seen leaving on the day he was killed both day & night,” attorney S. Lee Merritt said in a post that showed two separate individuals making walking on the property. “Ahmaud Arbery seems to be the only one who was presumed to be a criminal and ultimately the only one murdered based on that presumption,” he added. In another clip, two seemingly young boys can also be seen making their way onto the property as well.
Ahmaud was brutally murdered on February 23rd by 64-year-old Gregory McMichael and 34-year-old Travis McMichael. On Friday, defense lawyers for Gregory McMichael claimed that they have examined evidence that “tells a very different story,” though they would not elaborate.
