A police search warrant released on Tuesday indicates investigators believe ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez was involved in an unsolved 2012 double homicide in Boston. The warrant revealed an anonymous tip to authorities connected the Odin Lloyd murder to the double homicide, the Hartford Courant reports.
"...Police suspect Hernandez was in an SUV that circled a block waiting for the victims to enter their own vehicle before the 2 a.m. drive-by shooting," Jenny Wilson of The Courant wrote on Tuesday. "The silver SUV then pulled up next to the victims' car at a stoplight, and someone inside fired five or six shots in rapid progression, killing two and injuring one of the five men in the other car.
"The warrant does not indicate whether there is evidence that Hernandez was the man who pulled the trigger."
The warrant, obtained by The Courant, reveals several pieces of evidence that link Hernandez to the double murder.
Surveillance video from the night shows Hernandez and a friend, Alexander Bradley, entering Cure nightclub immediately after the victims in the early hours of July 16, 2012. Footage then shows Hernandez and Bradley exit the nightclub and leave in a silver Toyota 4Runner around 1:30 a.m.; Hernandez was in the driver's seat.
Footage then shows a vehicle resembling the 4Runner slowly circling the area as the victims left Cure an hour later. Police responded to a report of gunshots at 2:32 a.m.
Witnesses provided descriptions of the assailants and vehicle that resembled those of Hernandez, Bradley and the car they were driving, according to the documents.
The 4Runner believed to be used in the shooting was later recovered from a Hernandez family home in Bristol, Conn., by police during a search related to the Odin Lloyd murder investigation.
A firearm linked to the shooting via ballistics testing was also recovered in June. Authorities discovered the weapon in the car of Jai Lene Diaz-Ramos after responding to a motor vehicle accident she was involved in. Diaz-Ramos's connection to Hernandez, if any, is uncertain other than they are from the same hometown of Bristol. She claims friends put the gun in her car.
The warrant also indicates police began reinvestigating the double homicide after an anonymous tip claimed a connection between the unsolved drive-by and the murder of Lloyd. The tip came from a member of the Rumor nightclub security team who claims he overheard a patron discussing the connection in front of him.
Hernandez is charged with first-degree murder and five gun-related offenses in the June 17 shooting death of Lloyd; Hernandez pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail while awaiting trial.
The warrant obtained by The Courant on Tuesday sought access to the recordings of the phone calls made by Bradley between Oct. 4 and Oct. 5. while in jail. Authorities had arrested Bradley as a fugitive witness for trying to dodge a grand jury subpoena related to the double homicide.
Bradley also filed a lawsuit over the summer against Hernandez, claiming the ex-Patriot shot him in the face last February. Hernandez pleaded the Fifth to the allegations in the complaint.
