Latest / Both Things Are True Crime / Odin Lloyd: The Texts the Jury Never Saw | Aaron Hernandez Trial (Part 1 of 3)
Transcript
- just so you know odin lloyd pt1 edited: A little after three in the morning, a silver Nissan Altima is driving out of Boston towards North Attleboro. Odin Lloyd is in it. He's twenty-seven. He has his phone out and he's texting his sister. Did you see who I was with? She asked hims who? NFL. And then just so you know. And I'm gonna leave him there, in that car, with his phone in his hand, because before you hear one more word about the famous man who picked him up. I want you to know who Odin Lloyd was. Most of the coverage of this case just never got around to it. So let's talk about it. Odin Lloyd was born November 14th, 1985, in St. Croix. His family has roots in Antigua. And he grew up in Dorchester on Faison Street at the edge of Blue Hill Avenue. And he went to the John D. O'Brien School of Mathematics and Science, where he played football and ran track. And he went on to Delaware State to play Division I football. He left when the financial aid did not come through and the money ran out. So he goes home and he works and he starts. climbing poles for a power company and doing landscaping. And from 2007 on, he played as a linebacker for the Boston Bandits. This is a semi-pro team. He was number 53. A coach actually called him his Speedy Pass Rushing Specialist. And some seasons Odin actually couldn't afford the $75 dues. So he would actually wear teammates jerseys. And also, another thing, he rode his bike to practice. And I just do want to sit with that for a second because it's gonna matter later in this part. Odin Lloyd loved football enough to ride a bicycle to practice for a team that didn't pay him in a jersey that wasn't always his. And he was also his mother's only son. Her name is Ursula Ward. That's my firstborn child, my only baby child. They took him away from me. He has always had my back through everything. That last thing I said, that's what his sister said, Olivia. He's always had my back through everything. And that is the man in the Ultima. A linebacker on a bike, a son, a brother. Who had your back. And the man who picked him up was Aaron Hernandez. And I'm just gonna give you his public record. All right. So from Bristol, Connecticut. He played at the University of Florida, drafted by the New England Patriots in the fourth round in 2010. And on August 27th, 2012, the Patriots signed him to a five-year extension worth up to $40 million with $12.5 million signing bonus. So here we have two men who both played football. One rode a bike to a semi-pro practice, and the other had a $40 million contract. And they were connected through two sisters. So Odin had been d dating Shania Jenkins for about two years, her family said. And Shania's sister, Shania Jenkins, was Hernandez's fiance. And about ten months before that night, Odin met Hernandez in a skybox at the Gillette Stadium that Hernandez had reserved for Shinea's birthday. And after that, the friendship grew at Jenkins family gatherings and in Hernandez's basement. And eventually Aaron let him Odin. Borrow a rented Chevy suburban. And one of Odin's teammates told the New York Times that Odin didn't want to make it like he was a groovy or that he was trying to use him in any way. He just wanted that on the record with his friend. On Friday, June the 14th, 2013, Odin goes with Hernandez to a Boston nightclub called Rumor. And prosecutors will later say that Hernandez was upset that. Odin had talked to certain people there. And so then we get to Sunday, June the 16th. And according to prosecutors, Hernandez texts two friends of Connecticut to hurry up and get to Massachusetts. And so then at 9 05 that night, Aaron texts Odin and suggests they get together. So the two friends, Aaron texted, their names are Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz. And at one o'clock in the morning, On June Monday seventeenth, the three of them would leave in Hernandez's rented silver Ultima and at a gas station, Aaron would buy blue bubblitious gum. And I want y'all to remember that gum because a pack of gum is going to end up tying a shell casing to a rental car. But then at 8 32, they pull up outside of Odin's house in Dorchester, and his sister sees him get into the car. So now we're back where we started. A little after three in the morning, June 17th, 2013, Odin Texas sister. Did you see who I was with? NFL, just so you know. And at 323, a surveillance camera shows the Ultima turning onto a gravel road into an industrial park in North Attleboro, about a mile from Hernandez's home. And about four minutes later, it comes back out. The car does. And overnight workers in the park. They talk about hearing gunshots in that time frame. Odin Lloyd was shot multiple times, prosecutor said, including twice from above while he was on the ground. And investigators found five 45 caliber shell casings at the scene. And around 329, Hernandez's own home security video shows him walking through his house with a gun in his hand. And after that, the home system stops recording. And about six to eight hours of footage are missing. And at 5 30 that evening, a jogger finds Odin's body. And that's all I'm about to say about the industrial park. Listen, listen, Odin was a person for 27 years and a crime scene for just one afternoon. And I feel like the coverage of this case spent far more time on the afternoon. So that same evening, afternoon, on June 17th, I'm talking about, Hernandez returns the rented Altima. And then he hands the attendant some blue bubalicious gum. So while the attendant is cleaning out the car, the attendant finds gum and a shell casing and throws them out. Well, police get them back. And the casing matches the ones at the scene. So a search of Hernandez's Hummer turns up ammunition clip of that same caliber. So around two in the morning on June 18th, police video in the station parking lot shows Hernandez in his lawyer's car taking his phone apart. So here's the evidence. Here's the law where it starts. Massachusetts calls this kind of evidence consciousness of guilt, hiding, destroying, or falsifying evidence after a crime. The state's own guide to evidence says it can be considered. And it also says this, which matters. Evidence of consciousness of guilt alone is not sufficient to support a verdict or finding of guilt. So a man taking his phone apart is not proof he killed anyone. It is something a jury may weigh next to everything else. So a little before nine in the morning, police arrest Aaron Hernandez at his home in North Attleboro on June twenty-sixth. And about ten twenty, less than two hours later, the New England Patriots release him. And their statement begins with Odin, and they say, A young man was murdered. last week and we extend our sympathies to the family and the friends who mourn his loss. And Aaron is charged with murder in five gun counts. He pleads not guilty in Attaborough District Court and is held without bell. And his lawyer, Michael Fee, calls it a circumstantial case. So Massachusetts, General Laws, Chapter two, sixty-five, section one, quick format lesson once, Mass numbers their laws by chapter and section. So chapter 265 is crimes against the person and section one is murder. So from here on out, I'm just gonna say the number. So the statute gives three roads to first degree murder. You have murder with deliberately premeditated malice and afterthought, or murder with extreme atrocity or cruelty, or murder committed during a crime punishable by law. And it says one more thing the degree of murder shall be found by the jury. So we're gonna hold on to that because at the end of this part, a jury is going to be asked which road it took. So The other two men are picked up within days, right? Carlos Ortiz is arrested in Bristol, Connecticut. Ernest Wallace turns himself in Miramar, Florida on June 28th as a suspected accessory after the fact. And police said he saw himself on TV. And on Saturday, June 29th, Odin's family and teammates bury him from the church of the Holy Spirit in Mattapan. And his coach, Ron Johnson, said that he did not deserve this. He did nothing to deserve this. And a teammate, Dante Peterson, said he taught me how to be fearless. People don't normally have an effect like that on people. Odin meant something to these people. Odin meant something to his people. So Friday, January the ninth, twenty fifteen. We are in the Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River. And our judge is Judge E. Susan Garsh. And we have more than a thousand potential jurors who are expected over three days to find a team. And so the prosecutors are William McCulley, Patrick Bongberg, Roger Michael, and the defense is James Sultan, Charles Rannikan, and Michael Fee. The opening statements start on the 29th. Of January 2015. It's a Thursday. And Baumberg shows the jury an image from Aaron Hernandez's own security system. It's Hernandez standing outside his basement, holding what Baumberg says is a gun. But then Michael Fee comes up and he says, Aaron never had a chance. They locked on Aaron. They targeted him. Hernandez, he says, was planning a future, not a murder. What is is he trying to lay a bar? I'm sorry. Anyway. Defense lawyers have to do what they have to do. Okay. And I respect them so much. And one day maybe I could be one. Who knows? But anyway. So after he says that Hernandez was planning a future, not a murder, he says four words that are literally the whole defense. And honestly, kind of the whole law of this part when I really think about it. He says, mere presence is not enough. So let's talk about joint venture. Okay, because it's a little bit where the law bites. All right. So joint venture. The gun was never found. Three men were in that car with Odin. So how does Mass convict one of them of first-degree murder? Well, the state's model jury instruction on joint venture. it actually comes from a 2009 case. It's about Commonwealth versus Zenetti for 54 mass for. 49. The prosecution has to prove that the defendant knowingly participated in the commission of the crime and that he did so with the intent required to commit. It does not have to prove he did the act that caused the death, and Judge Garsh told this jury the prosecution only had to prove that he intentionally participated in the killing in some fashion. And the instruction says it plainly that mere presence at the scene of the crime is not enough. So the fight in Fall River was never really about who pulled the trigger. It was about what was in Aaron Hernandez's head. And I'm glad I'm not answering that question on a personal level right now because I have a lot of thoughts. But we saved those, Jaquela. We reserve ourselves, okay? Did he know? I didn't mean to do the whole third. I don't normally do that, okay, guys? Anyway. someone's probably like, yeah, she does. I really don't. but I don't know. Like, it was about was what was in Aaron Hernandez's head? Did he know it? Did he mean it? Or was he a man in a car when something happened? Happened. Well, Fee told the jury the second, and the state they spent 10 weeks on the first theory. So, do you remember the text from the opening? NFL, just so Well, the jury never saw them. In December 2014, Judge Garsh ruled them out. She found nothing in them that showed hostility and no proof that Odin feared. He was about to die. So in February 2015, she softened that a little bit. And his sister could tell the jury that she and Odin texted that morning, but she could not tell them what the text said. So I understand there are rules about what a jury gets to hear, and the judge applied them. But I also want you to notice what it means. It means that the last words Odin Lloyd ever wrote about the man he was riding with were reported. Reported on the news and never reported to the 12 people deciding this case. So on March 31st, Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, he testified. And he says that on June 19, 2013, two days after the killing, Hernandez told him in a five to 10 minute conversation that he was not involved and that he was innocent. And Hernandez said that he hoped the time of the murder would come out because Kraft testified. He said he was in a club. And then Kraft said Hernandez hugged and kissed him and thanked him for his concern. The time came out at trial. And a camera put the car on that gravel road at 323. So the next thing that happens is Judge Garsh grants the prosecution's request for immunity for Shania Jenkins. And this happens on February the 10th, 2015. So with immunity, she can be compelled to testify or Face jail if she refuses. There's another member of his family who actually does refuses, and she loses a lot of her life and she ends up dying. Yeah. But we're talking about Shania Jenkins. With immunity, she can be compelled to testify or face jail if she refuses. And why that matters is because in September 2013, a grand jury had already indicted her for perjury, and prosecutors were later to say she lied to that grand jury. Dozens of times. And so on March the 30th, 2015, she's on the stand and she testifies that the day after the killing, Aaron calls her and he tells her, Go downstairs in our storage room and remove a box from our house. And she said that he said it was important. She put the box in a trash bag, covered it with baby clothes, borrowed her sister's car, and drove around. And she says she didn't know that she just found a random dumpster and that she never looked inside, and she never asked what it was. And for the first time, she does say it smelled skunky and she thought it was marijuana. And she told the grand jury nobody asked her to remove a box and that it was not important. Well, the gun was never recovered. And the woman who carried the box out of the house says she never looked inside. We can't prove it one way or the other. But about a month after the verdict, on May 15, 2015, the perjury charge against her actually was dismissed. The district attorney spokesperson They said that as a result of her more truthful testimony at trial, we could not in good faith continue the prosecution in this case. So that is what immunity buys and what it cost. So now we're at the closing arguments. April seventh, twenty fifteen, it's a Tuesday. And Macaulay for the state. On Hernandez in the out hours after said he's lying around the pool, soaking up the sun, drinking up smoothies with his two Confederates. Then James Sultan for the defense, and for the first time, the defense concedes, hey, Hernandez was there. He was just a 23-year-old kid who witnessed something, a shocking killing committed by someone he knew. And he didn't know what to do. So he just put one foot in front of the other because Aaron Hernandez is definitely the person who is. Not in charge of his situations. But anyway, mere presence, that was the whole bet. So the jury deliberates for more than 35 hours across the parts of seven days. And on Wednesday, April 15th, 2015, at 10 in the morning, it comes back guilty of first degree murder. And then the clerk, she asked the question. So this is the question that the statute actually requires. By which theories or theories is your deliberation coming back from guilty of first-degree murder? Is it deliberate premeditation or Extreme atrocity or cruelty. And the four person said extreme atrocity or cruelty. And now that is the law paying off because the four-person named one theory, not two. The jury found the killing was committed with extreme atrocity or cruelty. And a juror said afterwards that they focused on how many times Odin was shot. And under joint venture, it found that Hernandez knowingly took part with the intent the crime required, not presence, participation. He Is also convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm and of ammunition. First degree murder en masse carries an automatic sentence. Life in prison without the possibility of parole. And that day, Judge Garsh imposes it. And before the sentence, Miss Ursula Ward speaks. And she says, Odin was my only son. I will never get to dance at his wedding. I miss my baby boy Odin so much. And y'all know I only pick cases where there are things that stick with me. And every case, there's a part that sticks with me, multiple parts. This is one of those, is the line that she says. I forgive the hands of the people that had a hand in my son's murder, either before or after. And I don't know if they realized any of them, the blessing his mom gave them of her forgiveness. She didn't have to do that. I don't think I could do that. And then outside the courthouse, she said, My son Odin was the most precious gift in my life. I'm gonna miss his smile. Alright, so this is the part where I get to I get to say a little bit of what I wanna. This part is mine. And Lord, do I have a lot of thoughts about this man in this situation, okay? But we're talking about over three parts. So I'm going to focus, okay? Let me start with the first thing that I've identified that has made me the angriest about this case. And I think it's because Almost everybody tells it as a football story. The very attractive, super hot man tight end with the $40 million contract, the fall, everything written and filmed about what went wrong with him. And somewhere in the middle of it all is a 27 year old man from Dorchester who becomes a footnote in his own murder. And Odin Lloyd was not a plot point in Aaron Hernandez's life. Aaron Hernandez is the reason Odin Lloyd does not. Have one anymore. And in this show, that's the order these two sentences are gonna go. You hear me? So I also keep coming back to that bike, okay? Because a grown man who loved football so much he rode a bicycle to practice for a team that could not pay him most of the time wearing someone else's jersey because he could not cover the $75. Put that next to the $40 million contract man and tell me whose story this is supposed to be. And I think the way the case gets told. No offense to anybody, it's his own kind of erasing. And I hope I'm not doing any of it myself because when the coverage is about the famous man, the victim turns into the reason the famous man got into trouble, and his name becomes a fact in someone else's biography. And that is why Odin got the first whole part of this conversation to himself, and why the last thing would talk about this is Odin, okay? And I'm not about to tell you what was going on in Aaron Hernandez's head. I got thoughts, okay. I got thoughts on thoughts on thoughts on thoughts, okay? But part three is where the science about his brain comes in, and I'm gonna deal with it there. Okay, we're gonna talk about there, okay? But here, here's the man, a jury convicted of murdering Odin Lloyd, and that is enough. The other two men in the Ultima had their cases decided in Bristol County too. On Thursday, May 12, 2016, a jury acquitted Ernest Wallace of first-degree murder and convicted him of being an accessory after the fact. He got four and a half to seven years. On Monday. June 27, 2016, Carlos Ortiz pleads guilty to being an accessory after the fact, and prosecutors drop him of his murder charge. And he is sentenced that day also to four and a half to seven years. So here's where the law left it, okay? Cause you got three men who drove Odin Lloyd into that industrial park. One is convicted of first-degree murder by joint venture with extreme atrocity or cruelty, and two are convicted of helping after the fact the gun was never found. In the law, the jury was given, never required to state to prove whose hand was on it. And that's is what joint venture is for. Because you don't gotta hold the gun. You have to have known and meant it. Being there is not enough. And being more than there is. Odin Lloyd was a linebacker on a bike, a son, a brother who had your back. A man, his teammate said, taught him how to be fearless. And Odin Lloyd is the man Whose last words about his own night, NFL, just so were never read to the jury that decided who killed him. And I think both of those things are true and only one of them was ever a headline. And I'm just not gonna let that be the case here. Who his name is important to say, Odin Lloyd. Part two goes back to 2012, before Odin, to two men named Daniel and Safru. And to the trial that was supposed to put Aaron Hernandez away for their death, too. And the lawyer at that defense table is the same one from Casey Anthony. And on April 14th, 2017, a jury acquitted Hernandez of both murders. That is next.