BOSTON (CN) - After almost three weeks of the Aaron Hernandez trial, the prosecution’s star witness took the stand to describe driving the car from which the former New England Patriot allegedly shot Daniel De Abreu and Safiro Furtado in 2012.
Hernandez, the disgraced NFL tight end who was convicted in 2015 of the murder of Odin Lloyd is facing additional murder charges after being linked to the 2012 shooting of De Abreu and Furtado in Boston’s South End neighborhood.
Alexander Bradley, a former friend who was with Hernandez the night of the shooting, testified that Hernandez murdered the two men from the passenger seat of his silver 2006 4Runner while Bradley was in the driver’s seat.
According to Bradley, and prosecutors, the shooting happened after De Abreu bumped into Hernandez in The Cure, a downtown Boston night club.
Hernandez made Bradley drive up next to De Abreu and Furtado’s car after they left the club. Bradley said that Hernanez leaned out of the driver’s side window and said, “What’s up now, nigger?”
Bradley then said he heard five shots followed by “three or four clicks.”
Bradley also testified that after the shooting, Hernandez became increasingly more paranoid. He forbid anyone around him from using an iPhone because he heard that they could record their surroundings.
Much of the day’s testimony focused on a later shooting in February, 2013, when Hernandez allegedly shot Bradley in the face. The shooting supposedly occurred after Bradley and Hernandez left a strip club.
While still at the club, Hernandez became paranoid that other patrons were undercover police officers, to which Bradley claims to have said, “It’s because of the stupid shit you did in Boston.”
After he and Hernandez left, Bradley said that he fell asleep in the car. When he woke, he said Hernandez was “pointing a gun in my face.”
Bradley lost his right eye in the shooting.
After the shooting, Bradley contacted Hernandez, who he said seemed surprised to hear from him. Bradley said that he told Hernandez, “When I get right, I'm coming back home, and you know what time it is."
Tomorrow, Bradley will return to the stand for cross examination from Hernandez’s attorneys, who argued in opening statements that Bradley was the actual shooter.
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