Body of ex-NFL star Hernandez’s alleged victim had wallet, keys: witness

By Daniel Lovering

FALL RIVER, Mass. (Reuters) – The man who Aaron Hernandez is charged with murdering had a wallet, cash and two sets of keys in his pockets when his body was found near the Massachusetts home of the former New England Patriots star, a police officer testified on Thursday.

North Attleborough Police Captain Joseph DiRenzo said the body of semiprofessional football player Odin Lloyd was also found with a Boston Red Sox baseball hat, a towel, a marijuana cigar known as a blunt and five shell casings strewn nearby at an industrial park in the town on the evening of June 17, 2013.

Prosecutors have cited the presence of a wallet on Lloyd’s body as a sign that he had not been the victim of a robbery.

About two dozen law enforcement officers reported to the scene where Lloyd’s body was found by a teenage jogger, DiRenzo said, recalling that they covered Lloyd’s body with a tarp and canopy because thunderstorms were setting in that evening.

“The weather changed dramatically,” he said. “We made a decision that it was best to preserve evidence on the ground as best as possible.”

Hernandez sat quietly next to one of his attorneys during the testimony. As he entered the courtroom, he mouthed the words “Are you OK?” to his fiancée Shayanna Jenkins, who was sitting in the gallery.

Lloyd, who played for the Boston Bandits semiprofessional football team, had been dating Jenkins’ sister, Shaneah, at the time of his death. Shaneah Jenkins has testified that Lloyd and Hernandez were in the early stages of a friendship and sometimes smoked marijuana together. The defense has said the two men were friends.

Hernandez, 25, was a rising star in the National Football League with a $41 million contract with the Patriots before the team dropped him following his arrest on murder and firearms charges.

Prosecutors contend that Hernandez and two friends, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, picked up Lloyd at his home in Boston early on June 17, 2013, and drove him to the industrial park where his body was found. Investigators have not found the gun used to kill Lloyd, 27.

Wallace and Ortiz also have been charged in Lloyd’s slaying and will be tried separately. All three men have pleaded not guilty.

Hernandez also has been accused of killing two Cape Verdean men outside a Boston nightclub in 2012. He will be tried in that case later this year.

(Editing by Scott Malone; Editing by Will Dunham)