Shellie Zimmerman delivers message to Trayvon's parents in 'GMA' interview

SANFORD, Fla. — For months, Shellie Zimmerman sat silently by as her husband, George Zimmerman, was accused and tried for murder in the death of Trayvon Martin.

On Wednesday, in the same court house where her husband was acquitted, Shellie pleaded guilty to misdemeanor perjury instead of the felony count she was facing for lying to a judge last year about money in a defense fund for her husband.

On Thursday, she spoke exclusively with "Good Morning America."

"I can't tell you how many times I have laid awake at night saying, 'God, I wish these circumstances had been different,'" Shellie Zimmerman said.

Those circumstances, she said, began even before the shooting of Martin.

Shellie said she can't explain what was going through George's head because she was not home that February night in 2012.

"I was staying at my father's house. We had gotten into an argument the night before and I left," she said.

During an interview with Christie O'Conner, an investigative reporter writing a book on the trial, Shellie said she always believed George's story.

"Do you think George is capable of profiling, killing him?" asked O'Conner.

"No. Just not his way," said Shellie.

She stuck by him even as the death threats came and they were forced to live in hiding.

"We have been pretty much gypsies for the past year and a half. We've lived in a 20 -foot trailer in the woods, scared every night that someone was going to find us and that we'd be out in the woods alone and that it would be horrific," she said.

Shellie now admits she lied for George, hiding how much money they had from a judge.

"I can rationalize a lot of reasons for why I was misleading, but the truth is that I knew that I was lying," she said.

Despite the support she offered George, he was not in court for her, which is something Shellie said she cannot explain.

Since his acquittal in July, George has kept a low profile with one glaring exception: a visit to a Florida gun manufacturing plant, which is the company that made the gun he used to fatally shoot Martin.

Shellie said she did not think that visit was the right thing to do.

She now says she's going to have to "think about" whether she stays married to George.

Whether it's with George or not, Shellie said she's determined to move forward.

"I've made mistakes and I want to own them right now," she said.

Part of that process she said was to deliver a message to Martin's parents.

"I'm so deeply sorry for their loss. I can't even begin to understand the grief that a parent experiences when they lose a child," she said.

Shellie will spend the next year on probation as part of a plea deal.

WFTV