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 Prosecutors say Hernandez, who played tight end for the New England
Patriots, gunned down semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd in an
industrial park near Hernandez's house in North Attleborough,
Massachusetts, before dawn on June 17, 2013.
They called more than 120 witnesses to testify since the trial began
in late January, including investigators and family members, and
presented the jury with phone records, text messages, and
surveillance video to bolster their case.
But defense attorneys, who will begin presenting their case on
Monday with closing arguments likely in the middle of next week,
said in a court filing Thursday that the case is too weak to warrant
a murder conviction. Hernandez, 25, has pleaded not guilty and faces
possible life in prison.
On Thursday, Massachusetts medical examiner Dr. William Zane
testified that Lloyd had six bullet wounds, including one in the
back and two in the chest. He showed the jury the locations of the
wounds by putting stickers on a mannequin.
"The gunshot wound to the left chest would be fatal," said Zane, the
prosecution's final witness. He said the shot would have killed
Lloyd in "seconds to minutes." He said two of the other wounds also
caused fatal injuries.
He said he could not tell whether Lloyd's wounds had been caused by
six different bullets.
Prosecutors say Hernandez and two friends, Ernest Wallace and Carlos
Ortiz, killed Lloyd with a .45-caliber Glock handgun, after
Hernandez and Lloyd had a disagreement at a nightclub two nights
before. The weapon has not been found.
They presented evidence that the men picked Lloyd up in Boston and
drove him to the industrial park where he was killed. They also
played surveillance video from Hernandez's house that showed
Hernandez holding what they say is a Glock handgun minutes after
Lloyd's death.
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After the prosecution rested, defense attorneys filed a motion with
the court asking it to clear Hernandez. "There is substantial
evidence placing Hernandez at the scene where Lloyd was killed,"
they wrote. "However ... there is no evidence, let alone proof
beyond a reasonable doubt, about what, if anything, Hernandez did at
that scene."
They added that there may have been enough evidence to convict
Hernandez as an accessory-after-the-fact to murder. "But he is not
on trial for that offense," they wrote.
(Editing by Richard Valdmanis, Chizu Nomiyama, Ted Botha, Richard
Chang, Paul Simao and Lisa Shumaker)
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