Survivor Claims Aaron Hernandez Was Shooter In 2012 Double Murder
BOSTON (CBS/AP) - A man who was with the two people killed allegedly by Aaron Hernandez in Boston in 2012 testified at a pre-trial hearing Tuesday that Hernandez was the gunman in the attack.
Hernandez was back in Suffolk Superior Court Tuesday as a judge heard arguments on motions filed by his lawyers in his upcoming double murder trial.
Hernandez is charged in the July 2012 fatal shootings of two men he encountered at a Boston nightclub.
Prosecutors say Hernandez gunned down the men after one of them bumped into him. The former New England Patriots tight end has pleaded not guilty in the deaths of Safiro Furtado and Daniel de Abreu.
Aquilino Freire and Raychides Sanches, two men who were in the car with Furtado and de Abreau when they were killed, were called to testify in a motion hearing Tuesday.
Hernandez's attorneys want to limit the testimony of both men, who may be able to identify Hernandez as the shooter that night.
Sanches took the stand first, telling the court before shots were fired, everything was quick and that someone in another vehicle pulled up to them, said something, pulled out a gun and started shooting.
Sanches: before shots were fired...everything was quick...someone said "what's up Negro..he pulled out a gun and started shooting."
— Carl Stevens (@carlwbz) December 20, 2016
An unidentified woman started crying in the courtroom as Sanches described the shots fired into the car.
The defense attorney suggested to Sanches that he didn't have a good idea of the description of the vehicle used by the gunman in shooting.
Sanches said after the shooting, "we was in panic... crying... it was crazy."
When the defense attorney asked Sanches to describe the shooter, he referred to Hernandez.
Defense: "What did the shooter look like?" Sanches: "It looked like him." Defense: "Who are you referring to?" Sanches: "Aaron Hernandez"
— Carl Stevens (@carlwbz) December 20, 2016
Defense: Was the shooter white, Latino or African American? Sanches: It was him, he says, as he looks at Aaron Hernandez in the courtroom.
— Carl Stevens (@carlwbz) December 20, 2016
Sanches said when he left the car after the shooting he had a lot of blood "all over" his clothes.
The second survivor of the shooting, Aquilino Freire, is expected to testify Wednesday afternoon.
The judge will determine what testimony will and won't be allowed at Hernandez's trial, which is set to begin in February.
Hernandez already is serving a life sentence in the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd.
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