For months, she was only known to the public as "Witness 8." George Zimmerman's defense team said she was "cloaked in secrecy," and many called her the state's star witness in Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial.

Wednesday, for the very first time, we saw and heard from Rachel Jeantel, the young woman who was on the phone with Trayvon Martin during his last moments before he was shot and killed.

Follow LIVE Updates from Wednesday's testimony.

Wednesday's testimony

Witnesses listed in reverse order, with the most recent witness on top.

  • Rachel Jeantel, the woman on the phone with Martin the night of the shooting.
  • Jayne Surdyka, a former neighbor who heard the shooting.
  • Jeanne Manalo, a former neighbor who heard the shooting.

Rachel Jeantel is the state's "Witness 8," the last person to speak to Trayvon Martin on the phone.

Jeantel described some of the last things Trayvon Martin told her before his phone disconnected.

"I heard Trayvon say, 'Get off, get off,'" she testified. "Then the phone just hung up. It shut off."

Jeantel also said Trayvon used the "N-word," along with another racial slur used to describe a white person, to describe Zimmerman.

She said she never spoke to investigators once she learned Trayvon was killed moments after their conversation was cut short. Instead, investigators first learned about her after the Martin family's attorney, Benjamin Crump, went on national television and played a recorded conversation he had with Jeantel. It was that interview that prompted Zimmerman's defense to ask the judge multiple times to depose Crump, but Judge Debra Nelson denied each request.

Still, defense attorneys have strongly questioned her credibility. Attorney Don West got Jeantel to admit she lied to Trayvon Martin's mother about her age -- she said she was 16, when she was 18 at the time; she is currently 19.

Jeantel also said she was hospitalized during Trayvon's funeral, but medical records proved otherwise -- and so did her testimony Wednesday.

"You got to understand what I'm trying to tell you," she said. "I'm the last person -- you don't know how I felt. You really think I want to see the body after I had just talked to him?"

Throughout her testimony, it was very hard to understand what Jeantel was saying. The judge had to stop the witness several times and ask her to speak up and annunciate.

Some of the things she said on the witness stand got reactions from people in the courtroom, including Travyon Martin's father, Tracy Martin, who was seen laughing at some of her reactions and responses to defense attorney Don West.

Court recessed for the day after West said he expected to cross-examine Jeantel for several more hours. That surprised Jeantel on the stand, as she exclaimed, "What?" in reaction.

Following her testimony, Tracy Martin, tweeted:

"Rachel Jeantal Tray smiling knowing that you got his front back and side, im a big fan of this young lady"
— @BTraymartin9

Jeanne Manalo lived a Retreat at Twin Lakes and testified that she heard the shooting.

Manalo told the court she looked out the back of her home multiple times; once when she heard a howling, again when she heard the word 'help,' and again when she heard a gunshot.

In cross examination, defense attorney Mark O'Mara asked if she ever described the people she said in her statement she saw.  She said no, but the question was never asked.

She was still on the stand as the noon hour approached and Judge Debra Nelson gave a lunch break.

Jayne Surdyka is a former Retreat at Twin Lakes resident who heard the shooting.

Surdyka told prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda that she heard "a boy's cry for help" shortly before hearing the gunshot.

However, Surdyka mentioned hearing multiple gunshots. Only one shot was actually fired.

Surdyka said she was in a second-floor bedroom of her home when she heard scuffling outside. She said she heard an aggressive voice and a softer voice exchanging words for several minutes.

Surdyka testified that she then heard cries for help, and believes it was a boy's voice crying out.

On her emotional 911 call played for the jury in the courtroom, Surdyka asked, "Why didn't someone come out and help him?"

'Arm-wrestling' alternate juror dismissed

One of the alternate jurors in the George Zimmerman trial was dismissed for reasons unrelated to the trial, Judge Debra Nelson announced Wednesday morning as the trial entered its third day of testimony and 13th day overall.

Nelson identified the dismissed juror as Juror B-72, a young man who stood out in the jury pool when he talked about arm wrestling and said he did his first one-armed pull-up on the same day he first heard about the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in Seminole County.

Since B-72 was an alternate juror, the main jury of six women was not affected. Of the three alternate jurors who remain, only one is male.

Zimmerman's previous 911 calls allowed

Also Wednesday, Judge Debra Nelson ruled that she would allow at trial five police dispatch calls Zimmerman made in the months prior to his encounter with Martin.

Prosecutors want to use the calls to bolster their argument that Zimmerman was increasingly frustrated with repeated burglaries and had reached a breaking point the night he shot the unarmed teenager. Prosecutors played the calls for the judge Tuesday with the jurors out of the courtroom.

The recordings show Zimmerman's "ill will," prosecutor Richard Mantei said.

"It shows the context in which the defendant sought out his encounter with Trayvon Martin," he said.

O'Mara argued that the calls were irrelevant and that nothing matters but the seven or eight minutes before Zimmerman fired the deadly shot into Martin's chest.

In the calls, Zimmerman identifies himself as a neighborhood watch volunteer and recounts that his neighborhood has had a rash of recent break-ins. In one call, he asks that officers respond quickly since the suspects "typically get away quickly."

In another, he describes suspicious black men hanging around a garage and mentions his neighborhood had a recent garage break-in.

Zimmerman, 29, could get life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder for gunning down Martin as the young man walked from a convenience store. Zimmerman followed him in his truck and called a police dispatch number before he and the teen got into a fight.

Zimmerman has claimed self-defense, saying he opened fire after the teenager jumped him and began slamming his head against the concrete sidewalk.

Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother is Hispanic, has denied the confrontation with the black teenager had anything to do with race, as Martin's family and its supporters have charged.

Defense: Witness signed Facebook petition to arrest Zimmerman

Selene Bahadoor, who lived in one of the homes near the scene of the shooting, took the stand Tuesday. She testified that she saw part of the struggle and recalled looking out a window and seeing arms flailing in the dark. She said she left to turn off a stove and then heard a gunshot. The next time she looked out, she saw a body on the ground, she testified.

She described the sound of movement from left to right outside her townhouse, and said she heard what sounded like someone saying, "No" or "Uh."

In cross-examination, defense attorney Mark O'Mara accused Bahadoor of never mentioning the left-to-right movement in previous interviews.

O'Mara also pointed out a post on Bahadoor's Facebook wall that she signed the 2012 petition on Change.org calling for Zimmerman's arrest.