Video shows ex-NFL star with type of gun used in slaying: expert

[March 12, 2015]  By Daniel Lovering
 
 FALL RIVER, Mass. (Reuters) - Surveillance video from former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez's home shows him holding what appears to be the same type of pistol prosecutors say he used to kill an associate, a handgun company official testified on Wednesday.

Kyle Aspinwall, an employee of Austrian handgun manufacturer Glock Inc, said he could see parts of a Glock .45-caliber handgun in Hernandez's hand in the video recorded shortly after prosecutors say Hernandez fatally shot Odin Lloyd, a semiprofessional football player, in the early hours of June 17, 2013.

"I'm observing what appears to be a firearm, specifically a pistol," Aspinwall said, looking at still images from the video showing Hernandez near a basement door at his home with a black object in his left hand. "In my opinion, the firearm shown in the video stills is a Glock pistol."

Defense attorneys have suggested Hernandez was instead holding a remote control or some other device.

Hernandez is on trial at Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River, Massachusetts, on charges of murdering Lloyd. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Hernandez and two friends, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, picked up Lloyd at his Boston home and drove him to an industrial park near Hernandez's house in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, where his body was found later that day.

Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancée, was shot five times at close range with a .45-caliber handgun. Witnesses have testified the bullets came from the same weapon.

Investigators found five empty shell casings at the scene and a sixth that had been removed from a rental car Hernandez returned, but have not recovered the weapon used in the shooting.

Aspinwall showed jurors a Glock handgun in court and explained how it worked, describing features such as the slide and magazine well he said he could identify in the video.

Earlier on Wednesday, Jeffrey Keane, former head of security at a Boston hotel, said he watched Hernandez on the street two nights before the murder after a co-worker reported he had seen what he thought was a gun in Hernandez's waistband.

This is the first of two murder trials Hernandez faces this year, with prosecutors in Boston set to make their case this fall that the former NFL star fatally shot two Cape Verdean nationals outside a nightclub in 2012.

(Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

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