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 A Massachusetts jury found Hernandez, 25, guilty of first-degree
murder in the June 2013 slaying of Odin Lloyd, who had been dating
the sister of Hernandez's fiancée at the time. During the trial in
Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River, the two men were
described as having been in the early stages of friendship, but
Hernandez soured on Lloyd after he hung out with people the former
New England Patriots tight end disliked.
After the jury announced the verdict, Massachusetts Superior Court
Associate Justice Susan Garsh sentenced Hernandez to life in prison
without the possibility of parole, the mandatory punishment for
first-degree murder in the state.
Hernandez, who had stood to hear the jury's decision, collapsed into
his chair after the verdict was read, and court security officers
handcuffed him. His mother and fiancée, who were in court, broke
into tears.
Members of Lloyd's family welcomed the verdict but said the pain of
losing Lloyd would linger.
"I felt like I wanted to go into the hole with my son, Odin. I will
never have a grandchild from my son, or grandchildren. I will never
get to dance at his wedding," Lloyd's mother, Ursula Ward, told
reporters.
The Patriots cut Hernandez, a rising star with a $41 million
contract, hours after his arrest on June 26, 2013, nine days after a
teenage jogger found Lloyd's body.
The highly publicized case was another black eye for the NFL. The
United States' most profitable sports league was already facing a
lawsuit by former players who contend it ignored the concussion
risks they faced on the gridiron and criticism for its handling of
cases involving domestic violence by players.
During four months of testimony, the jury heard from more than 130
witnesses who testified that Hernandez, a native of Bristol,
Connecticut, was a regular user of marijuana and sometimes of the
stimulant PCP, that he owned guns and at times acted paranoid and
that he felt his friends did not appreciate the things he did for
them.
Jurors who met with reporters after the verdict was announced said
that deliberations were often emotional, and that members of the
panel sometimes cried. "I think we’ll all remember it for the rest
of our lives," one of them said.
The witnesses included Alexander Bradley, a former friend of
Hernandez's who charged in a civil lawsuit that the former NFL
player shot him in the face in February 2013, costing him an eye.
Bradley, who never pursued criminal charges over the incident,
testified that he saw Hernandez handle a gun similar to the one used
to kill Lloyd but was not allowed to tell the jury about the
shooting.
Investigators never recovered the .45-caliber Glock pistol that was
used to pump six bullets into Lloyd, 27, who had been a
semiprofessional football player.
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Robert Kraft, the Patriots' billionaire owner, was also called to
the stand. Kraft testified that Hernandez said he was innocent and
claimed to have been at a nightclub at the time of the killing.
Prosecutors contended that two friends, Ernest Wallace and Carlos
Ortiz, were with Hernandez at the time of the killing. Those two men
will be tried separately.
Defense lawyers closed their case by saying Hernandez had been
present at the time of Lloyd's slaying, but had been a witness, not
a participant.
"He was a 23-year-old kid who witnessed ... a shocking killing
committed by somebody he knew," said defense attorney James Sultan.
"He really didn't know what to do. So he just put one foot in front
of the other."
Prosecutors countered that Hernandez had plotted and controlled
every detail of the slaying.
"He believed he could kill Odin Lloyd and nobody would ever believe
that he was involved," said Assistant District Attorney William
McCauley.
Hernandez was also found guilty of two firearms charges for
illegally possessing the handgun used in the crime and illegally
possessing .22-caliber ammunition found at his North Attleborough,
Massachusetts, home.
Hernandez faces another trial beginning later this year in Boston,
where he is charged with fatally shooting Cape Verdean nationals
Daniel Abreu and Safirdo Furtado outside a nightclub after one of
them spilled a drink. The jury that rendered the Lloyd verdict was
not told about that case.
(Writing by Scott Malone; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Matthew
Lewis)
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