Day One: Jogger Recalls Finding Body in Exhaustive Detail
After opening statements and a lunch recess, the Aaron Hernandez trial continued with the prosecution calling two witnesses. The first was Lloyd’s boss, Lorne Giroux, who owned a Norwood fertilizer company and verified that Lloyd had texted him the night before his death to confirm he had work the next day.
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The second witness was the 17-year-old Bishop Feehan student who found Lloyd’s body, while jogging through the industrial park the next afternoon.
Proescutor William McCauley had the teenager recount the events of finding the body in exhaustive detail, down to the sneakers he was wearing that day.
McCauley also presented jurors with a photo of Lloyd’s body, with his back on the ground and a Red Sox hat a few feet from his body.
The court will reconvene for a half-day tomorrow, as they will do on all Fridays.
- Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com Staff
Opening Arguments: What You Need to Know
The Aaron Hernandez murder trial is underway, with both the prosecution and defense laying out their opening arguments before the jury in Fall River.
Bristol County prosecutor Patrick Blomberg began his statements around noon, arguing that Hernandez and two associates, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, drove Odin Lloyd to an isolated industrial park in North Attleborough. There, the prosecution said, they shot him six times and left him to die.
Blomberg said that DNA from an unlit joint found at the crime scene and from shell casings in the car Hernandez rented would link the former football player to the murder.
In his opening arguments, defense attorney Michael Fee characterized the prosecution as “sloppy and unprofessional.”
“They locked on Aaron and they targeted him,” said Fee, because of Hernandez’s celebrity status.
Fee also argued that Hernandez was friends with Lloyd and that evidence Hernandez was at the scene was not proof that he killed, conspired to kill or wanted to kill Lloyd.
Part of the defense’s reasoning was Hernandez would kill Lloyd because he dealt Hernandez marijuana and was known as the “blunt master.”
Throughout the opening statements, Hernandez appeared to be rocking sideways, nervously, in his courtroom chair.
Before the court took a recess, Garsh reminded the jurors that under Massachusetts law, the state did not have to prove Hernandez personally shot Lloyd. What the prosecution does have to prove is that he “knowingly participated” and did so “with intent required to commit the crime.”
- Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com Staff
New Juror Selected After Woman Failed to Report
Opening arguments began at noon in the murder trial for former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez after a judge swore in jurors Thursday morning.
The trial was briefly delayed after one juror was late and another failed to report, sending a letter to Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh. According to the Providence Journal, after a private sidebar with the defense, Garsh selected a middle-aged man out of the 13 potential alternate jurors to fill in the vacant slot. She did not disclose the contents of the letter as to why the juror did now show up for the trial.
Finding a new juror took two hours and the jury now is made up of 12 women and six men.
Hernandez, as well as associates Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, is charged with the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, whose body was found in a North Attleborough industrial park, less than a mile from the former Patriot’s mansion.
Hernandez had signed a $40 million contract extension with the Patriots in 2012, and caught a touchdown in the team’s 2012 Super Bowl appearance. He was cut by the team less than two hours after being arrested in June of 2013.
Hernandez also awaits trial for murder charges relating to a 2012 double homicide in Boston’s South End.
- Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com Staff
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