Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez (2020): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript
Aaron's arrest for the inexplicable murder of Odin Lloyd shocks the sports world, and his life and relationships before stardom are explored.
How were you going to
get home from the gym on that afternoon?
I was gonna run...
but I went straight, and it's a path that
turns from pavement to gravel and dirt.
I want to show you
a series of photographs and ask you
- if you recognize them.
- Okay.
- Do you recognize that?
- Yes.
And what do you recognize
that to be?
The man I discovered.
The discovery of a body
in North Attleboro
has taken a dramatic twist.
Sports Illustrated reporting yesterday
that Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez
has been questioned in connection
with what is now a homicide investigation.
The police presence comes
after the body of a 27-year-old Boston man
was found in an industrial park
less than a mile away
from the NFL star's home.
The Patriots organization
released a statement
saying they are aware
of what is happening,
but as long as there is
a police investigation going on,
they won't further comment.
When you look
at the New England Patriots,
you look at Bill Belichick,
obviously, and Tom Brady.
You marvel at the excellence
of the New England Patriots
and what they are.
Drafted in 2010,
Aaron Hernandez made a splash in the NFL.
Hernandez had recently signed
a new mouthwatering contract
worth $40 million.
Police quick to say that
Hernandez is not a suspect,
but that a car rented in his name
could be a key source of evidence.
It's kind of hard also because,
it's just they said that
there was a vehicle involved,
but nothing has been proven.
Good afternoon, everybody,
this victim has now been identified here
as Odin Lloyd.
Family members say Lloyd
played some semi-professional football.
They say he was an honest,
hardworking young man.
They say they have no idea
why anyone would do him harm.
They are in complete shock.
Lloyd's family members
told reporters
the 27-year-old was dating the sister
of Hernandez's girlfriend.
Meanwhile,
the ongoing investigation
has created a frenzy
outside of Hernandez's home.
Apparently,
the house was scrubbed clean,
according to the reports
that we're hearing this morning.
Broken cell phones,
also a security system
that was messed with at the house.
North Attleboro
and Massachusetts State Police
continue combing
through fields for evidence.
These are live pictures from
the news choppers outside of Boston
from what is looking weirdly reminiscent.
They are following that white SUV
with the dark sunroof right there.
In the car is a New England Patriots
football player
who may soon become a murder suspect.
Along the way, news crews
caught up with Hernandez in Boston
as he stopped for gas.
They asked several questions,
but not a peep from Hernandez.
What happened on Monday night?
He then headed
to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.
An arrest warrant
has been issued
for New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez.
Police showed up at
the house of Aaron Hernandez this morning
and took the Bristol, Connecticut native
away in handcuffs.
When this day began,
Aaron Hernandez
was a New England Patriots tight end.
Tonight, he is the defendant
in a murder case.
Hello, this is
a prepaid collect call from...
Aaron.
To accept charges, press one.
To refuse charges, press...
Thank you for using Securus.
You may start the conversation now.
Hola!
- Hi!
- Hi!
Hello?
Daddy's on speaker phone.
I love you!
Say, "I love you!"
I love you, bye!
Don't say bye!
I talked to my lawyers.
As long as you have a case,
if you have a baby with someone,
you're allowed a one-time visit
every now and then.
So, if you wanna see me...
Nah, maybe.
Kidding.
- You better be.
- Hey, hey, hey!
Mommy's being bad girl.
Mommy's not doing
anything wrong... What the heck?
- Dada.
- She said "dada."
What is this?
Dada's on vacation.
He's 23 years old
at the time
that he's led out of his house
in handcuffs.
I'm standing there on the street
as he comes out
and you just try to understand
the fall at that point.
When I got the call
from my editors
that Aaron Hernandez
could be involved in a crime,
the first question that popped into
my head was, "Who's Aaron Hernandez?"
You basically start scouring online
and you find out that,
"Wow, this is why
people adore Aaron Hernandez."
He was seen as this
very hardworking, talented...
extremely talented football player
who had nearly won the Super Bowl
for the Patriots just the year before,
so this guy was huge.
The court hereby orders that
the defendant, Aaron Hernandez,
be held without bail, pending
further proceedings on this matter.
Innocent! Innocent!
Innocent! Innocent! Innocent!
Aaron was not your typical inmate at
the Bristol County House of Corrections.
Here it comes.
Here it comes.
Here it comes.
That's the vehicle
that contains Aaron Hernandez.
Right now, he is passing by.
He was gonna
get some attention, dramatic attention,
from the sheriff and all of the guards.
They knew there was gonna be
a spotlight on this.
When he first came in,
I let him know upfront
he's not gonna be treated any better
or any worse than anybody here.
- That's a huge badge.
- It is.
- You guys mind putting those closer?
- You know what, I don't make them.
I really don't make them.
Sir, can you come a little closer?
- Sure, sure.
- Please. Please.
It might be a bit of an adjustment
for him on the meals, I'm sure.
He's a pretty big guy, but the reality is
that when you come to jail,
it does require some adjustments,
and that's why we take these steps
to make sure there's physical screening
and the proper mental health screening.
When he first got into jail,
prison officials put him on suicide watch,
as they do with any person
like Aaron or anybody
who's dealing with the kind of charges
and the kind of pressure he was under,
because inevitably,
that person breaks down.
Hey.
Hey, babe.
Are you healthy? Are you good?
Yeah, I'm actually...
I'm very healthy.
Yeah, I love my cell. It's so cozy.
Know what I always do?
I always walk to my door, turn,
and look the opposite way.
And just look... How...
How perfect my cell looks.
That's all you ever needed
was structure, you know.
- That was all you ever needed--
- I'm perfect with structure,
you know?
Aaron Hernandez went
from a 7,100-square-foot mansion
to a seven-by-ten-foot jail cell
and moved in like it was no problem.
That chilled even veteran
corrections officers at the Bristol Jail.
He adapted
to the situation really quick.
He adapted to the time alone in his cell.
His attitude was, you know,
"I'm here, I get three meals a day.
I don't have nobody... I don't have to
have people rely on me anymore."
He was good with that.
Can you do me a huge favor?
God,
when is this gonna stop?
It's just sending me...
'Cause we don't have a librarian,
so they just, like, pass out
the books that were here.
Well, what books am I gonna
be sending you, Aaron?
Harry Potters.
Harry Potters? Okay.
He was allowed out twice a day.
In the morning, showers and phone,
and one hour outside
in the afternoon for rec.
He reced in a cage, an 8-by-12 cage.
A place where you get fresh air,
if you wanted to do sit-ups, push-ups,
whatever inside there, you could.
He often spoke of the fact that he
wasn't in jail, he was in training camp.
He would compartmentalize that,
and that's all he would
allow his mind to believe.
What the conversation
in NFL circles today
about what happened and whether
anyone could have seen this coming.
There are some people sitting around
the league saying, "I told you so."
When Hernandez was drafted,
there were questions about
whether he would be a good influence
on the team and have good character.
As the coach of the team,
I'm primarily responsible
for the people that we bring
into the football operation.
Our players are generally
highly motivated and gifted athletes
that come from very different backgrounds.
You know, as far as
the whole process goes,
I can tell you that we look
at every player's history
from the moment we start discussing it.
Going back to his family, where he
grew up, what his lifestyle was like.
We evaluate his performance,
his intelligence, his work ethic,
his motivation, his maturity,
his improvement,
and we try to project that
into our organization.
When it first came out,
I was obviously in denial mode.
"He never did this, you know,
it's a conspiracy.
This gang set him up,
this gang set him up, this, this, this."
I threw out a million different situations
that would make sense to me
because I knew who Aaron was.
You know, obviously, when you've
grown up with someone,
you don't want to believe
any of this stuff,
and you want to shut it out,
and you want to put it away.
You have a kid
who had it all
and had the world in his hands.
None of it makes sense,
and nobody can figure out why.
I think there was a perception
with Aaron Hernandez
that he grew up in a tough place,
a blighted area,
street gangs, drugs everywhere.
None of that was true.
Bristol Central High School
is a typical American high school.
Perched up on a hill,
it overlooks the city.
Kids go there and then head off
to some of the best colleges in America.
I'm Aaron Hernandez
from Bristol, Connecticut.
I play at Bristol Central High School.
Aaron was a superstar.
He was great at what he did.
He always walked around
with a smile on his face.
He was kind to everybody.
I tell you, when I met Aaron,
it was like meeting your twin brother.
It was so funny, we were both the same.
He has dimples,
we're both "cheesy smile, all happy."
He used to be able to make everyone laugh,
and most of the time,
he'd pick on himself.
He wasn't someone
who picked on other kids.
He liked to make fun of himself
is what I'm getting at.
He'd do anything
to just get someone to chuckle at him.
Early on, people knew
Aaron Hernandez was
a different level of athlete,
whatever that was gonna be in.
He was playing on basketball teams
two and three years older.
He was very gifted on the track and field.
Football's where
he totally shined, though.
My father played quarterback
at Bristol Central.
His tailback was Dennis Hernandez,
Aaron's father.
They used to throw
that film on for us,
to me, Aaron, and DJ,
and it was cool to watch that.
I used to play soccer 'cause my mom
didn't want me to play football,
but when I got to the point
where I was begging my parents
to get me on the gridiron,
you know, my mom wanted to speak
to Dennis Hernandez first.
And to kind of put my mom at ease,
he decided that he would start Aaron
at the same time.
You know, we played our first snaps
of peewee football together.
Aaron's father Dennis
became known in town
when he was a star athlete in the 1970s.
Dennis Hernandez
went to the state university
playing football at UConn.
The Hernandezes, they were a UConn family.
Their dog was named UConn.
And he really built
something for himself.
You know, a first generation immigrant
from Puerto Rico,
and it kinda was the American dream
of being a good father,
of being a good man,
being a good leader in the community,
and he did that well.
The King.
Is that true?
People called him "The King"
or was he just known as...
He was The King.
Everyone liked him,
everyone respected him.
Aaron really aspired to be like Dennis.
Dennis Hernandez knew
what he had in his two sons,
knew the promise
of their athletic ability,
and knew how important
getting to college would be for them
and was willing to put in a lot of time
and effort into getting to that.
He's very hard on me.
We work all summer.
If I drop a ball, it's 100 push-ups.
Dennis, he was strict on
his sons, but he was able to do a good job
of letting them know
when they were slipping up,
or letting them know when they were
accomplishing something great.
The minute we stepped
on the football field together,
it was the two best players,
quarterback, tight end,
ready to rock and roll.
Every single thing he did,
you could just see he was different.
He always was really into
the mental aspect of everything.
You know, Aaron was Albert Einstein
when it came to X's and O's.
It's too hard to throw
because our hands were freezing,
it's the coldest game I've ever played,
and I told coach,
"Give me the ball, I'll run it back,
hopefully I can make something happen."
This was before the tattoos,
before anything.
He was the biggest, baddest thing
in Connecticut.
He wins state player of the year,
but during one game,
he gets knocked out cold.
He needed the EMTs to carry him off.
Even kids learn at an early age,
in a midget football field...
don't come off the field.
Play hurt.
When Aaron was 14 years old,
he had just started to hit puberty,
and he went to UConn camp,
and he absolutely dominated
every single player at the camp.
So they offered him a scholarship
warranted at the age of 14.
Aaron, being Aaron, was so happy
and so joyful and so excited
to just have a scholarship offered
just from doing what he loves to do,
he went and said,
"Yeah, I'm coming to UConn."
His brother, DJ,
was a quarterback at the school already.
UConn was actually making
the smart move
of trying to attract a recruit early
with family ties
by making sure they're
the first scholarship offer.
The Hernandez family
in the Bristol community
was known as, um, a sports family.
A family that you probably
didn't mess with.
He was our king, he was our leader,
and he was just... That was our dad.
But there were times with alcohol
where he would come home, and...
if it wasn't a good day,
you know, you felt it.
My father was a good man,
you know what I mean?
- But he was also, like, very wild.
- Yeah.
My mom went through
a real lot with my father.
But like, she loves someone,
she just always sticks by 'em.
- My dad put her through hell.
- Yeah.
They argued every day
when we were kids,
but they still stuck together.
Dennis Hernandez
had a violent streak.
In his book, Aaron's brother, DJ,
writes about a night
when Dennis came home drunk,
came home late.
Terri responded
by hitting him with a phone.
He responded by smashing
her head against a sink
until she lost consciousness.
Violent outbursts like that were not
uncommon in the Hernandez home.
Mr. Hernandez was definitely
the man of that household and...
You know, I don't think
there was many people really
coming over there telling him what to do.
I mean, listen, that's what
Aaron was dealing with as a kid,
so you wonder to yourself,
"Well, fuck, no wonder why
he was so fucking sporadic.
His parents were the same way."
I followed Aaron Hernandez
since he was in US Army All-American
in high school,
and at that point, it was from afar.
He was a statistical figure to me
in terms of tracking him,
but watched him in college from afar,
interacted with him in the locker room
when he was with the New England Patriots
as a professional,
and that was all I knew
at that point, but...
the portrait of somebody who has
a dual personality with a double life...
The intrigue is there, in terms of trying
to figure out where this went wrong
and was this something
that could have been fixed
by people who had authority over him,
or was this somebody
who just was a ticking time bomb?
My whole body's shaking right now.
Why is it shaking?
I had to call you to calm down.
I was about
to beat somebody's ass.
Why? What happened?
Nothing.
Dumbass arguments.
You know my temper.
You talk like you're getting
ready to cry. Are you mad?
I can't stop. My knees
are shaking like crazy right now.
Like, my whole body.
I cry when I get extremely mad,
so it's okay if you want to cry.
I do, too!
Well, I can't right here!
Holy shit.
Was it an argument
about a game?
Yeah.
Really, Aaron?
Yeah.
Really?
Holy shit.
You care too much
of what people think about you.
That has nothing to do about that.
It does, because you feel like
you're gonna be a type of, like...
pussy, if you walk away
or you don't do something
about the situation.
You sit there
and you take it to the extreme.
Today, one of the first
chances that we are getting to speak with
some of the New England Patriots
team captains.
Reporters have been asking questions
about Aaron Hernandez,
who is no longer on the team.
You know, I think everyone had
a certain range of emotions,
whatever they might have been, and, um...
But those were really personal,
and I dealt with them, and...
You know, at some point,
you have to move forward, and, um...
I think we as a team are doing that.
You know Aaron pretty well and
you've known him for six, seven years.
What was your reaction
over the last six weeks?
Well, it was heartbreaking,
and it was sad,
and we've been advised,
as I'm sure y'all have heard,
a bunch of times not to comment
on an ongoing legal investigation,
and, um, so, I'm not gonna
comment further,
but it's just heartbreaking and sad,
and all my thoughts and prayers go out
to all the families that were involved.
Are you shocked just knowing him,
I mean, just knowing the guy
and having gone to college with him
and everything else?
Yeah, I understand why
you have to ask all the questions
and that's part of doing your job, and
part of mine is listening to instruction.
We've been told
not to talk about it, so...
Hundreds of people
came out to mourn the man
whose murder led
to the arrest of Aaron Hernandez,
27-year-old Odin Lloyd was remembered
by family, friends, and teammates
as a good man and a hard worker.
Odin was a good person,
a good friend, um, funny.
He had your back through anything,
especially, you know,
as a teammate, a friend.
Anything he did, he did with a passion.
The semi-pro football player
was found shot to death
in an execution-style murder.
A friend said he doesn't want
Lloyd's memory to be overshadowed
by the celebrity of the man
accused of the crime.
I've covered a lot of court cases,
I've covered a lot of high-profile trials,
but I'd never really seen
so much media descend on one trial
as I did in this case.
Take a quick look if you can
at just this scrum of media,
and this is just the media
- gathered at the front door.
- Right.
Charging you with murder
in the first degree, how do you plead?
Not guilty.
There's so much interest
in it because it's just hard to believe...
I know we say it 1,000 times, but it's
hard to believe a guy in this position,
um, could be involved
in something like this.
We love you!
We love you!
- How do you love a murderer?
- Yeah, right?
Once he's arrested,
they cuff him behind the back
and they put the shirt on over him,
and this becomes something known as
"Hernandez-ing" in the days after.
There are teenage girls
at Patriot Place by Gillette Stadium
who start posing like this,
as if this is the Macarena.
This pop culture phenomenon,
and Hernandez goes from being a tight end
to being the murderer,
and he's the suspect at this point,
but it's a chilling dynamic
for a lot of the fans.
The games won't be
the same without him.
Well, I believe he's innocent,
so I'm gonna support him.
I'm not gonna turn my back on him
just 'cause there's accusations on him.
Meantime, Patriots fans
lined up by the hundreds today
to exchange the jerseys they once wore
in allegiance to number 81.
Team officials offered to swap the shirts
after the murder charges were filed
against Hernandez last month.
It sucks 'cause my name
is Luis Hernandez,
which, now I can't even wear
that jersey no more.
When the news broke with Aaron,
I was shocked.
I just knew him to be a fiery guy,
competitive guy, funny, fun to be around,
um, but nothing like
what was portrayed on the news.
When you are starting off covering this,
you want to find out the facts.
You don't know where
this is going to lead you,
so you want to talk
to anyone you possibly can
to find out who knows what
about what might have happened here.
Prosecutors maintain he conspired
with two of his friends from Bristol,
Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz.
Carlos Ortiz has been
indicted by a grand jury
on a charge of accessory
to murder after the fact
in the killing of Aaron Hernandez's
friend, Odin Lloyd.
Video just into
our newsroom from Florida,
one of the suspects wanted in connection
with the case, Ernest Wallace,
turned himself into police this afternoon.
On the night
Odin Lloyd was killed,
Ortiz, Hernandez, and Wallace
were allegedly in a vehicle with Lloyd.
These guys were
small-time crooks.
You know, one of them
had been convicted of stealing bicycles.
This was not a hardcore crew
that he had put together.
These were guys that were trying
to hang on with Aaron Hernandez.
He was the star.
As for Wallace,
he's described as the right-hand man
to Hernandez
and a frequent overnight visitor
at his North Attleboro home.
Police have not said which
man they believe fired the fatal shots
that killed 27-year-old Odin Lloyd.
Do you understand if you were
to be convicted of murder
in the first degree,
the sentence the judge
would be required to impose
is life in prison
without the possibility of parole?
Yes.
Tanya Singleton
is Aaron Hernandez's cousin.
She's in legal trouble now, too.
Prosecutors say
Singleton tried to help
both men get away after Lloyd's death,
driving Ernest Wallace to Georgia
and buying him a bus ticket to Florida.
There was also a conversation
she had with Carlos Ortiz
about assisting him in leaving
the country to go to Puerto Rico.
Tanya Singleton was probably one
of the people closest to Aaron Hernandez.
She was his cousin,
they'd grown up together,
and they had
a very complicated relationship.
And she was a key figure
in the investigation
because she became someone
who knew a lot about
what had happened
in the days following Odin Lloyd's death.
Aaron Hernandez's cousin
took a hard hit today
by breaking the law by refusing to testify
against the former football star.
She's a 38-year-old mother
of two young children
who's dying from breast cancer.
She chose family loyalty
and family love over civic duty.
That's a choice that I believe many of us
would make under similar circumstances.
Tanya Singleton, I believe, was probably
the most loyal person to Aaron Hernandez
throughout this entire case.
You mean the world to me--
I know that,
you don't have to say it.
- But I'm saying that--
- I know that.
God is with me
every step of the way.
Yes, He is.
And He's gonna see me through...
And there ain't no way
the doctors and him...
He's gonna take the cancer away, and...
I'm gonna be here to raise my boys.
You know, and to be here for you.
I know.
You gonna be here for me,
'cause I can't live without you.
I hope you know that.
Ironically, as much as
we went out of our way
to make sure that he was protected,
we never thought we might have to protect
the other inmates from him.
He was out on his rec time,
and apparently an inmate above him
had been, as we found out later on,
periodically yelling down through the vent
or what have you, to him,
and that inmate happened
to be being taken out in restraints
down the steps to go
to an appointment outside the unit,
and when he got to the bottom of
the steps, Aaron Hernandez, who was out,
only one person is allowed out
at a time on rec,
he happened to be out,
came around the front side of the steps
at the point the person reached the bottom
and assaulted him.
It's not uncommon where somebody
would try to raise their stature
with the rest of the inmate population
when they have a notable person in there
to challenge that person.
So, um, I'm not saying
that happened in this case,
I'm just saying that
those things can happen,
and that's why I wanted him
in special management to begin with.
- Daddy!
- Avielle!
You melt my heart
every time I hear you talk!
Are you gonna tell Daddy
what, um, what sounds Santa makes?
Ho, ho, ho.
Tell Daddy, what does Santa say?
Ho, ho, ho.
- Did you hear it?
- Yeah.
He says, "Ho! Ho! Ho!
Merry Christmas!" Right?
Yes.
I ordered our Christmas cards,
like I do every year, and...
Yeah.
...this year,
I put just her on it,
which I think
I'm just gonna start doing that
until we're like a family together again.
We're watching
the Pats game, sorry.
I am, too. As we speak.
I don't wanna bring up
bad memories, but...
Bad memories?
Those are good memories.
I don't know.
Thinking about it makes you sad.
Yeah.
The judge says people will
not be allowed inside the room
if they are wearing or carrying
anything with images of the NFL,
the New England Patriots team,
or any football related insignia on it.
This trial took place before, during,
and after the Patriots Super Bowl run,
so this is peak sales time
for the Patriots.
Everyone in New England,
let alone Fall River,
is wearing a Patriots hat and hoodie
and all kinds of gear,
and this is the one building
in the region of New England
where none of that was allowed.
You have to understand
at the moment,
people were so tied emotionally
to what had happened,
and Aaron Hernandez
was an extremely popular player,
so she had to take those precautions.
Miss Hernandez, what message
do you have for your son?
Do you have any messages for your son?
Yes, Merry Christmas.
Trial is right around the corner,
so try to come
as much as you can before trial.
Yeah.
But I can't go every day, so...
Yeah, I don't need you
to go every day, know what I mean?
- But what's it called--
- I want to go in the beginning,
so they know I support you.
And then
I'll have to watch it on TV.
And when it gets rough towards the end,
then I wanna go.
Yeah.
You know?
As the trial was set
to get underway,
it was hard to believe
that you were now on the eve
of a young professional football player
facing a murder charge.
All persons having
anything to do before the Honorable,
the justice E. Susan Garsh
of the Superior Court.
God save the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts.
Court is now in session,
be seated, please.
Case on trial today is
Commonwealth v. Aaron Hernandez.
The Honorable E. Susan Garsh presiding.
Good morning,
ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning.
Members of the jury,
I am not going to forbid you,
um, from watching the Super Bowl game,
but I am gonna ask you
to be especially vigilant.
You have to avoid, anything
that has anything to do
with this case or Mr. Hernandez.
Aaron Hernandez is an innocent man.
The evidence will show
that Aaron Hernandez did not murder
his friend Odin Lloyd
nor did he ask or orchestrate
anyone else to murder him.
Did the state really have enough evidence
to be able to convict him in this case?
Prosecutors had to convince
these 12 people
that Aaron Hernandez is a killer.
Ladies and gentlemen,
on June 16th of 2013,
just after 9:00 p.m.,
the defendant texted Odin Lloyd.
He told Odin Lloyd that he,
the defendant, Aaron Hernandez,
was gonna come out
to his house that night.
He also texted two of his friends
who were then in Connecticut,
Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz.
With the defendant driving the vehicle,
the three of them picked up Odin Lloyd
outside his house in Boston
after 2:30 in the morning.
Aaron is driving a rental car,
it's late on a Sunday night.
For whatever reason,
Odin sensed trouble with Aaron Hernandez.
Whatever had happened
between he and Aaron,
it was clear the dynamic had changed.
Odin's concerned enough that as they're
driving back towards Aaron's house,
he texts his sister, "Do you know
who I'm with? NFL. Just so you know."
He clearly is concerned
about his well-being at this point.
With the defendant driving,
they drove to a secluded,
isolated area in North Attleboro,
a town where Odin Lloyd knew no one
but the defendant and the defendant's
fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins.
There, Odin Lloyd was shot six times.
One in his right forearm,
one in his right flank,
two in his back,
shot as if he was crouching down.
Two projectiles were recovered
from his body.
Odin Lloyd had two
gunshot wounds to his chest.
They went through... They went through him
as he laid on the ground.
If you had to describe Odin
to someone who had not met him before,
what words would you use?
Brother.
Odin Lloyd, at the time of his death,
in June of 2013,
was 27 years old.
He was born in the US Virgin Islands.
He moved to the city of Boston
with his family
at the age of three-and-a-half years old.
He lived at the time of his death
in the Dorchester section
of the city of Boston
with his mother and his two sisters.
My son is a wonderful child.
He's a family guy.
He has not done anything to hurt anyone.
Please, let me grieve my child in peace.
- Thank you.
- I'm sorry for your loss.
And thank you for speaking with us!
You know, unfortunately,
when a lot of these crimes happen
involving a high profile person,
a lot of times, the victim
gets short shrift in the media.
The initial, you know, stories about
Odin Lloyd were rather, um, superficial.
We didn't really know much about him.
We just knew that he was from Dorchester.
Boston is gritty, man.
We was coming up as kids back
in the '80s and '90s, number one rule was
either you a customer or you a hustler.
Either you on the drugs or you selling
the drugs, or you somewhere around.
If you ain't selling it,
then you helping the drug dealers,
you going to the store for them.
Or you doing things that they can't do,
'cause they can't leave the block.
Odin grew up in that.
I mean, I literally had times where I'd be
dating a girl and come out her house,
and I would have a gun stuck
to my neck 'cause I'm in the hallway
and dudes would be doing a drug deal
or something and they'd say,
"Who the fuck are you?"
And before I could even speak,
someone would crack the door,
"Leave him alone!
He's just a football guy!"
And they'd be like, "That's right!
You played against my cousin
two weeks ago!
You had 100 yards and three touchdowns.
My fault, man. Yo! I saw that game!"
And I'm like, "Thank you, football,
thank you, football."
Football is big to me.
That's why I continue to play semi-pro,
and that's where me and Odin connected.
Coach Mike Branch found the way,
put us all together
and just used football
to, like, connect and say,
"Shit's fucked up, but we got each other."
We pay tribute
to a fallen teammate, brother, and friend,
number 53, Odin Lloyd.
Helmets up, gentlemen.
If you need something, please call on us,
and we'll be offended
if you don't call on us.
We loved him.
He was like a little brother to me,
so it's just tough.
You try to play the game in his memory,
because that's what
he would want us to do.
We both played the same position,
outside linebacker,
so me and him would talk
hours and hours after practice.
First it would be football, and then
it would be something subtle like,
"Man, I don't know
how you do it with these kids, man.
One day I'mma have me some kids, too."
It almost was like
he was modeling his life.
Have kids, get a good job,
try to get a house,
take care of your family.
Odin and I are
only two years apart,
so we've been together
since I could remember.
Um, he's always been
a protector, a provider.
I'm gonna miss
just him being a big brother.
He did everything
that a big brother would do.
The people in Roxbury,
Dorchester, Mattapan,
Odin was our celebrity.
Hernandez was nobody to us,
so the way we look at it is different.
Odin had everything.
To me, Odin was rich, Hernandez was poor,
'cause if Hernandez was as rich as Odin
with love and care,
he would have never have been
in those positions.
I remember
our first date.
We went to the movies,
and he was a perfect gentleman.
I feel like half of me is missing.
I'm not whole without him.
Yeah, it was just...
really difficult.
So, you walk
into the courtroom each day
and to your right was Shaneah Jenkins,
girlfriend of Odin Lloyd,
to the left was Shayanna Jenkins,
fiancée of Aaron Hernandez.
Two sisters brought into that room
by two men that
they had relationships with,
and one was accused of killing the other.
Your sister, Shaneah,
is she older or younger than you are?
- Younger.
- Are you close as sisters?
Have you been in the past, then?
I... I mean we've... Estranged, kind of.
Shayanna Jenkins
and Shaneah Jenkins
grew up in a single-parent household
in Bristol, were very, very close.
Shayanna had moved
to North Attleboro with Aaron,
Shaneah was dating Odin Lloyd,
who was up in Boston.
They were gonna be closer than ever.
Yet, despite this, when it came time
to choose your sister or your fiancé,
Shayanna stuck with Aaron Hernandez.
At some point, were you awakened
later in the night or early morning hours?
Yes.
And, um, how were you awakened?
By a phone call.
And approximately how long
did that call last?
Maybe ten... fifteen minutes.
And did you learn something
at that time?
- Yes.
- And what did you learn?
That Odin was dead.
During the trial,
they often showed a lot of the footage
from Aaron Hernandez's house.
The cameras caught Shaneah Jenkins
and Shayanna, hugging each other.
This was right after Shaneah had found out
that her boyfriend had been killed
and Shayanna's, um, comforting her,
and they're holding each other and it...
was for several, several seconds.
Shayanna Jenkins' loyalty to
Aaron Hernandez is something to behold.
Aaron was accused
of murdering her sister's boyfriend,
and yet, she never wavered with Aaron.
When the defendant and Carlos Ortiz
and Ernest Wallace left from that spot,
when they left Odin Lloyd there,
they left evidence at the scene,
they took evidence with them,
they created evidence
of their cooperative effort,
and they tried to and in some cases
were successful in destroying evidence.
When police asked
to see footage
from Hernandez's high-tech
mansion security system,
they learned the security system
had been destroyed.
He erases some security tape,
but not all of it.
He leaves some for them
to eventually get on a search warrant.
These new court papers
indicate that police got suspicious
after learning some information from,
of all people,
the sister of Hernandez's fiancée.
Hello?
Yeah.
What'd you do today?
Nothing, Aaron. I was involved
in a search warrant again today.
That's what I did today.
I know, I heard about that.
But why are you giving attitude?
Because I'm frustrated
with you and everybody else.
Why me?
'Cause I wouldn't be
in this situation if it wasn't for you!
- All right.
- That's why!
All right.
Well, I'll call back tomorrow
unless my daughter's
gonna get on the phone.
Don't... Wait, how are you
gonna catch an attitude with me,
and not wanna talk,
because I'm sitting here,
and I'm keeping it real.
All right, well,
you still have your freedom.
What are you stressing about?
Aaron, whatever.
I always end up cleaning up
after your shit. Whatever.
The person
you called has hung up.
In the exact time
it would take to drive
from the industrial park
to Aaron's driveway,
it shows he, Ortiz, and Wallace pulling up
to their house just after the murder.
If Aaron Hernandez had just erased
the security tape in his own house,
he might have had a chance.
That videotape shows him walking around
his house holding what looks like a gun.
I'm just gonna
have you look at this item
and ask you if you recognize that item.
No.
I mean, you...
I can't see the full item.
It's not depicted here, so...
Does that assist you
at all, ma'am?
I mean, only a black blob
it looks like right now.
The prosecution feels like
it has a very strong case,
but there is one issue remaining,
they do not have the murder weapon.
You know, they want to know
where the murder weapon is now.
This is the focal point
of the whole investigation.
They're searching everything.
They've got police investigators
in scuba gear.
Did the fiancée of fallen
football star Aaron Hernandez
help him hide a murder weapon?
It's a possibility police
are apparently considering
as they desperately try to find
a.45 caliber gun
used to kill Odin Lloyd on Father's Day.
You know, I sat a row behind,
Shayanna for the first trial.
Appeared fine and classy,
and she's reading her fashion magazines
while she's in the gallery there.
So, she played it
as perfectly as she could.
A cryptic message that was sent
from Hernandez to his fiancée
that reads in part,
"Go in the back of the screen
in the movie room.
There is a box just in case
you were looking for it."
Now, about an hour
after that text message,
documents state the fiancée is seen
on home surveillance video
leaving the house with a trash bag,
and allegedly inside of that bag was
a rigid object the size of a gun lockbox.
The video evidence
would suggest
that she helped to spirit the weapon
out of the house,
and then she's asked,
"Where'd you put it?"
And during that time,
did you do anything with the box
that was in the bag
that was in the trunk of the car?
I did.
- And what did you do with it?
- I disposed of it.
And when you say you disposed
of it, where did you dispose of it?
Um, in a dumpster.
And where was the dumpster?
I don't know.
So, then, it's a question of,
is she being purposely obtuse,
or is she somebody
who genuinely forgets things like that?
Okay, so there's...
Just in fairness, there's certain things
you remember and other things you don't.
Yes.
So, it just never
all made sense.
The jury found it laughable.
No matter what she said,
they weren't gonna believe much of it
because she doesn't seem credible.
There was nothing that suggested
she was ever gonna give up Aaron.
Tell us how
your relationship started.
Um, in high school,
we had a couple classes together,
so our relationship kind of evolved.
And how did it evolve?
We would talk a lot more,
pass notes back and forth, um,
talk on the phone.
When you look
at junior year,
it was a buildup
to what I would call "best friends."
The first day of school,
my dad was a correctional officer,
so he was already at work.
Aaron came over and we did...
We smoked two blunts,
we got my dog high,
and we walked right up to the school,
first day of school, like king shit.
Quarterback, tight end, stone happy.
We used to horseplay, that was our thing.
We used to love horseplaying
and having fun with each other,
because we were just kids full of life.
Aaron and I had an on-and-off relationship
from the 7th grade
to the Junior year of high school.
Aaron participated with many people.
I was a small piece
of Aaron's sexual activity.
At that time frame,
the girls didn't really hang out
with the boys after school, um,
so me and Aaron experimented
and it was something that,
I'll be honest with, we continued
because we probably enjoyed it.
Um, hello.
If I look at it now in the year we're in,
yes, we were in a relationship back then,
but at the time...
you don't look at it like that.
In school, there wasn't a lot of kids
that were out of the closet,
and the few that were, I used to feel
like, "Golly, like, what a homo."
Here I am, the football player,
I was in such denial.
Such denial because I was an athlete.
"You mean to tell me that
the quarterback and the tight end was gay?
He sleeps with other men?"
No. It doesn't sit right with people,
it doesn't sit right
within our own stomach at that time.
It was weird, it was like, after doing it,
it was like, "Fuck this.
Does... Did someone catch us?
Did... Did someone know?
Dude, if we get caught, like, it's ruined.
Like, our parents are gonna disown us."
I was a young father,
fresh out of the Marine Corps,
a corrections officer, coaching football
with two all-American boys.
If I told you that I didn't want
both of my sons to be heterosexual,
I'd be lying to you.
I... I would say that I feel terrible
for the way you must have felt
at that age.
If there's any blame or shame
to be put here, it's on me.
I was homophobic just as much
as Mr. Hernandez was.
Aaron was extremely
terrified of his father finding out.
I mean, Mr. Hernandez
was well known as a man's man,
a father that slapped the faggot
right out of you.
As DJ Hernandez
writes in his book,
there was a time Aaron,
inspired by his female cousins,
wanted to become a cheerleader.
Dennis Hernandez
put an end to that very quickly.
I remember
when Aaron's dad was ever around,
Aaron would kinda whisper, like,
"I better be good right now."
He knew he had to be on a different set
of behavior around his father,
and I was very similar,
so it was something that
we just had the ability
to turn it on and turn it off.
We had to hide what we were.
I started playing football in high school
mainly because of influence from my dad.
I learned pretty quickly
that people, especially in my town,
would never look at a masculine
football player and think he's gay.
So, by the time I hit puberty,
I knew I was gay,
um, and then that quickly made me realize
I had to suppress that
as much as possible.
So, my beard was football.
Just in general, football is
a very masculine sport
and I relied on all the stereotypes
of a football player.
Just a lot of testosterone and the
aggressiveness and hitting each other,
all these things that you would assume
middle America wouldn't think
of a gay man.
You hear things from everybody,
family, your buddies,
people throw around the word "faggot"
like it's nothing.
Whether they're being hateful about it or
calling something "gay" like people do,
when you're in the closet,
you associate all that negatively.
I even, trying to fit in,
would say those things.
So, I don't think anyone
ever thought twice that
I could have been gay.
You got some flamboyant faggots
walking around.
Well, they want you?
Yeah, well,
they don't fucking look at me.
That's crazy if they're out there.
That they just go around,
because... And prance it.
You know what I mean?
Just let it out.
Yeah, it's just ridiculous.
And people talk to them, like,
what the fuck are you talking to them for?
Well, that's who they are.
What are you gonna do?
You're gay, or you do this,
you do that. What are you gonna do?
Well, it's just, like,
overly done, like ridiculous.
Yeah, I know.
They really think they're women.
One hundred percent.
People in the gay community
use the slang term "beard."
Um, a beard is for a man...
For a gay man, a beard would be
the female you date
as a cover for your sexuality.
I think all closeted guys
go through that stage
where you have to make a decision
on what you do,
what you're willing...
What you're willing to risk, um,
how important it is to you to...
be true to yourself, in a way.
I think Aaron, for instance, had the girl
that he had the baby with.
A lot of gay guys go that route,
but they just haven't been honest
with their partner,
and it's unfortunate and it's sad that...
The extremes that some people feel they
have to go through just to try to hide.
At some point in high school,
did his dad die?
He did.
Okay. Tell us what happened.
Objection, Your Honor.
Sustained.
You recall that he died while
he was having surgery in the hospital?
Objection, Your Honor.
Overruled.
Yes.
And Aaron was 16 at the time?
He was.
My mother had called me
and told me what happened.
It shocked us all.
This wasn't cancer
or this wasn't something slow coming,
I mean, this was routine hernia surgery
that he came out dead.
At that point,
all I could think about was,
"Get in touch with Aaron.
Get in touch with Aaron."
I wanted him to be around someone
that he knew cared about him,
cared about his father.
I was able to pick him up
and we kinda just drove aimlessly
through all of Bristol and the surrounding
cities for probably about three hours.
There really wasn't even
a lot of conversation,
it was just being there for him,
just feeling his energy
on how much he was hurting.
When the news came
that Dennis Hernandez had passed away,
it was an absolute, utter shock
to the entire community.
I never have been to a wake
with the amount of people that were there.
It was a day in January, and it was
freezing cold and windy, windy.
And the line was wrapped around
the O'Brien Funeral Home,
and I waited in line for two-and-a-half
hours to pay my respects.
When I saw him
at the wake,
it was like looking
into a new person's eyes.
Something had changed.
I just couldn't believe it.
It was a guy who had no emotion
at his own father's wake.
And I instantly said to myself
after I left that funeral home,
"This is not good. This is not good.
Aaron is not gonna take this well at all,
because him and his father
were so, so close."
I had to say, I think it was
the turning point of everything
in Aaron's life.
When Dennis was there, Aaron mirrored him,
and that's where you get
a lot of those similarities.
What's gonna happen next now, you know?
It's when you have someone who's that
rock, who you can go to for everything,
who's that role model for you,
someone that can set
your foundation of values
to make sure that you're gonna be
a good man, a good father,
and a good member of the community
and now that's all gone.
Nothing dishonorable
about your father passing away, right?
Nothing shameful about that.
Nothing to be embarrassed about.
Sad, mourn, yes, all of that.
Would have been nice if he had a mother
that could have mourned with him.
Instead, she chose to...
engage in a relationship
with Tanya's husband.
I mean, to deal with
the death of your father is one thing,
but to deal with the fact that your mother
then goes out within a matter of months
and has a relationship
with a family member's husband,
and he goes then to live in Aaron's house!
Let me tell you something...
a young man...
...Aaron's age?
You don't want to wake up
on Sunday morning
and see some other dude
making bacon in his underwear
in your house.
Sleeping in your father's bed.
So this must have thrown him
into such a tizzy, I can't even imagine.
You made decisions,
that... There's...
You don't, like... They're the worst.
I don't put you down,
and you fucked my whole life up.
You don't put me down,
but I fucked your whole life up?
I ain't living with that.
You did!
It is, but I forgave you
- and it's over with!
- No, no...
Yes, you did!
I was the happiest
fucking little kid in the world,
and you fucked me up.
And I just lost my father.
And I had to go to college.
And I had nobody.
What the fuck
did you think I was gonna do?
Become a perfect angel?
My God...
If I was with you right now,
I would've probably punched
the shit out of you, like...
I don't even know why...
You bring me to this level.
After Tanya left Jeff Cummings,
what effect, if any, did that have
on Aaron's relationship with Tanya?
It brought them closer.
In what respect?
Very close, like,
she was like a Mom figure to him,
and she was... He was like a son to her.
Because of this, Aaron
doesn't want to even be in his house,
so he now goes to spend most of his time
over there at the cousin's house.
Aaron was able to be
someone that he wasn't able to be
at his house over there.
He had a very structured upbringing
when Dennis Hernandez
was running his boyhood home.
Over at Tanya's house, there was
more partying, there was more smoking,
there were more unsavory characters
that you wouldn't necessarily want
a 16-year-old to hang around with.
At 114 Lake Avenue, Aaron
meets Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace.
These guys were familiar
with prison and prison life
and what leads you to prison,
and that's what Aaron Hernandez
was exposed to,
and really sought in the years
after his father died.
Did you know Ernest Wallace
and Carlos Ortiz to use any drugs?
- Yes.
- Okay.
And did you ever see them use any drugs?
Yes.
What kind of drugs
did you see, then?
Um, marijuana.
They would smoke what you call,
like, a blunt filled with PCP.
Sources say that
Massachusetts investigators believe
that Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace
went directly to the Lake Avenue
home in Bristol
after the alleged murder of Odin Lloyd
in North Attleboro.
Because of that, police started
to focus on that house.
We learned the police
were searching the house
of Aaron's cousin, Tanya Singleton.
And while they were conducting the search,
of course, everyone's parked outside
to see what's going on.
The police are seen
loading up a silver SUV
from inside the garage
onto a flatbed truck and taking it away.
We learned through police sources
that the SUV
was actually a car that the Boston Police,
different police department,
had been looking for
in connection with an unsolved
double murder case from Boston.
Safiro Furtado
and Daniel de Abreu
were hardworking immigrants
from Cape Verde.
They worked two jobs cleaning at night.
Had been found shot and killed
outside of a nightclub
in the Theater District of Boston.
The car was shot up
after they left the nightclub
and that witnesses remember seeing
a silver SUV speeding away from the scene,
and they hadn't been able
to find the silver SUV.
The detectives called me to tell me
that the car had actually been found
in Aaron Hernandez's cousin's garage,
hidden, covered with cobwebs,
hadn't been used in a year.
This is unbelievable.
Actually have the murder car in his house,
it was, um, pretty compelling.
The Suffolk County
Grand Jury returned indictments
charging Aaron Hernandez
with two counts of first-degree murder
for the shooting deaths
of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
When the victim's car
stopped at a red light,
the SUV pulled up beside
the victim's car on the right.
Aaron Hernandez then fired
a.38 caliber revolver multiple times
from the driver side of his vehicle
into the passenger side
of the victim's vehicle.
This double murder that Hernandez is now
indicted for happened in July of 2012.
About a month later, he signed a five-year
$40 million contract with the Patriots.
That would've meant,
if the evidence is proven in court,
that he would have shot
and killed two men in Boston
and then went on to play
a whole season of football.
How does someone do that?
get home from the gym on that afternoon?
I was gonna run...
but I went straight, and it's a path that
turns from pavement to gravel and dirt.
I want to show you
a series of photographs and ask you
- if you recognize them.
- Okay.
- Do you recognize that?
- Yes.
And what do you recognize
that to be?
The man I discovered.
The discovery of a body
in North Attleboro
has taken a dramatic twist.
Sports Illustrated reporting yesterday
that Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez
has been questioned in connection
with what is now a homicide investigation.
The police presence comes
after the body of a 27-year-old Boston man
was found in an industrial park
less than a mile away
from the NFL star's home.
The Patriots organization
released a statement
saying they are aware
of what is happening,
but as long as there is
a police investigation going on,
they won't further comment.
When you look
at the New England Patriots,
you look at Bill Belichick,
obviously, and Tom Brady.
You marvel at the excellence
of the New England Patriots
and what they are.
Drafted in 2010,
Aaron Hernandez made a splash in the NFL.
Hernandez had recently signed
a new mouthwatering contract
worth $40 million.
Police quick to say that
Hernandez is not a suspect,
but that a car rented in his name
could be a key source of evidence.
It's kind of hard also because,
it's just they said that
there was a vehicle involved,
but nothing has been proven.
Good afternoon, everybody,
this victim has now been identified here
as Odin Lloyd.
Family members say Lloyd
played some semi-professional football.
They say he was an honest,
hardworking young man.
They say they have no idea
why anyone would do him harm.
They are in complete shock.
Lloyd's family members
told reporters
the 27-year-old was dating the sister
of Hernandez's girlfriend.
Meanwhile,
the ongoing investigation
has created a frenzy
outside of Hernandez's home.
Apparently,
the house was scrubbed clean,
according to the reports
that we're hearing this morning.
Broken cell phones,
also a security system
that was messed with at the house.
North Attleboro
and Massachusetts State Police
continue combing
through fields for evidence.
These are live pictures from
the news choppers outside of Boston
from what is looking weirdly reminiscent.
They are following that white SUV
with the dark sunroof right there.
In the car is a New England Patriots
football player
who may soon become a murder suspect.
Along the way, news crews
caught up with Hernandez in Boston
as he stopped for gas.
They asked several questions,
but not a peep from Hernandez.
What happened on Monday night?
He then headed
to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough.
An arrest warrant
has been issued
for New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez.
Police showed up at
the house of Aaron Hernandez this morning
and took the Bristol, Connecticut native
away in handcuffs.
When this day began,
Aaron Hernandez
was a New England Patriots tight end.
Tonight, he is the defendant
in a murder case.
Hello, this is
a prepaid collect call from...
Aaron.
To accept charges, press one.
To refuse charges, press...
Thank you for using Securus.
You may start the conversation now.
Hola!
- Hi!
- Hi!
Hello?
Daddy's on speaker phone.
I love you!
Say, "I love you!"
I love you, bye!
Don't say bye!
I talked to my lawyers.
As long as you have a case,
if you have a baby with someone,
you're allowed a one-time visit
every now and then.
So, if you wanna see me...
Nah, maybe.
Kidding.
- You better be.
- Hey, hey, hey!
Mommy's being bad girl.
Mommy's not doing
anything wrong... What the heck?
- Dada.
- She said "dada."
What is this?
Dada's on vacation.
He's 23 years old
at the time
that he's led out of his house
in handcuffs.
I'm standing there on the street
as he comes out
and you just try to understand
the fall at that point.
When I got the call
from my editors
that Aaron Hernandez
could be involved in a crime,
the first question that popped into
my head was, "Who's Aaron Hernandez?"
You basically start scouring online
and you find out that,
"Wow, this is why
people adore Aaron Hernandez."
He was seen as this
very hardworking, talented...
extremely talented football player
who had nearly won the Super Bowl
for the Patriots just the year before,
so this guy was huge.
The court hereby orders that
the defendant, Aaron Hernandez,
be held without bail, pending
further proceedings on this matter.
Innocent! Innocent!
Innocent! Innocent! Innocent!
Aaron was not your typical inmate at
the Bristol County House of Corrections.
Here it comes.
Here it comes.
Here it comes.
That's the vehicle
that contains Aaron Hernandez.
Right now, he is passing by.
He was gonna
get some attention, dramatic attention,
from the sheriff and all of the guards.
They knew there was gonna be
a spotlight on this.
When he first came in,
I let him know upfront
he's not gonna be treated any better
or any worse than anybody here.
- That's a huge badge.
- It is.
- You guys mind putting those closer?
- You know what, I don't make them.
I really don't make them.
Sir, can you come a little closer?
- Sure, sure.
- Please. Please.
It might be a bit of an adjustment
for him on the meals, I'm sure.
He's a pretty big guy, but the reality is
that when you come to jail,
it does require some adjustments,
and that's why we take these steps
to make sure there's physical screening
and the proper mental health screening.
When he first got into jail,
prison officials put him on suicide watch,
as they do with any person
like Aaron or anybody
who's dealing with the kind of charges
and the kind of pressure he was under,
because inevitably,
that person breaks down.
Hey.
Hey, babe.
Are you healthy? Are you good?
Yeah, I'm actually...
I'm very healthy.
Yeah, I love my cell. It's so cozy.
Know what I always do?
I always walk to my door, turn,
and look the opposite way.
And just look... How...
How perfect my cell looks.
That's all you ever needed
was structure, you know.
- That was all you ever needed--
- I'm perfect with structure,
you know?
Aaron Hernandez went
from a 7,100-square-foot mansion
to a seven-by-ten-foot jail cell
and moved in like it was no problem.
That chilled even veteran
corrections officers at the Bristol Jail.
He adapted
to the situation really quick.
He adapted to the time alone in his cell.
His attitude was, you know,
"I'm here, I get three meals a day.
I don't have nobody... I don't have to
have people rely on me anymore."
He was good with that.
Can you do me a huge favor?
God,
when is this gonna stop?
It's just sending me...
'Cause we don't have a librarian,
so they just, like, pass out
the books that were here.
Well, what books am I gonna
be sending you, Aaron?
Harry Potters.
Harry Potters? Okay.
He was allowed out twice a day.
In the morning, showers and phone,
and one hour outside
in the afternoon for rec.
He reced in a cage, an 8-by-12 cage.
A place where you get fresh air,
if you wanted to do sit-ups, push-ups,
whatever inside there, you could.
He often spoke of the fact that he
wasn't in jail, he was in training camp.
He would compartmentalize that,
and that's all he would
allow his mind to believe.
What the conversation
in NFL circles today
about what happened and whether
anyone could have seen this coming.
There are some people sitting around
the league saying, "I told you so."
When Hernandez was drafted,
there were questions about
whether he would be a good influence
on the team and have good character.
As the coach of the team,
I'm primarily responsible
for the people that we bring
into the football operation.
Our players are generally
highly motivated and gifted athletes
that come from very different backgrounds.
You know, as far as
the whole process goes,
I can tell you that we look
at every player's history
from the moment we start discussing it.
Going back to his family, where he
grew up, what his lifestyle was like.
We evaluate his performance,
his intelligence, his work ethic,
his motivation, his maturity,
his improvement,
and we try to project that
into our organization.
When it first came out,
I was obviously in denial mode.
"He never did this, you know,
it's a conspiracy.
This gang set him up,
this gang set him up, this, this, this."
I threw out a million different situations
that would make sense to me
because I knew who Aaron was.
You know, obviously, when you've
grown up with someone,
you don't want to believe
any of this stuff,
and you want to shut it out,
and you want to put it away.
You have a kid
who had it all
and had the world in his hands.
None of it makes sense,
and nobody can figure out why.
I think there was a perception
with Aaron Hernandez
that he grew up in a tough place,
a blighted area,
street gangs, drugs everywhere.
None of that was true.
Bristol Central High School
is a typical American high school.
Perched up on a hill,
it overlooks the city.
Kids go there and then head off
to some of the best colleges in America.
I'm Aaron Hernandez
from Bristol, Connecticut.
I play at Bristol Central High School.
Aaron was a superstar.
He was great at what he did.
He always walked around
with a smile on his face.
He was kind to everybody.
I tell you, when I met Aaron,
it was like meeting your twin brother.
It was so funny, we were both the same.
He has dimples,
we're both "cheesy smile, all happy."
He used to be able to make everyone laugh,
and most of the time,
he'd pick on himself.
He wasn't someone
who picked on other kids.
He liked to make fun of himself
is what I'm getting at.
He'd do anything
to just get someone to chuckle at him.
Early on, people knew
Aaron Hernandez was
a different level of athlete,
whatever that was gonna be in.
He was playing on basketball teams
two and three years older.
He was very gifted on the track and field.
Football's where
he totally shined, though.
My father played quarterback
at Bristol Central.
His tailback was Dennis Hernandez,
Aaron's father.
They used to throw
that film on for us,
to me, Aaron, and DJ,
and it was cool to watch that.
I used to play soccer 'cause my mom
didn't want me to play football,
but when I got to the point
where I was begging my parents
to get me on the gridiron,
you know, my mom wanted to speak
to Dennis Hernandez first.
And to kind of put my mom at ease,
he decided that he would start Aaron
at the same time.
You know, we played our first snaps
of peewee football together.
Aaron's father Dennis
became known in town
when he was a star athlete in the 1970s.
Dennis Hernandez
went to the state university
playing football at UConn.
The Hernandezes, they were a UConn family.
Their dog was named UConn.
And he really built
something for himself.
You know, a first generation immigrant
from Puerto Rico,
and it kinda was the American dream
of being a good father,
of being a good man,
being a good leader in the community,
and he did that well.
The King.
Is that true?
People called him "The King"
or was he just known as...
He was The King.
Everyone liked him,
everyone respected him.
Aaron really aspired to be like Dennis.
Dennis Hernandez knew
what he had in his two sons,
knew the promise
of their athletic ability,
and knew how important
getting to college would be for them
and was willing to put in a lot of time
and effort into getting to that.
He's very hard on me.
We work all summer.
If I drop a ball, it's 100 push-ups.
Dennis, he was strict on
his sons, but he was able to do a good job
of letting them know
when they were slipping up,
or letting them know when they were
accomplishing something great.
The minute we stepped
on the football field together,
it was the two best players,
quarterback, tight end,
ready to rock and roll.
Every single thing he did,
you could just see he was different.
He always was really into
the mental aspect of everything.
You know, Aaron was Albert Einstein
when it came to X's and O's.
It's too hard to throw
because our hands were freezing,
it's the coldest game I've ever played,
and I told coach,
"Give me the ball, I'll run it back,
hopefully I can make something happen."
This was before the tattoos,
before anything.
He was the biggest, baddest thing
in Connecticut.
He wins state player of the year,
but during one game,
he gets knocked out cold.
He needed the EMTs to carry him off.
Even kids learn at an early age,
in a midget football field...
don't come off the field.
Play hurt.
When Aaron was 14 years old,
he had just started to hit puberty,
and he went to UConn camp,
and he absolutely dominated
every single player at the camp.
So they offered him a scholarship
warranted at the age of 14.
Aaron, being Aaron, was so happy
and so joyful and so excited
to just have a scholarship offered
just from doing what he loves to do,
he went and said,
"Yeah, I'm coming to UConn."
His brother, DJ,
was a quarterback at the school already.
UConn was actually making
the smart move
of trying to attract a recruit early
with family ties
by making sure they're
the first scholarship offer.
The Hernandez family
in the Bristol community
was known as, um, a sports family.
A family that you probably
didn't mess with.
He was our king, he was our leader,
and he was just... That was our dad.
But there were times with alcohol
where he would come home, and...
if it wasn't a good day,
you know, you felt it.
My father was a good man,
you know what I mean?
- But he was also, like, very wild.
- Yeah.
My mom went through
a real lot with my father.
But like, she loves someone,
she just always sticks by 'em.
- My dad put her through hell.
- Yeah.
They argued every day
when we were kids,
but they still stuck together.
Dennis Hernandez
had a violent streak.
In his book, Aaron's brother, DJ,
writes about a night
when Dennis came home drunk,
came home late.
Terri responded
by hitting him with a phone.
He responded by smashing
her head against a sink
until she lost consciousness.
Violent outbursts like that were not
uncommon in the Hernandez home.
Mr. Hernandez was definitely
the man of that household and...
You know, I don't think
there was many people really
coming over there telling him what to do.
I mean, listen, that's what
Aaron was dealing with as a kid,
so you wonder to yourself,
"Well, fuck, no wonder why
he was so fucking sporadic.
His parents were the same way."
I followed Aaron Hernandez
since he was in US Army All-American
in high school,
and at that point, it was from afar.
He was a statistical figure to me
in terms of tracking him,
but watched him in college from afar,
interacted with him in the locker room
when he was with the New England Patriots
as a professional,
and that was all I knew
at that point, but...
the portrait of somebody who has
a dual personality with a double life...
The intrigue is there, in terms of trying
to figure out where this went wrong
and was this something
that could have been fixed
by people who had authority over him,
or was this somebody
who just was a ticking time bomb?
My whole body's shaking right now.
Why is it shaking?
I had to call you to calm down.
I was about
to beat somebody's ass.
Why? What happened?
Nothing.
Dumbass arguments.
You know my temper.
You talk like you're getting
ready to cry. Are you mad?
I can't stop. My knees
are shaking like crazy right now.
Like, my whole body.
I cry when I get extremely mad,
so it's okay if you want to cry.
I do, too!
Well, I can't right here!
Holy shit.
Was it an argument
about a game?
Yeah.
Really, Aaron?
Yeah.
Really?
Holy shit.
You care too much
of what people think about you.
That has nothing to do about that.
It does, because you feel like
you're gonna be a type of, like...
pussy, if you walk away
or you don't do something
about the situation.
You sit there
and you take it to the extreme.
Today, one of the first
chances that we are getting to speak with
some of the New England Patriots
team captains.
Reporters have been asking questions
about Aaron Hernandez,
who is no longer on the team.
You know, I think everyone had
a certain range of emotions,
whatever they might have been, and, um...
But those were really personal,
and I dealt with them, and...
You know, at some point,
you have to move forward, and, um...
I think we as a team are doing that.
You know Aaron pretty well and
you've known him for six, seven years.
What was your reaction
over the last six weeks?
Well, it was heartbreaking,
and it was sad,
and we've been advised,
as I'm sure y'all have heard,
a bunch of times not to comment
on an ongoing legal investigation,
and, um, so, I'm not gonna
comment further,
but it's just heartbreaking and sad,
and all my thoughts and prayers go out
to all the families that were involved.
Are you shocked just knowing him,
I mean, just knowing the guy
and having gone to college with him
and everything else?
Yeah, I understand why
you have to ask all the questions
and that's part of doing your job, and
part of mine is listening to instruction.
We've been told
not to talk about it, so...
Hundreds of people
came out to mourn the man
whose murder led
to the arrest of Aaron Hernandez,
27-year-old Odin Lloyd was remembered
by family, friends, and teammates
as a good man and a hard worker.
Odin was a good person,
a good friend, um, funny.
He had your back through anything,
especially, you know,
as a teammate, a friend.
Anything he did, he did with a passion.
The semi-pro football player
was found shot to death
in an execution-style murder.
A friend said he doesn't want
Lloyd's memory to be overshadowed
by the celebrity of the man
accused of the crime.
I've covered a lot of court cases,
I've covered a lot of high-profile trials,
but I'd never really seen
so much media descend on one trial
as I did in this case.
Take a quick look if you can
at just this scrum of media,
and this is just the media
- gathered at the front door.
- Right.
Charging you with murder
in the first degree, how do you plead?
Not guilty.
There's so much interest
in it because it's just hard to believe...
I know we say it 1,000 times, but it's
hard to believe a guy in this position,
um, could be involved
in something like this.
We love you!
We love you!
- How do you love a murderer?
- Yeah, right?
Once he's arrested,
they cuff him behind the back
and they put the shirt on over him,
and this becomes something known as
"Hernandez-ing" in the days after.
There are teenage girls
at Patriot Place by Gillette Stadium
who start posing like this,
as if this is the Macarena.
This pop culture phenomenon,
and Hernandez goes from being a tight end
to being the murderer,
and he's the suspect at this point,
but it's a chilling dynamic
for a lot of the fans.
The games won't be
the same without him.
Well, I believe he's innocent,
so I'm gonna support him.
I'm not gonna turn my back on him
just 'cause there's accusations on him.
Meantime, Patriots fans
lined up by the hundreds today
to exchange the jerseys they once wore
in allegiance to number 81.
Team officials offered to swap the shirts
after the murder charges were filed
against Hernandez last month.
It sucks 'cause my name
is Luis Hernandez,
which, now I can't even wear
that jersey no more.
When the news broke with Aaron,
I was shocked.
I just knew him to be a fiery guy,
competitive guy, funny, fun to be around,
um, but nothing like
what was portrayed on the news.
When you are starting off covering this,
you want to find out the facts.
You don't know where
this is going to lead you,
so you want to talk
to anyone you possibly can
to find out who knows what
about what might have happened here.
Prosecutors maintain he conspired
with two of his friends from Bristol,
Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz.
Carlos Ortiz has been
indicted by a grand jury
on a charge of accessory
to murder after the fact
in the killing of Aaron Hernandez's
friend, Odin Lloyd.
Video just into
our newsroom from Florida,
one of the suspects wanted in connection
with the case, Ernest Wallace,
turned himself into police this afternoon.
On the night
Odin Lloyd was killed,
Ortiz, Hernandez, and Wallace
were allegedly in a vehicle with Lloyd.
These guys were
small-time crooks.
You know, one of them
had been convicted of stealing bicycles.
This was not a hardcore crew
that he had put together.
These were guys that were trying
to hang on with Aaron Hernandez.
He was the star.
As for Wallace,
he's described as the right-hand man
to Hernandez
and a frequent overnight visitor
at his North Attleboro home.
Police have not said which
man they believe fired the fatal shots
that killed 27-year-old Odin Lloyd.
Do you understand if you were
to be convicted of murder
in the first degree,
the sentence the judge
would be required to impose
is life in prison
without the possibility of parole?
Yes.
Tanya Singleton
is Aaron Hernandez's cousin.
She's in legal trouble now, too.
Prosecutors say
Singleton tried to help
both men get away after Lloyd's death,
driving Ernest Wallace to Georgia
and buying him a bus ticket to Florida.
There was also a conversation
she had with Carlos Ortiz
about assisting him in leaving
the country to go to Puerto Rico.
Tanya Singleton was probably one
of the people closest to Aaron Hernandez.
She was his cousin,
they'd grown up together,
and they had
a very complicated relationship.
And she was a key figure
in the investigation
because she became someone
who knew a lot about
what had happened
in the days following Odin Lloyd's death.
Aaron Hernandez's cousin
took a hard hit today
by breaking the law by refusing to testify
against the former football star.
She's a 38-year-old mother
of two young children
who's dying from breast cancer.
She chose family loyalty
and family love over civic duty.
That's a choice that I believe many of us
would make under similar circumstances.
Tanya Singleton, I believe, was probably
the most loyal person to Aaron Hernandez
throughout this entire case.
You mean the world to me--
I know that,
you don't have to say it.
- But I'm saying that--
- I know that.
God is with me
every step of the way.
Yes, He is.
And He's gonna see me through...
And there ain't no way
the doctors and him...
He's gonna take the cancer away, and...
I'm gonna be here to raise my boys.
You know, and to be here for you.
I know.
You gonna be here for me,
'cause I can't live without you.
I hope you know that.
Ironically, as much as
we went out of our way
to make sure that he was protected,
we never thought we might have to protect
the other inmates from him.
He was out on his rec time,
and apparently an inmate above him
had been, as we found out later on,
periodically yelling down through the vent
or what have you, to him,
and that inmate happened
to be being taken out in restraints
down the steps to go
to an appointment outside the unit,
and when he got to the bottom of
the steps, Aaron Hernandez, who was out,
only one person is allowed out
at a time on rec,
he happened to be out,
came around the front side of the steps
at the point the person reached the bottom
and assaulted him.
It's not uncommon where somebody
would try to raise their stature
with the rest of the inmate population
when they have a notable person in there
to challenge that person.
So, um, I'm not saying
that happened in this case,
I'm just saying that
those things can happen,
and that's why I wanted him
in special management to begin with.
- Daddy!
- Avielle!
You melt my heart
every time I hear you talk!
Are you gonna tell Daddy
what, um, what sounds Santa makes?
Ho, ho, ho.
Tell Daddy, what does Santa say?
Ho, ho, ho.
- Did you hear it?
- Yeah.
He says, "Ho! Ho! Ho!
Merry Christmas!" Right?
Yes.
I ordered our Christmas cards,
like I do every year, and...
Yeah.
...this year,
I put just her on it,
which I think
I'm just gonna start doing that
until we're like a family together again.
We're watching
the Pats game, sorry.
I am, too. As we speak.
I don't wanna bring up
bad memories, but...
Bad memories?
Those are good memories.
I don't know.
Thinking about it makes you sad.
Yeah.
The judge says people will
not be allowed inside the room
if they are wearing or carrying
anything with images of the NFL,
the New England Patriots team,
or any football related insignia on it.
This trial took place before, during,
and after the Patriots Super Bowl run,
so this is peak sales time
for the Patriots.
Everyone in New England,
let alone Fall River,
is wearing a Patriots hat and hoodie
and all kinds of gear,
and this is the one building
in the region of New England
where none of that was allowed.
You have to understand
at the moment,
people were so tied emotionally
to what had happened,
and Aaron Hernandez
was an extremely popular player,
so she had to take those precautions.
Miss Hernandez, what message
do you have for your son?
Do you have any messages for your son?
Yes, Merry Christmas.
Trial is right around the corner,
so try to come
as much as you can before trial.
Yeah.
But I can't go every day, so...
Yeah, I don't need you
to go every day, know what I mean?
- But what's it called--
- I want to go in the beginning,
so they know I support you.
And then
I'll have to watch it on TV.
And when it gets rough towards the end,
then I wanna go.
Yeah.
You know?
As the trial was set
to get underway,
it was hard to believe
that you were now on the eve
of a young professional football player
facing a murder charge.
All persons having
anything to do before the Honorable,
the justice E. Susan Garsh
of the Superior Court.
God save the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts.
Court is now in session,
be seated, please.
Case on trial today is
Commonwealth v. Aaron Hernandez.
The Honorable E. Susan Garsh presiding.
Good morning,
ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning.
Members of the jury,
I am not going to forbid you,
um, from watching the Super Bowl game,
but I am gonna ask you
to be especially vigilant.
You have to avoid, anything
that has anything to do
with this case or Mr. Hernandez.
Aaron Hernandez is an innocent man.
The evidence will show
that Aaron Hernandez did not murder
his friend Odin Lloyd
nor did he ask or orchestrate
anyone else to murder him.
Did the state really have enough evidence
to be able to convict him in this case?
Prosecutors had to convince
these 12 people
that Aaron Hernandez is a killer.
Ladies and gentlemen,
on June 16th of 2013,
just after 9:00 p.m.,
the defendant texted Odin Lloyd.
He told Odin Lloyd that he,
the defendant, Aaron Hernandez,
was gonna come out
to his house that night.
He also texted two of his friends
who were then in Connecticut,
Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz.
With the defendant driving the vehicle,
the three of them picked up Odin Lloyd
outside his house in Boston
after 2:30 in the morning.
Aaron is driving a rental car,
it's late on a Sunday night.
For whatever reason,
Odin sensed trouble with Aaron Hernandez.
Whatever had happened
between he and Aaron,
it was clear the dynamic had changed.
Odin's concerned enough that as they're
driving back towards Aaron's house,
he texts his sister, "Do you know
who I'm with? NFL. Just so you know."
He clearly is concerned
about his well-being at this point.
With the defendant driving,
they drove to a secluded,
isolated area in North Attleboro,
a town where Odin Lloyd knew no one
but the defendant and the defendant's
fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins.
There, Odin Lloyd was shot six times.
One in his right forearm,
one in his right flank,
two in his back,
shot as if he was crouching down.
Two projectiles were recovered
from his body.
Odin Lloyd had two
gunshot wounds to his chest.
They went through... They went through him
as he laid on the ground.
If you had to describe Odin
to someone who had not met him before,
what words would you use?
Brother.
Odin Lloyd, at the time of his death,
in June of 2013,
was 27 years old.
He was born in the US Virgin Islands.
He moved to the city of Boston
with his family
at the age of three-and-a-half years old.
He lived at the time of his death
in the Dorchester section
of the city of Boston
with his mother and his two sisters.
My son is a wonderful child.
He's a family guy.
He has not done anything to hurt anyone.
Please, let me grieve my child in peace.
- Thank you.
- I'm sorry for your loss.
And thank you for speaking with us!
You know, unfortunately,
when a lot of these crimes happen
involving a high profile person,
a lot of times, the victim
gets short shrift in the media.
The initial, you know, stories about
Odin Lloyd were rather, um, superficial.
We didn't really know much about him.
We just knew that he was from Dorchester.
Boston is gritty, man.
We was coming up as kids back
in the '80s and '90s, number one rule was
either you a customer or you a hustler.
Either you on the drugs or you selling
the drugs, or you somewhere around.
If you ain't selling it,
then you helping the drug dealers,
you going to the store for them.
Or you doing things that they can't do,
'cause they can't leave the block.
Odin grew up in that.
I mean, I literally had times where I'd be
dating a girl and come out her house,
and I would have a gun stuck
to my neck 'cause I'm in the hallway
and dudes would be doing a drug deal
or something and they'd say,
"Who the fuck are you?"
And before I could even speak,
someone would crack the door,
"Leave him alone!
He's just a football guy!"
And they'd be like, "That's right!
You played against my cousin
two weeks ago!
You had 100 yards and three touchdowns.
My fault, man. Yo! I saw that game!"
And I'm like, "Thank you, football,
thank you, football."
Football is big to me.
That's why I continue to play semi-pro,
and that's where me and Odin connected.
Coach Mike Branch found the way,
put us all together
and just used football
to, like, connect and say,
"Shit's fucked up, but we got each other."
We pay tribute
to a fallen teammate, brother, and friend,
number 53, Odin Lloyd.
Helmets up, gentlemen.
If you need something, please call on us,
and we'll be offended
if you don't call on us.
We loved him.
He was like a little brother to me,
so it's just tough.
You try to play the game in his memory,
because that's what
he would want us to do.
We both played the same position,
outside linebacker,
so me and him would talk
hours and hours after practice.
First it would be football, and then
it would be something subtle like,
"Man, I don't know
how you do it with these kids, man.
One day I'mma have me some kids, too."
It almost was like
he was modeling his life.
Have kids, get a good job,
try to get a house,
take care of your family.
Odin and I are
only two years apart,
so we've been together
since I could remember.
Um, he's always been
a protector, a provider.
I'm gonna miss
just him being a big brother.
He did everything
that a big brother would do.
The people in Roxbury,
Dorchester, Mattapan,
Odin was our celebrity.
Hernandez was nobody to us,
so the way we look at it is different.
Odin had everything.
To me, Odin was rich, Hernandez was poor,
'cause if Hernandez was as rich as Odin
with love and care,
he would have never have been
in those positions.
I remember
our first date.
We went to the movies,
and he was a perfect gentleman.
I feel like half of me is missing.
I'm not whole without him.
Yeah, it was just...
really difficult.
So, you walk
into the courtroom each day
and to your right was Shaneah Jenkins,
girlfriend of Odin Lloyd,
to the left was Shayanna Jenkins,
fiancée of Aaron Hernandez.
Two sisters brought into that room
by two men that
they had relationships with,
and one was accused of killing the other.
Your sister, Shaneah,
is she older or younger than you are?
- Younger.
- Are you close as sisters?
Have you been in the past, then?
I... I mean we've... Estranged, kind of.
Shayanna Jenkins
and Shaneah Jenkins
grew up in a single-parent household
in Bristol, were very, very close.
Shayanna had moved
to North Attleboro with Aaron,
Shaneah was dating Odin Lloyd,
who was up in Boston.
They were gonna be closer than ever.
Yet, despite this, when it came time
to choose your sister or your fiancé,
Shayanna stuck with Aaron Hernandez.
At some point, were you awakened
later in the night or early morning hours?
Yes.
And, um, how were you awakened?
By a phone call.
And approximately how long
did that call last?
Maybe ten... fifteen minutes.
And did you learn something
at that time?
- Yes.
- And what did you learn?
That Odin was dead.
During the trial,
they often showed a lot of the footage
from Aaron Hernandez's house.
The cameras caught Shaneah Jenkins
and Shayanna, hugging each other.
This was right after Shaneah had found out
that her boyfriend had been killed
and Shayanna's, um, comforting her,
and they're holding each other and it...
was for several, several seconds.
Shayanna Jenkins' loyalty to
Aaron Hernandez is something to behold.
Aaron was accused
of murdering her sister's boyfriend,
and yet, she never wavered with Aaron.
When the defendant and Carlos Ortiz
and Ernest Wallace left from that spot,
when they left Odin Lloyd there,
they left evidence at the scene,
they took evidence with them,
they created evidence
of their cooperative effort,
and they tried to and in some cases
were successful in destroying evidence.
When police asked
to see footage
from Hernandez's high-tech
mansion security system,
they learned the security system
had been destroyed.
He erases some security tape,
but not all of it.
He leaves some for them
to eventually get on a search warrant.
These new court papers
indicate that police got suspicious
after learning some information from,
of all people,
the sister of Hernandez's fiancée.
Hello?
Yeah.
What'd you do today?
Nothing, Aaron. I was involved
in a search warrant again today.
That's what I did today.
I know, I heard about that.
But why are you giving attitude?
Because I'm frustrated
with you and everybody else.
Why me?
'Cause I wouldn't be
in this situation if it wasn't for you!
- All right.
- That's why!
All right.
Well, I'll call back tomorrow
unless my daughter's
gonna get on the phone.
Don't... Wait, how are you
gonna catch an attitude with me,
and not wanna talk,
because I'm sitting here,
and I'm keeping it real.
All right, well,
you still have your freedom.
What are you stressing about?
Aaron, whatever.
I always end up cleaning up
after your shit. Whatever.
The person
you called has hung up.
In the exact time
it would take to drive
from the industrial park
to Aaron's driveway,
it shows he, Ortiz, and Wallace pulling up
to their house just after the murder.
If Aaron Hernandez had just erased
the security tape in his own house,
he might have had a chance.
That videotape shows him walking around
his house holding what looks like a gun.
I'm just gonna
have you look at this item
and ask you if you recognize that item.
No.
I mean, you...
I can't see the full item.
It's not depicted here, so...
Does that assist you
at all, ma'am?
I mean, only a black blob
it looks like right now.
The prosecution feels like
it has a very strong case,
but there is one issue remaining,
they do not have the murder weapon.
You know, they want to know
where the murder weapon is now.
This is the focal point
of the whole investigation.
They're searching everything.
They've got police investigators
in scuba gear.
Did the fiancée of fallen
football star Aaron Hernandez
help him hide a murder weapon?
It's a possibility police
are apparently considering
as they desperately try to find
a.45 caliber gun
used to kill Odin Lloyd on Father's Day.
You know, I sat a row behind,
Shayanna for the first trial.
Appeared fine and classy,
and she's reading her fashion magazines
while she's in the gallery there.
So, she played it
as perfectly as she could.
A cryptic message that was sent
from Hernandez to his fiancée
that reads in part,
"Go in the back of the screen
in the movie room.
There is a box just in case
you were looking for it."
Now, about an hour
after that text message,
documents state the fiancée is seen
on home surveillance video
leaving the house with a trash bag,
and allegedly inside of that bag was
a rigid object the size of a gun lockbox.
The video evidence
would suggest
that she helped to spirit the weapon
out of the house,
and then she's asked,
"Where'd you put it?"
And during that time,
did you do anything with the box
that was in the bag
that was in the trunk of the car?
I did.
- And what did you do with it?
- I disposed of it.
And when you say you disposed
of it, where did you dispose of it?
Um, in a dumpster.
And where was the dumpster?
I don't know.
So, then, it's a question of,
is she being purposely obtuse,
or is she somebody
who genuinely forgets things like that?
Okay, so there's...
Just in fairness, there's certain things
you remember and other things you don't.
Yes.
So, it just never
all made sense.
The jury found it laughable.
No matter what she said,
they weren't gonna believe much of it
because she doesn't seem credible.
There was nothing that suggested
she was ever gonna give up Aaron.
Tell us how
your relationship started.
Um, in high school,
we had a couple classes together,
so our relationship kind of evolved.
And how did it evolve?
We would talk a lot more,
pass notes back and forth, um,
talk on the phone.
When you look
at junior year,
it was a buildup
to what I would call "best friends."
The first day of school,
my dad was a correctional officer,
so he was already at work.
Aaron came over and we did...
We smoked two blunts,
we got my dog high,
and we walked right up to the school,
first day of school, like king shit.
Quarterback, tight end, stone happy.
We used to horseplay, that was our thing.
We used to love horseplaying
and having fun with each other,
because we were just kids full of life.
Aaron and I had an on-and-off relationship
from the 7th grade
to the Junior year of high school.
Aaron participated with many people.
I was a small piece
of Aaron's sexual activity.
At that time frame,
the girls didn't really hang out
with the boys after school, um,
so me and Aaron experimented
and it was something that,
I'll be honest with, we continued
because we probably enjoyed it.
Um, hello.
If I look at it now in the year we're in,
yes, we were in a relationship back then,
but at the time...
you don't look at it like that.
In school, there wasn't a lot of kids
that were out of the closet,
and the few that were, I used to feel
like, "Golly, like, what a homo."
Here I am, the football player,
I was in such denial.
Such denial because I was an athlete.
"You mean to tell me that
the quarterback and the tight end was gay?
He sleeps with other men?"
No. It doesn't sit right with people,
it doesn't sit right
within our own stomach at that time.
It was weird, it was like, after doing it,
it was like, "Fuck this.
Does... Did someone catch us?
Did... Did someone know?
Dude, if we get caught, like, it's ruined.
Like, our parents are gonna disown us."
I was a young father,
fresh out of the Marine Corps,
a corrections officer, coaching football
with two all-American boys.
If I told you that I didn't want
both of my sons to be heterosexual,
I'd be lying to you.
I... I would say that I feel terrible
for the way you must have felt
at that age.
If there's any blame or shame
to be put here, it's on me.
I was homophobic just as much
as Mr. Hernandez was.
Aaron was extremely
terrified of his father finding out.
I mean, Mr. Hernandez
was well known as a man's man,
a father that slapped the faggot
right out of you.
As DJ Hernandez
writes in his book,
there was a time Aaron,
inspired by his female cousins,
wanted to become a cheerleader.
Dennis Hernandez
put an end to that very quickly.
I remember
when Aaron's dad was ever around,
Aaron would kinda whisper, like,
"I better be good right now."
He knew he had to be on a different set
of behavior around his father,
and I was very similar,
so it was something that
we just had the ability
to turn it on and turn it off.
We had to hide what we were.
I started playing football in high school
mainly because of influence from my dad.
I learned pretty quickly
that people, especially in my town,
would never look at a masculine
football player and think he's gay.
So, by the time I hit puberty,
I knew I was gay,
um, and then that quickly made me realize
I had to suppress that
as much as possible.
So, my beard was football.
Just in general, football is
a very masculine sport
and I relied on all the stereotypes
of a football player.
Just a lot of testosterone and the
aggressiveness and hitting each other,
all these things that you would assume
middle America wouldn't think
of a gay man.
You hear things from everybody,
family, your buddies,
people throw around the word "faggot"
like it's nothing.
Whether they're being hateful about it or
calling something "gay" like people do,
when you're in the closet,
you associate all that negatively.
I even, trying to fit in,
would say those things.
So, I don't think anyone
ever thought twice that
I could have been gay.
You got some flamboyant faggots
walking around.
Well, they want you?
Yeah, well,
they don't fucking look at me.
That's crazy if they're out there.
That they just go around,
because... And prance it.
You know what I mean?
Just let it out.
Yeah, it's just ridiculous.
And people talk to them, like,
what the fuck are you talking to them for?
Well, that's who they are.
What are you gonna do?
You're gay, or you do this,
you do that. What are you gonna do?
Well, it's just, like,
overly done, like ridiculous.
Yeah, I know.
They really think they're women.
One hundred percent.
People in the gay community
use the slang term "beard."
Um, a beard is for a man...
For a gay man, a beard would be
the female you date
as a cover for your sexuality.
I think all closeted guys
go through that stage
where you have to make a decision
on what you do,
what you're willing...
What you're willing to risk, um,
how important it is to you to...
be true to yourself, in a way.
I think Aaron, for instance, had the girl
that he had the baby with.
A lot of gay guys go that route,
but they just haven't been honest
with their partner,
and it's unfortunate and it's sad that...
The extremes that some people feel they
have to go through just to try to hide.
At some point in high school,
did his dad die?
He did.
Okay. Tell us what happened.
Objection, Your Honor.
Sustained.
You recall that he died while
he was having surgery in the hospital?
Objection, Your Honor.
Overruled.
Yes.
And Aaron was 16 at the time?
He was.
My mother had called me
and told me what happened.
It shocked us all.
This wasn't cancer
or this wasn't something slow coming,
I mean, this was routine hernia surgery
that he came out dead.
At that point,
all I could think about was,
"Get in touch with Aaron.
Get in touch with Aaron."
I wanted him to be around someone
that he knew cared about him,
cared about his father.
I was able to pick him up
and we kinda just drove aimlessly
through all of Bristol and the surrounding
cities for probably about three hours.
There really wasn't even
a lot of conversation,
it was just being there for him,
just feeling his energy
on how much he was hurting.
When the news came
that Dennis Hernandez had passed away,
it was an absolute, utter shock
to the entire community.
I never have been to a wake
with the amount of people that were there.
It was a day in January, and it was
freezing cold and windy, windy.
And the line was wrapped around
the O'Brien Funeral Home,
and I waited in line for two-and-a-half
hours to pay my respects.
When I saw him
at the wake,
it was like looking
into a new person's eyes.
Something had changed.
I just couldn't believe it.
It was a guy who had no emotion
at his own father's wake.
And I instantly said to myself
after I left that funeral home,
"This is not good. This is not good.
Aaron is not gonna take this well at all,
because him and his father
were so, so close."
I had to say, I think it was
the turning point of everything
in Aaron's life.
When Dennis was there, Aaron mirrored him,
and that's where you get
a lot of those similarities.
What's gonna happen next now, you know?
It's when you have someone who's that
rock, who you can go to for everything,
who's that role model for you,
someone that can set
your foundation of values
to make sure that you're gonna be
a good man, a good father,
and a good member of the community
and now that's all gone.
Nothing dishonorable
about your father passing away, right?
Nothing shameful about that.
Nothing to be embarrassed about.
Sad, mourn, yes, all of that.
Would have been nice if he had a mother
that could have mourned with him.
Instead, she chose to...
engage in a relationship
with Tanya's husband.
I mean, to deal with
the death of your father is one thing,
but to deal with the fact that your mother
then goes out within a matter of months
and has a relationship
with a family member's husband,
and he goes then to live in Aaron's house!
Let me tell you something...
a young man...
...Aaron's age?
You don't want to wake up
on Sunday morning
and see some other dude
making bacon in his underwear
in your house.
Sleeping in your father's bed.
So this must have thrown him
into such a tizzy, I can't even imagine.
You made decisions,
that... There's...
You don't, like... They're the worst.
I don't put you down,
and you fucked my whole life up.
You don't put me down,
but I fucked your whole life up?
I ain't living with that.
You did!
It is, but I forgave you
- and it's over with!
- No, no...
Yes, you did!
I was the happiest
fucking little kid in the world,
and you fucked me up.
And I just lost my father.
And I had to go to college.
And I had nobody.
What the fuck
did you think I was gonna do?
Become a perfect angel?
My God...
If I was with you right now,
I would've probably punched
the shit out of you, like...
I don't even know why...
You bring me to this level.
After Tanya left Jeff Cummings,
what effect, if any, did that have
on Aaron's relationship with Tanya?
It brought them closer.
In what respect?
Very close, like,
she was like a Mom figure to him,
and she was... He was like a son to her.
Because of this, Aaron
doesn't want to even be in his house,
so he now goes to spend most of his time
over there at the cousin's house.
Aaron was able to be
someone that he wasn't able to be
at his house over there.
He had a very structured upbringing
when Dennis Hernandez
was running his boyhood home.
Over at Tanya's house, there was
more partying, there was more smoking,
there were more unsavory characters
that you wouldn't necessarily want
a 16-year-old to hang around with.
At 114 Lake Avenue, Aaron
meets Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace.
These guys were familiar
with prison and prison life
and what leads you to prison,
and that's what Aaron Hernandez
was exposed to,
and really sought in the years
after his father died.
Did you know Ernest Wallace
and Carlos Ortiz to use any drugs?
- Yes.
- Okay.
And did you ever see them use any drugs?
Yes.
What kind of drugs
did you see, then?
Um, marijuana.
They would smoke what you call,
like, a blunt filled with PCP.
Sources say that
Massachusetts investigators believe
that Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace
went directly to the Lake Avenue
home in Bristol
after the alleged murder of Odin Lloyd
in North Attleboro.
Because of that, police started
to focus on that house.
We learned the police
were searching the house
of Aaron's cousin, Tanya Singleton.
And while they were conducting the search,
of course, everyone's parked outside
to see what's going on.
The police are seen
loading up a silver SUV
from inside the garage
onto a flatbed truck and taking it away.
We learned through police sources
that the SUV
was actually a car that the Boston Police,
different police department,
had been looking for
in connection with an unsolved
double murder case from Boston.
Safiro Furtado
and Daniel de Abreu
were hardworking immigrants
from Cape Verde.
They worked two jobs cleaning at night.
Had been found shot and killed
outside of a nightclub
in the Theater District of Boston.
The car was shot up
after they left the nightclub
and that witnesses remember seeing
a silver SUV speeding away from the scene,
and they hadn't been able
to find the silver SUV.
The detectives called me to tell me
that the car had actually been found
in Aaron Hernandez's cousin's garage,
hidden, covered with cobwebs,
hadn't been used in a year.
This is unbelievable.
Actually have the murder car in his house,
it was, um, pretty compelling.
The Suffolk County
Grand Jury returned indictments
charging Aaron Hernandez
with two counts of first-degree murder
for the shooting deaths
of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
When the victim's car
stopped at a red light,
the SUV pulled up beside
the victim's car on the right.
Aaron Hernandez then fired
a.38 caliber revolver multiple times
from the driver side of his vehicle
into the passenger side
of the victim's vehicle.
This double murder that Hernandez is now
indicted for happened in July of 2012.
About a month later, he signed a five-year
$40 million contract with the Patriots.
That would've meant,
if the evidence is proven in court,
that he would have shot
and killed two men in Boston
and then went on to play
a whole season of football.
How does someone do that?