Florida

Aaron Hernandez Defense Questions Evidence From Crime Scene

The defense said the real killer was not Hernandez, but rather the government's star witness

Newly released surveillance photos may be key evidence in Aaron Hernandez's double murder trial.

The photos show a silver SUV with Rhode Island plates at a parking garage near the scene of the killings in Boston's South End in July of 2012.

The former Patriots star tight end, serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, is accused of gunning down Safiro Furtado and Daniel de Abreu from that SUV. Prosecutors say the killing stemmed from a spilled drink at a nightclub.

"I observed a young man standing off on the bridge with some blood coming from, I believe, his arm," said Boston police officer Erick James.

"When I looked into the vehicle, I observed two individuals that were slumped over," recalled Sgt. Clifton McHale.

The responding officers took the stand Thursday to describe a chaotic, bloody scene. But the defense turned the focus onto what it calls a botched investigation – including allegedly allowing a street sweeper into the crime scene perimeter.

"There was potential evidence that may have been collected by that street sweeper because we couldn't find any ballistics evidence at the crime scene," McHale said.

And defense attorney Jose Baez also called into question the white sheets EMS placed over the bodies before they had been photographed and before the victim's car was towed to a Boston police garage with the bodies inside.

"You're aware that sheets being placed on the body could destroy trace evidence?" Baez asked.

"It could," Boston police Sgt. Sean McCarthy acknowledged.

Baez, who won an acquittal for Casey Anthony in the death of her daughter, claimed Wednesday that government witness Alexander Bradley was the real killer.

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