Investigators who searched a "flop house" leased to Aaron Hernandez found a white hooded sweatshirt consistent to one the football player was seen wearing in a surveillance video on the night prosecutors allege he orchestrated the killing of an acquaintance, according to search warrants.
Law enforcement officials searching a third-floor condo unit rented by Hernandez in Franklin, Mass., also found two receipts from Larry’s Motor Sales in Hernandez’s name, a baseball hat with the word “Society” across the front, and boxes of .22, .45, and 7.62 caliber ammunition, according to the warrants executed June 26.
The warrants filed in Wrentham, Mass., district court provide some of the first glimpses into the ongoing homicide investigation that has ensnared the $40 million NFL player.
The white sweatshirt found by investigators was in a bedroom that contained other articles of clothing bearing the number “81,” Hernandez's jersey number with the Patriots, according to an affidavit attached to the warrant.
The sweatshirt was "consistent with the one worn by [Hernandez] as seen in the surveillance videos on the night of the homicide," State Police wrote in the warrant.
Hernandez had signed an agreement to lease the apartment in Franklin for $1,200 a month beginning in May. The apartment is about 10 miles from Hernandez's North Attleboro home and a similar distance to the Patriots stadium in Foxborough.
Hernandez, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and firearms charges, has been accused by prosecutors of orchestrating the killing Odin Lloyd, 27. Lloyd’s body was found in an industrial park about a mile from Hernandez’s home in North Attleboro on June 17.
Two other men have been held by police in connection to Lloyd’s murder. Ernest Wallace, 41, turned himself in to police in a Miami suburb. Connecticut authorities said on June 27 that they had charged another man, Carlos Ortiz, as a fugitive in connection with the case.
Ortiz was questioned on June 25 in Bristol, Conn., and told police that Hernandez maintained a residence that “not many people know about,” Massachusetts State Trooper Michael B. Bates said in the affidavit, and confirmed that he was with Hernandez on June 17.
Shown video of the apartment later searched by police, Ortiz said that it “looked like” the apartment he visited with Hernandez on June 18, according to the affidavit. The apartment is described as a “flop house” in the affidavit.
Lloyd’s bullet-riddled body was discovered by a jogger, and police have so far not revealed many details of the events they suspect led to his murder. In court, however, they offered a chilling description of Hernandez’s alleged involvement.
“As [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,” First Assistant District Attorney William McCauley said in court in June. “He orchestrated the crime from the beginning and took steps to conceal and destroy evidence.”
Prosecutors have said the alleged murder came about after the two friends argued at a Boston nightclub three days before Lloyd’s death. Hernandez and two others allegedly picked the man up at his house on June 17 in the early morning hours, according to prosecutors.
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