Ex-NFL star's fiancée looked nervous day after alleged killing: witness

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[February 25, 2015]  By Daniel Lovering
 
 FALL RIVER, Mass. (Reuters) - Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez's fiancée was visibly nervous the day after an associate of the ex-NFL star was killed, a woman who cleaned Hernandez's Massachusetts home testified at his murder trial on Tuesday.

Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, spent time on the telephone, peeking out the window and crying after hauling away a large trash bag in the trunk of a red car, Carla Barbosa, 31, testified at Massachusetts Superior Court in Fall River.

"She was nervous and she was walking back and forth," Barbosa said. She added police were outside when Barbosa left the house on June 18, 2013, a day after Odin Lloyd's bullet-riddled body was found in an industrial park near Hernandez's home.

Hernandez is accused of fatally shooting Lloyd, who had been dating Jenkins's sister.

Earlier that day, Barbosa testified, she saw Jenkins carry a large trash bag out of the home.

"It was held close to her, she had her arms around it," Barbosa, who is from Brazil, said in Portuguese. Her testimony was translated by an interpreter.

Jenkins has pleaded not guilty to perjury charges for allegedly lying to a grand jury about not knowing where she disposed of a box Hernandez had asked her to throw out. She has been granted immunity but it remains unclear if she will testify.

Prosecutors showed video from Hernandez's home surveillance system of Jenkins carrying a large trash bag from the house.

Lloyd's body was found in an industrial park less than a mile (1.6 km) from Hernandez's house.

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Lloyd, 27, had been shot six times, and police found five empty .45-caliber shell casings nearby. They found another .45-caliber shell in a dumpster at a rental car agency, and witnesses testified it had been removed from a car Hernandez returned. Police have not found the gun used in the slaying.

Investigators also testified about Lloyd's autopsy on Tuesday. As prosecutors showed graphic photos of bullet wounds in Lloyd's body, his mother, Ursula Ward, wept and left the courtroom, mouthing the words, "My baby, my baby."

Prosecutors contend Hernandez and two friends, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, picked up Lloyd at his Boston home, before driving him to the North Attleborough industrial area where his body was found.

Hernandez, who has pleaded not guilty, face a second trial later this year on charges he killed two Cape Verdean men outside a Boston nightclub in 2012.

(Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Trott and Mohammad Zargham)

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