National Football League

Jurors see video of Hernandez's demeanor after Lloyd's death

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 5:47 p.m. ET

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Aaron Hernandez splashed in the swimming pool with his young daughter less than 12 hours after Odin Lloyd’s slaying.

Jurors in Hernandez’s murder trial on Thursday watched more than an hour and 20 minutes of video from June 17, 2013, that was captured by the NFL star’s home surveillance system. And in it, they saw Hernandez and two alleged accomplices, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace Jr., hanging out in his basement, playing with his baby, lounging around his pool, and sitting at his kitchen table.

At one point, Hernandez handed his daughter, then 7 months old, to Wallace. In all of the footage, Hernandez and his two alleged accomplices appeared relaxed.

There was no testimony during the playing of the videos – they were merely queued up, one after another. The footage unfolded in the nearly silent courtroom. Some jurors took notes.

And though the videos shed no light on what happened at the murder scene, they provided a window into Hernandez’s demeanor, and that of the other two men, less than 12 hours after prosecutors contend they were jointly involved in the brutal slaying of Lloyd.

Prosecutor allege that Hernandez, then a star tight end for the New England Patriots, “orchestrated” Lloyd’s murder after growing angry with him at a Boston nightclub two days earlier, and they contend that Ortiz and Wallace were involved in the crime with him as “joint venturers.”

It was left to jurors to decide what to make of the footage.

Prosecutors have asserted that Hernandez arranged to meet Lloyd and at the same time summoned associates Ortiz and Wallace from his hometown of Bristol, Conn., to his mansion in North Attleboro, Mass., late the night of June 16, 2013. From there, the trio allegedly set out for Boston -- roughly an hour's drive -- about 1:10 a.m. on June 17.

After picking up Lloyd in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Hernandez allegedly drove the group back to North Attleboro, turning off the road and into a field that was less than a mile from his own home. Lloyd's body was discovered in that field the next day.

Hernandez faces one count of murder and two firearms charges in the slaying of Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player who was dating Shaneah Jenkins, the sister of Hernandez's fiancee.

Prosecutors have not said who they believe fired the fatal shots, and Ortiz and Wallace also have been charged with murder and will be tried separately. Under a Massachusetts law often referred to as "joint venture," a person can be convicted of murder even if someone else carried out the actual killing. To prove that, prosecutors would have to convince the jury that Hernandez knowingly participated in the killing and did so with intent.

In addition to the playing of the video footage, Thursday also featured testimony from a woman who hung out with Hernandez at that Boston nightclub two days before Lloyd’s murder.

Kasey Arma, the eighth witness called by prosecutors who saw Hernandez early the morning of June 15, 2013, inside a nightclub called Rumor or on nearby streets, said the player abruptly ended a dance with her, then returned a short time later on edge and aggressive.

She said she first encountered Hernandez when she walked past him and he tapped her on the hip. After friends said he was trying to get her attention, she said she turned and said, “I’m Kasey,” and asked him his name.

At that point, she testified, Hernandez paused and looked surprised she didn’t know who he was.

“He told me his name was Rock,” she said. “He told me that I looked good and he asked me if I would dance with him. I told him I don’t dance with guys in the club.”

She later relented, she testified.

“He was pretty pleasant – he shook my hand when I told him my name was Kasey,” she said.

Suddenly, in the middle of a song, he abruptly said, “I’ll be right back,” she said.

When he returned, she said, he was “very aggressive.”

Asked to describe his behavior, she said it was “not as before” and that “he just seemed a lot more agitated, on edge.”

“He didn’t seem relaxed anymore,” she said. “He seemed different.”

Defense attorneys then played a video of the woman dancing with Hernandez after that incident. It showed her dancing with her back to him, and appearing to back into him, as he moved behind her.

Defense attorney Michael Fee got her to agree that her friends pushed her to approach Hernandez, that it was “sort of a dare,” and that it was “kind of an ego thing.”

He also had her describe Hernandez’s normal demeanor at clubs – she’d seen him several times during previous visits.

And she agreed he was “a wallflower” who was regularly bothered by people trying to talk to him and take his photograph.

A defense attorney also spent time tearing into a state police detective who matched a footprint found near Odin Lloyd's body to a Nike sneaker worn by Hernandez.

The footprint in soft sand and dirt had been heralded by prosecutors as a key piece of evidence implicating Hernandez in Lloyd's killing -- it was left, they asserted, by a Size 13 Nike Air Jordan 11 Retro Low sneaker.

Surveillance videos that have already been shown to the jury depicted Hernandez wearing what a Nike official identified as a pair of the shoes. Those videos were captured roughly 90 minutes before Lloyd was killed on June 17, 2013, and again just a few minutes after prosecutors assert his murder occurred.

And Lt. Steven Bennett had earlier testified that an inked impression from a sample pair of Size 13 Nikes matched up with lines that could be observed in the photograph of the footprint. Although he could not say with certainty which pair of shoes made the print, he said he found enough matches to determine that it was "consistent in manufacturing and design" with the Nike Air Jordan 11s.

The footprint was referred to repeatedly as the "impression at Placard 2" -- a reference to the numbered yellow marker used when evidence is photographed.

Defense attorney James Sultan hammered away at Bennett -- noting that he didn't carefully study the footprint photographs until March 2014, which was nine months after the killing, and that even then he didn't compare Lloyd's sneakers to the picture

Sultan also reiterated one of the defense's recurring themes -- that police were sloppy, rushed to judgment and failed to follow the evidence and instead looked for ways to tie Hernandez to the killing.

Thursday was the 30th day of Hernandez's trial, and prosecutors have so far called 98 witnesses.

Hernandez has separately been indicted on multiple murder and assault charges in the July 16, 2012, shooting that killed Daniel De Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28 in Boston. Another man was wounded.

Judge E. Susan Garsh has ruled that jurors will not hear any testimony about that case.

In the Boston killings, prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez became enraged after a man bumped him on a nightclub dance floor, spilling his drink and failed to apologize. They allege that Hernandez later followed the man and his friends as they drove away from the club, then pulled up next to their car at a stoplight and opened fire with a .38-caliber revolver.

That trial originally was scheduled to begin May 28, but the judge there indicated recently he would push it back given the anticipated length of the trial in the Lloyd case. No new trial date has been set.

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