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Aaron Hernandez trial, After 39 days before the jury, and after 131 witnesses, the prosecution rested Thursday in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial, content that jurors will be able to sort out a mountain of circumstantial evidence.

The day wound down with a final look at home surveillance shots purportedly showing Hernandez with a black pistol the day of the murder and then it ended with the gruesome reality of Odin Lloyd’s death in a lonely gravel pit the morning of June 17, 2013: Shot six times — in the arm, chest, abdomen and back, dead in a matter of seconds or minutes from any one of three of the wounds.

“There would be pain,” said Dr. William Zane, the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Lloyd’s body and who was the final prosecution witness.

A short time later, lead prosecutor William McCauley rose and announced that Zane’s testimony concluded the state’s case.
Friday has been set aside for a hearing on pending motions and on jury instructions, and then the defense opens its case Monday — and it appears it may be a very short one. Defense attorney James Sultan indicated earlier this week that Hernandez’s team may need only one day to present its case.

And he indicated he may call only one witness, from a laboratory in Texas that conducts DNA testing.
Over the weeks of the trial, which was stopped repeatedly by weather delays during a historically harsh New England winter, prosecutors laid out voluminous evidence, some of it powerful.

At the core of its case, the prosecution’s allegation is pretty simple: that Hernandez, then the star tight end of the New England Patriots, grew angry with Lloyd after an incident at a Boston nightclub early the morning of June 15, 2013.

It contends that late the next night, Hernandez summoned two associates from his hometown of Bristol, Conn., to his house in North Attleboro, Mass., and at the same time sent a series of text messages arranging to meet Lloyd.
Then, they allege, Hernandez drove his alleged accomplices, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace Jr., to Boston to pick up Lloyd, then returned to North Attleboro and pulled into a secluded field in an industrial park.
There, Lloyd was gunned down.

Prosecutors devoted considerable time to cell phone evidence: detailing text messages Hernandez sent to both Lloyd and his alleged accomplices and laying out transmission data that effectively detailed the movements of each of the phones of the key players.

They presented extensive video evidence. Jurors saw images of Hernandez and his alleged accomplices stopping at a gas station on the way to pick up Lloyd. They saw images of Lloyd getting into a rented Nissan Altima at 2:33 a.m. on June 17, 2013. They saw a picture of the Nissan going through a toll booth without stopping to pay at 2:52 a.m. They saw grainy images of the car making its way through the industrial park and into the area where the murder occurred and then leaving four minutes later at 3:27 a.m.

And they saw voluminous footage captured by Hernandez’s own home surveillance system, including him, Ortiz and Wallace arriving at his mansion, located 1.2 miles from the murder scene by road, at 3:30 a.m.

Prosecutors also have presented powerful evidence that the rented Nissan was involved — showing fingerprints of Hernandez, Wallace, Ortiz and Lloyd all were discovered inside. At one point they rolled the Nissan’s right rear tire into the courtroom, and troopers were able to show jurors rocks imbedded in the tread and link them to detailed photographs of a tire track at the murder scene.

But, as with any murder case, there were problems as well.

Prosecutors showed that the murder weapon was a Glock, a determination based on the shell casings found at the scene and in the Nissan, and they brought in an official from the company who concluded that images from Hernandez’s home surveillance system, captured around the time of the murder, showed him with a Glock.
But the murder weapon has never been found.

And defense attorneys, who often do most of their work during the prosecution’s case, raised questions about the bullets recovered from Lloyd’s body and from the ground beneath it, suggesting that they could have come only from a specially made Glock that is available only to law enforcement.

Evidence of a Nike Air Jordan print found near Lloyd’s body was muddled — prosecutors showed Hernandez had boxes for those kinds of shoes in his home, and they showed video images of him wearing a pair the day of the murder, but they don’t have the shoes.

That’s because they failed to collect three pairs of shoes they photographed during searches of Hernandez’s home multiple times in the days after the murder. Last November, they concluded those shoes were Hernandez’s Air Jordans and the footwear worn by Ortiz and Wallace at the time of the killing, and they obtained a new search warrant and returned to the former NFL star’s home.

When they did, the shoes were long gone.Defense attorneys also pointed out that police officers failed to obtain a DNA sample from Wallace and that they gathered some evidence at the scene without measuring or marking its location, something detectives said was necessary because a heavy storm was moving in.

They also attacked one of the prosecution’s key pieces of evidence: that Hernandez’s DNA was discovered on a shell casing found under the driver’s seat of the Nissan that matched those found at the scene. But that shell casing was stuck to a piece of chewed Bubble Yum, and prosecution witnesses acknowledged that the DNA could have transferred from the gum to the casing.

And when it came to motive, the testimony was murkier.
Prosecutors contend that Hernandez grew angry with Lloyd after an incident at a Boston nightclub. But no witness who was called saw exactly what went down, and defense attorneys raised questions about inconsistencies in the stories of those who did testify.

And then there are Ortiz and Wallace.

Both, like Hernandez, were drug users. And so defense attorneys looked for every chance to raise that specter — that one of them, in a drug-induced state, actually was the shooter.

Hernandez faces one count of murder and two firearms charges in the slaying of Lloyd. Ortiz and Wallace also have been charged with murder and will be tried separately. Neither is expected to testify at Hernandez’s trial.
Prosecutors have not said who they believe fired the shots that killed Lloyd, and they do not have to prove that Hernandez pulled the trigger to convict him of murder — only that he was involved in the slaying in a material way and that he did so with intent.

And no matter what happens in this case, Hernandez’s legal troubles aren’t over.
He has separately been indicted on multiple murder and assault charges in the July 16, 2012 shooting that killed Daniel De Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, in Boston. Another man was wounded. That trial, currently set to begin May 28, is expected to be pushed back until sometime later this year or to early 2016.

Hernandez faces another trial on allegations that he had a high-powered rifle, an illegal magazine and ammunition in his home when it was searched as part of the Lloyd investigation.

And, finally, he has been indicted on an assault and battery charge in the wake of a jailhouse fight and on a charge of threatening an officer.

Aaron Hernandez trial, Aaron Hernandez’s fiancée didn’t give prosecutors everything they wanted, but she gave them plenty -- changing her long-standing answers to a number of key questions and making other disclosures that fit neatly with the narrative they’ve been trying to weave.

To be sure, Shayanna Jenkins was not a willing witness, and prosecutors had to obtain a court order giving her immunity to get her to the stand in Hernandez’s murder trial.

On numerous occasions -- particularly when it came to conversations between her and Hernandez -- Jenkins said simply, “I don’t know,” or, “I don’t remember.”

One notable exception: Her first conversation with the former New England Patriots tight end the morning after Odin Lloyd’s body was discovered.

“I believe I asked him at that time if he did it,” Jenkins testified, “and he said no.”

Prosecutors have alleged that Jenkins was deeply involved in an effort to cover up Lloyd’s June 17, 2013, murder -- and that she lied repeatedly about that when she was questioned before a grand jury less than two months after the killing. They contend, for example, that she spirited the murder weapon out of the home she and Hernandez shared and ditched it. It has never been found. They have also asserted that she met with Hernandez’s alleged accomplices to provide them with cash.

Her answers before the grand jury on those and other topics led to a perjury charge against her -- and the allegation that she lied 29 times.

On Monday, sitting before the jury that will decide whether to convict her fiancé of murder, Jenkins acknowledged that her answers were different “in some areas.”And two of those areas were extremely helpful to the prosecutors -- and to the narrative they’re trying to share with jurors:

* The night Lloyd’s body was found, she described dropping Hernandez off at a police station, where he had agreed to wait for his attorney. She then, acting on a request from Hernandez, drove to Franklin, Mass., and ultimately nearly all the way across Rhode Island to meet his two alleged accomplices and give them money. Before the grand jury, Jenkins had said she went home from the police station and went to bed.

* The day after Lloyd’s murder, she removed a large, heavy box from the basement of the home she and Hernandez shared, hiding it inside a black garbage bag and covering it with baby clothes -- steps she acknowledged taking “so nothing was exposed.” Though she had said before the grand jury that it was not important to her that she get rid of the box, or that she tried to do so secretly, she acknowledged before jurors that neither was the case.
Prosecutors also elicited other testimony from Jenkins -- some of it more expansive than what she told the grand jury -- that fit with their theory about Lloyd’s murder.

Prosecutors have asserted that Hernandez grew angry with Lloyd after an incident at a Boston nightclub early the morning of June 15, 2013. They have alleged that late the next evening, he summoned two associates from his hometown of Bristol, Conn., to his house in North Attleboro, Mass., and at the same time sent a series of text messages arranging to meet Lloyd later that night. They have further alleged that Hernandez drove his two alleged accomplices, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace Jr., from his home to Boston to pick up Lloyd, then returned to North Attleboro and pulled into a secluded field in an industrial park.

There, Lloyd was gunned down -- shot multiple times. Prosecutors have argued he was killed between the time he sent his final text message to his sister, 3:23 a.m., and the time a surveillance camera on a nearby business captured the vehicle leaving the area at 3:27 a.m.

Hernandez faces one count of murder and two firearms charges in the slaying of Lloyd. Ortiz and Wallace have also been charged with murder and will be tried separately. Neither is expected to testify at Hernandez’s trial.
Prosecutors have not said who they believe fired the shots that killed Lloyd.

Jenkins, who has known Hernandez since elementary school and has been in a relationship with him since their days as high school students in Bristol, Conn., bore a daughter with him in 2012.

Her testimony was long anticipated -- and it played out against a backdrop of her estranged relationship with her sister, Shaneah Jenkins, who was dating Lloyd when he was killed. At one point Monday, Shayanna Jenkins described having to stay “neutral” in dealing with her fiancé and her sister. And Shaneah Jenkins, who sat next to Lloyd’s mother, at one point rose in tears and walked out of the courtroom.
But during her eight hours on the stand, time and again prosecutors elicited testimony that dovetailed with the story they’ve been selling to the jury throughout the trial, now in its ninth week:

* She had nothing to do with arranging for the delivery of a Toyota Camry that was shipped to their home from Florida. Prosecutors allege it was used to ship guns to Hernandez, even though her name was on all the paperwork.

* She allowed Hernandez to use her phone while they were out to dinner with friends the evening before Lloyd’s death. Prosecutors showed records detailing a number of text messages back and forth between her phone and Wallace’s at a time when Hernandez was allegedly putting the murder plot into action.

* She wasn’t expecting Ortiz and Wallace when they arrived at her home about three hours before the murder.

* She saw a black pistol in the home she shared with Hernandez before Lloyd’s murder, and she agreed it was the same color and shape as one prosecutors allege was used in the killing, a Glock Model 21.
Defense attorney Charles Rankin tried to use his cross-examination to humanize both Jenkins and Hernandez. He asked her about the death of Hernandez’s father, about their relationship, about his family.

Rankin also asked her to describe Hernandez’s relationship with Lloyd -- one of the points the defense has repeatedly stressed is that the two of them were friends, and the NFL star would have no reason to kill a friend.
And, finally, Rankin asked Jenkins about a time she and Hernandez separated after she discovered he was having an affair. After that episode, she said she decided that if their relationship was going to survive, she would have to look the other way at some of his behavior.

“I made a decision that if I was going to move back in with Aaron that I would have to kind of compromise on his behavior, and that included infidelity and everything that came along with it,” Jenkins said. “And I decided it was worth fighting for, so I moved back.”
The unstated message: It wasn’t unusual for her not to ask questions if Hernandez went out at night without giving her an explanation.

Finally, Rankin got her to say the box she sneaked out of their home smelled like marijuana -- although she acknowledged that Monday was the first time she’d ever said that.

Jurors ultimately will decide what to believe about her testimony.
Hernandez has separately been indicted on multiple murder and assault charges in the July 16, 2012, shooting that killed Daniel De Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, in Boston. Another man was wounded.
Judge E. Susan Garsh has ruled that jurors will not hear any testimony about that case.

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

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

Aaron Hernandez trial,Aaron Hernandez stared intently at the witness stand Friday as his fiancée described requests he made of her in the days after Odin Lloyd was killed — to remove a box from their home in secret and to deliver cash to a friend who was with the former Patriots tight end the night of the shooting.

It's unclear what was on Hernandez's mind when Shayanna Jenkins, who is charged with perjury by lying to a grand jury to protect him, took the stand. What was clear, however, is that Jenkins' testimony has changed since she first appeared before the grand jury two years ago. She was forced to testify under a grant of immunity from prosecution on any further charges.

Jenkins said Friday she was instructed to take a black box out of her home the day after Lloyd was found dead. She testified that it was "important" to her to get rid of the box, and to do so without being seen, which contradicted her prior statements that removing the item was not important.

"You took that box out and concealed it; were you attempting to do it in a way so that people didn't know what you were doing?" asked Bristol County District Attorney William McCauley. Prosecutors say the box contained the murder weapon.

"That's correct," said Jenkins. Jurors were not in the courtroom for that exchange, which occurred during a hearing before the trial resumed Friday. Court adjourned before McCauley finished questioning Jenkins, and he had not yet asked her about removing the box. He is expected to do so when her testimony resumes next week.Prosecutors are using Jenkins' testimony to try to prove that Hernandez tried to conceal the crime after he learned that he was a target in the police investigation.

Jurors heard Friday about a phone call Hernandez made to his fiancée from the North Attleborough police station around midnight on June 18, 2013, less than 24 hours after Lloyd was killed. The couple had driven to the police station together that night, but Jenkins left before Hernandez. On the ride to the station, she testified, Hernandez told her not to worry and that everything would be OK.

After she left, she received the call from Hernandez, who told her to meet up with Bristol, Conn., resident Ernest Wallace to give him money. Wallace, who accompanied Hernandez the night of the slaying, also faces a murder charge.Jenkins said she drove for "a while" to find Wallace that night, with her eight-month-old baby in the back of the car. She eventually met him in a parking lot in East Greenwich, R.I.

"He asked me to withdraw money, I forget how much," Jenkins said. She said she drove to an ATM and took out $500. Wallace, she said, had asked for more. Prosecutors have used prior testimony to establish that Wallace traveled south to Florida the week after the slaying, and have suggested that the money Jenkins gave to him helped fund his escape from authorities.

After giving Wallace the money, Jenkins exchanged several phone calls with members of her family, who had just learned of Lloyd's death. Jenkins' sister, Shaneah, was dating Lloyd. Shaneah Jenkins was in court Friday, sitting with Lloyd's family. The two sisters did not acknowledge each other.We're estranged, kind of," said Shayanna Jenkins, when McCauley asked her to describe her relationship with her sister.

In addition to the phone call, Jenkins received a cryptic text from Hernandez that night referring to a box. She said she did not understand the message when she received it.

"Go in back of the screen in movie room when u get home an there is the box avielle likes to play with in the tub jus in case u were lookin for it!!!!" Hernandez wrote in the text. "Member how u ruined that big tv lmao WAS JUST THINKIN bout that lol wink wink love u TTYL……k"

McCauley asked Jenkins how old her daughter was at the time, and Jenkins said about 8 months.

"Did she play with a box in the tub?" he asked.

"Toys, yes," Jenkins said. McCauley asked if bath toys were kept in the movie room of the basement."I don't think so," Jenkins said. "I'm not sure."

Though Jenkins answered some questions in length, she faltered in other instances to remember details.

She said she could not remember what, if anything, she asked Hernandez about Lloyd's slaying — other than whether he "did it." Hernandez said no.

She testified that in the spring of 2013, she found a gun in her kitchen junk drawer. But when asked to estimate the size of the gun or compare it to a weapon McCauley held up in court Friday, Jenkins said she could not recall and did not know much about firearms. She said she gave Hernandez a "stern look" after finding the weapon, but could not remember asking him about it.

At times during her four hours of testimony Friday, Jenkins became confused by McCauley's painstaking, methodical line of questioning. The prosecutor asked her what ingredients she put in smoothies she made for Hernandez and his friends the morning after the shooting. He asked her to define terms like "lol" and "ttyl." He asked her about what routes she took and what exits she passed when she drove to meet Wallace to give him money.

"I have never seen a direct examination drag as much as it did," Jenkins' lawyer, Janice Bassil, told the judge at the end of proceedings Friday. Bassil said she could not be in court Monday and would not allow Jenkins to testify if she was not there.

"I'm not through," she shouted at McCauley when he stood up to object. Bristol County Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh said that if Jenkins did not testify, she would be held in contempt of court.

After court, Bassil told reporters that she intends to send an attorney from her firm to fill in Monday.

"Had the DA not asked every question four times over, maybe we would have finished, not to mention irrelevant questions," she said.