National Football League

Video shows Hernandez allegedly holding gun hours before Lloyd's death

Updated Mar. 5, 2020 12:19 a.m. ET

foxsports

FALL RIVER, Mass. – Shortly before embarking on a journey that ended in an alleged murder of Odin Lloyd, Aaron Hernandez walked through his family room with a black object in his hands – an object prosecutors claim was a pistol.

Jurors in Hernandez’s murder trial got a view of that moment Monday when prosecutors played a number of clips from the video surveillance system in the former NFL star’s home. And the one that garnered the most attention in the courtroom was captured shortly before 1 a.m. on June 17, 2013.

In it, Hernandez walks through his family room, past his fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, his young daughter and the couple’s babysitter, Jennifer Fortier.

As Hernandez moves the object from one hand to the other, one of his alleged accomplices, Carlos Ortiz, walks behind him.

A defense attorney suggested in his opening statement that the object was a remote control – and lead prosecutor William McCauley tried to refute that while questioning Fortier.

“This remote control – did you ever see a remote control anywhere in the house that resembled a firearm, a gun?” McCauley asked.

Defense attorney Michael Fee immediately objected, and Judge E. Susan Garsh sustained it.

“OK,” McCauley continued, “describe any remote control that you saw in that house.”

“The only ones I’ve ever seen are what I told you earlier, a rectangle, black or gray,” she said.

It was impossible to tell from the clip played Monday exactly what Hernandez was holding. However, prosecutors have other shots they allege show Hernandez with the murder weapon, and Judge Garsh has ruled that they can call an official from Glock who has studied the video clips and concluded the object is, in fact, a handgun manufactured by the Swiss company.

It is not clear when he will be called to testify.

The prosecution alleges that Hernandez “orchestrated” Lloyd's murder, arranging to meet the 27-year-old semi-pro football player and at the same time summoning two associates, Ernest Wallace Jr. and Carlos Ortiz, from Bristol, Conn., to his home 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 – around 1:10 a.m. on June 17, 2013.

After picking up Lloyd, the group allegedly returned to North Attleboro, with Hernandez at the wheel.

Lloyd was killed in a gravel pit less than a mile from Hernandez’s home. Prosecutors have put the time of death sometime between 3:23 and 3:27 a.m. on June 17, 2013.

Hernandez faces one count of murder and two firearms charges in the slaying of Lloyd, 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 have also 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.

Fortier also testified Monday about her interactions with Hernandez and Lloyd two days before the murder.

She told the jury she and a friend had been in Boston late the night of June 14, 2013, and early the following morning. After the nightclub they were in closed at 2 a.m., they were walking back to her friend’s car when they saw Hernandez, Lloyd and another man in a black SUV.

Fortier called out Hernandez’s name, and she and her friend got in the vehicle believing the player would give them a ride back to their car.

Instead, she said Hernandez headed off in the opposite direction while he and the other two men smoked pot and sang along to rap music.

“I asked him a good amount of times to bring me to my car,” Fortier said.

“And what happened when you asked?” McCauley asked her.

“He kept driving,” she said.

They ended up in North Attleboro, where Hernandez dropped the other man off down the street from his house. Fortier said that Hernandez didn’t want his fiancée to see him.

Then Hernandez drove them to the town of Franklin, Mass., where he had an apartment that has been referred to in court as a “flophouse.”

At one point there, Hernandez offered her wine – she said she declined because she does not drink – and then invited her to the bedroom, where he kissed her.

“He kissed me and I pushed him away and told him no, I’m your nanny I can’t do this,” she said. “He told me it was OK and he understood and he wasn’t mad at me.”

Fortier acknowledged on cross-examination that she initially kissed Hernandez back.

Hernandez and Lloyd both went to sleep, and Fortier said she eventually called a cab to get back to Boston and her friend’s car.

Earlier Monday, one of Hernandez’s attorneys picked up where he’d left off Friday, challenging the DNA tests that were conducted on key pieces of evidence in the murder of Odin Lloyd. The failure of an analyst in the Massachusetts State Police crime lab to send out genetic material from a hair for further testing was his first point of contention.

That hair was discovered on a towel that was found on the ground not far from Lloyd’s body. And the presence of that towel is a critical argument for the defense – it suggests that Ortiz got out of the car at the time of the killing.

Diane Fife Biagiotti, a forensic scientist at the Massachusetts State Police crime lab, tested the hair and found that it did not contain enough DNA to warrant further work. At that point, she ended the process under the lab’s protocols because the lack of genetic material made further testing moot.

But defense attorney James Sultan asked her whether it would have been possible to send the remaining material from the hair to an outside lab for a more sophisticated DNA test.

“Yes, that’s possible,” Biagiotti said.

Surveillance video from a gas station where Hernandez and the other two men stopped roughly 30 minutes before they allegedly picked up Lloyd showed Ortiz with what appeared to be a white towel draped around his neck.

The conduct of police investigators has been a central theme of the defense since Jan. 29, the first day of the trial of the former star tight end. Biagiotti was the 77th witness, and Monday was the 22nd day of testimony.

Hernandez has separately been indicted on multiple murder and assault charges in a July 16, 2012 shooting in South Boston that left two men dead and another wounded.

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 alleged 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, killing Daniel De Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, and wounding another man.

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.