National Football League

Details of Hernandez's suspected involvement in 2012 double-murder revealed

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:19 p.m. ET

Andre Vergara

Police suspect Aaron Hernandez participated in a 2012 drive-by double murder using a truck loaned to him, according to a search warrant released Tuesday, and that those killings led to the murder of Odin Lloyd, for which the former Patriots star is now on trial.

The warrant is the first publicly released document on the 2012 double murder in Boston and the first detailed narrative of Hernandez's movements that night. It was obtained to listen to phone calls made from prison by alleged accomplice Alexander Bradley, after authorities received a tip that he was discussing the double murder.

It does not indicate whether Hernandez is suspected of being the shooter, or what the motive is in the deaths of Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado, who were shot in their car at a stoplight shortly after leaving Cure Lounge on the night of July 16, 2012.

Hernandez and Bradley both were at Cure on the same night, according to surveillance footage, which showed them arriving at the club immediately after the victims, downing a couple of drinks and leaving 10 minutes later in the silver SUV with Rhode Island plates they arrived in.

When Abreu and Furtado left an hour later, an SUV matching that description had returned to the area and was circling the block, according to surveillance. Authorities say that car pulled up to the victims' car and sprayed it with five or six shots from a .357- or .38-caliber pistol, killing Abreu and Furtado and wounding one of the three other men in the car. Witnesses' descriptions matched Hernandez, Alexander and the silver SUV.

Bradley sued Hernandez last year, claiming that the former Patriots tight end shot him in the eye during a February night out in Florida and left him for dead. Bradley was arrested as a fugitive witness last fall. The calls he made allegedly discussing the double murder occured between Oct. 4 and 15.

The investigation turned to Hernandez after Lloyd's death on June 17, 2013, following an anonymous tip from a security guard at Rumor nightclub, which Hernandez and Lloyd attended, claiming the killings were linked. The guard told police a patron "accidentally spilled the beans in front of me."

Hernandez is on trial along with Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace in the shooting death of Lloyd. The prosecution alleges Lloyd was killed for talking to the wrong people at the nightclub.

A search in Hernandez's hometown of Bristol, Conn., turned up a silver SUV with Rhode Island plates covered in cobwebs and being stored at a relative's home. Authorities say it was given to Hernandez by a local dealership in exchange for some promotion. A search of a relative's car turned up a .38 that the woman said had been put there by friends, according to the warrant.