Warrant: Aaron Hernandez eyed as gunman in 2012 slayings
BRISTOL, Conn. - A newly released search warrant indicates that Boston police have been investigating whether former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez may have been the gunman in a 2012 double slaying.
No charges have been filed in the shooting deaths of Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Teixeira Furtado, 28, in Boston’s South End. The two were gunned down July 16, 2012 as they sat at a traffic light shortly after leaving a Boston nightclub.
Hernandez has come under scrutiny in the case since his arrest in a separate murder case in which he has pleaded not guilty.
The affidavit was released Thursday in Connecticut. It was filed as police sought to search an SUV they say was involved in the 2012 shooting and was found at Hernandez’s uncle’s home in Bristol, Conn.
The 24-year-old Hernandez is already facing murder charges in the June 17, 2013 death of 27-year-old Boston semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee. Hernandez is being held without bail.
Authorities only began tying the ex-NFL star to the double homicide investigation after he was charged in Lloyd’s murder. A warrant obtained earlier this month by the Hartford Courant reportedly indicates authorities received a phone call on June 22, 2013 from an employee of a nightclub in Boston that Hernandez and Lloyd reportedly visited two days before Lloyd’s death.
The caller claimed to have overheard a conversation that indicated the death of Lloyd and the Boston double homicide were related, the warrant reportedly indicated.
It was after that phone call that the investigation into the 2012 double homicide was reignited and the SUV wanted in connection with the case was seized from Hernandez’s uncle’s home.
The warrant earlier obtained by the Hartford Courant also reportedly revealed surveillance footage shows Hernandez and an acquaintance – Alexander Bradley – at the same nightclub in Boston as Furtado and Abreu the night of their killings.
Bradley was jailed last fall after he allegedly avoided authorities who tried to subpoena him to appear before a grand jury probing the 2012 double homicide.
Police have also seized the murder weapon in the double homicide case in recent months. The .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver was reportedly found in a suitcase in the trunk of a car driven by a Bristol woman, and was recovered following a crash in Springfield, Mass.
The driver, Jailene Diaz-Ramos, reportedly told police a friend named “Chicago” and some football players put the suitcase in the trunk. It is unclear whether Hernandez and Diaz-Ramos are connected in any way other than having ties to Bristol, Conn., which is Hernandez’s hometown.