Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez’s latest trial, for a double-murder he is accused of committing in July 2012, began on Wednesday with opening statements from the prosecution and the defense.
The prosecution alleges that Hernandez shot and killed Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in a drive-by shooting after an altercation at a nightclub. The key witness in the trial is Hernandez’s former friend Alexander Bradley, who was the alleged driver of the car when Hernandez shot and killed the two men.
The details on why Bradley is now testifying against Hernandez are just as crazy and intense as the story of the alleged murders themselves. According to CNN, prosecutors say Bradley and Hernandez were at a club in Florida in 2013 when Hernandez became irate that Bradley suggested a group of men in suits that Hernandez identified as law enforcement were there for Aaron.
“Yeah, they probably are and probably because of the effed up stuff you did in Boston last summer,” Bradley said, according to prosecutors.
After that comment, Hernandez allegedly shot Bradley in the head and left him in a parking lot. Bradley survived and is now the lead witness against Hernandez after being given immunity by the prosecution.
According to the prosecution, Bradley drove the silver SUV with Hernandez in the passenger side up beside the car driven by de Abreu and Furtado, when Hernandez fired five shots while saying “yo, what’s up now?”
Hernandez bragged Bradley after the shooting that he “got one in the chest, I got one in the head.”
With there not being any scientific evidence that connects Hernandez with the shooting, aside from the SUV in question being found at his cousins house during the investigation into the murder he is currently serving time for, the eyewitness account of Bradley is what this whole trial hangs on. Hernandez’s legal team is attempting to discredit Bradley’s testimony by bringing up his past as a drug dealer, which they claim makes him untrustworthy, and saying he’s telling an “unbelievable, fantastic tale of lies,” according to CNN.
