Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez, who was charged with murder yesterday, not only planned out a man’s killing but the concealing of evidence.
Hernandez, police believe, drove Odin Llyod to a remote spot in an industrial park in the dead of night following a feud at a nightclub three nights earlier.
There, he “orchestrated his execution,” prosecutors believe.
Lloyd, 27, was found near his Massachusetts home.
Hernandez pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and five firearms charges, including possessing a large-capacity firearm, more than a week later.
A judge ordered him held without bail.
Hernandez “drove the victim to the remote spot, and he then orchestrated his execution. That’s what it was,” First Assistant D.A. William McCauley said.
“As (Odin Lloyd) tried to turn, he was shot in the back, and the defendant and his confederates stood over him and delivered the two fatal shots.”
Hernandez, he said, “also steps to conceal and destroy evidence.”
Wearing a white V-neck shirt, red sports shorts and handcuffs, Hernandez was arrested yesterday morning (below) and showed no emotion in court.
Officials say they have surveillance camera footage, text messages and witnesses who were working the overnight shift who heard gunshots as evidence.
Hernandez wiped away tears at the end of the arraignment.
Lloyd’s bullet-punctured body was found by a jogger June 17 in an industrial park a mile from Hernandez’s North Attleborough, Mass., home.
Police soon opened a homicide investigation.
Prosecutors said in the courtroom that the brutal killing was prompted by a fight between the two friends during a trip June 14 to a Boston nightclub.
Three days later, surveillance footage from Hernandez’s house shows him leaving with a weapon, as he and his friends went to pick up Lloyd.
After getting in the car, Lloyd allegedly texted a family member, asking, “Did you see who I am with,” prosecutors said. He then texted that it was Hernandez.
He wrote “Just so you know” in another text.
Later that morning, between 3:23 a.m. and 3:27 a.m., employees working the overnight shift at the industrial park where Lloyd’s body would be found reported hearing gunshots.
It’s not clear who investigators believe fired the shots.