Bristol County’s Superior Courthouse stood like a sentry at the corner of Main and Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts.
It was January 29, 2015. A cold, clear day in the decaying industrial city. Aaron Hernandez’s murder trial, presided over by Judge Susan Garsh, had already been postponed, several times, because of blizzards.
Today, the trial would finally be starting.
Outside, it was the usual media circus, with TV reporters huddling in their news vans for warmth as they waited for Aaron to arrive at the courthouse.
Inside, Hernandez was brought to Courtroom 7 on the building’s fifth floor. Through the windows, he had a view of Braga Bridge and beneath it, the Quequechan River. But Aaron did not look around the courtroom as Assistant DA Patrick Bomberg—one of four prosecutors assigned to the case—laid out the Commonwealth’s position.
Aaron did not glance at Shayanna, who was sitting with Terri and DJ, as Bomberg did so.
Shaneah Jenkins, who had graduated from college and enrolled in law school, was also there in the courtroom, sitting far away from her sister and next Odin Lloyd’s mother, Ursula.
It was an obvious sign of the rift that Odin’s death had caused between the sisters.
Ursula was wearing purple, Odin’s favorite color.
Aaron was dressed in the same dark suit he had worn to his indictment, seventeen months earlier. As he had on that occasion, Aaron kept his composure and showed no emotion.
Everyone in attendance knew that the trial would be long, complex, and sensational. The British did not play American football, but British tabloids would cover the case closely. So would the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, and faraway media outlets in Hawaii, Alaska—even Fiji.
At Sports Illustrated, the in-house legal analyst, Michael McCann, geared up to file long, daily dispatches.
For the prosecutors, the stakes were remarkably high: Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter had signed up to prosecute the case himself. But just before Christmas, Sutter had been elected mayor of Fall River. Now, First Assistant District Attorney William McCauley would be leading the prosecution.
McCauley and Susan Garsh had clashed in the courtroom before.
In 2010, the assistant DA had prosecuted George Duarte, a New Bedford man who had shot and killed a fifteen-year-old boy. McCauley had won that case, but criticized Garsh for exhibiting “unnecessary, discourteous, and demeaning” words, tone, and behavior during the trial. But if there was no love lost between the judge and the DA, Garsh was bent on presiding over Aaron’s high-profile trial. When McCauley asked for another judge, citing the “well-known and publicly documented history of antagonism” between them, Garsh denied the motion.
She would also allow the case to be taped for broadcast, guaranteeing it an even more permanent place in the twenty-four-hour news cycle.
For Aaron Hernandez, the stakes could not be any higher: McCauley had charged him with murder in the first degree. If his lawyers, Michael Fee, James Sultan, and Charles Rankin, lost the case, Hernandez would be imprisoned for life automatically, without the possibility of parole.
But Hernandez was not the only person on trial.
The law enforcement officials who had investigated Odin Lloyd’s murder would find themselves under blinding public scrutiny. Whatever mistakes they had made would be held up for the whole world to see.
The NFL itself had entered a prolonged period of public scrutiny: accusations relating to armed robbery, kidnapping, forced imprisonment, and sexual assault (Keith Wright), dogfighting (Michael Vick), child abuse (Adrian Peterson), domestic violence (Ray Rice, Lawrence Phillips, Greg Hardy), drug trafficking (Travis Henry), DUI manslaughter (Josh Brent), conspiracy to commit murder (Rae Carruth), and murder-suicide (Jovan Belcher), were hitting the league on a regular basis.
In 2011, Dave Duerson, who had played for the Bears, Giants, and Cardinals, committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. His suicide note read, PLEASE, SEE THAT MY BRAIN IS GIVEN TO THE NFL’S BRAIN BANK.
In 2012, Junior Seau, who had played for the Patriots as recently as 2009, committed suicide in the same manner.
Seau, Duerson, and Belcher were all found to have been suffering from CTE—chronic traumatic encephalopathy—a degenerative brain disease caused by multiple blows to the head.
Other scandals had hit close to home in New England: Spygate. Deflategate was just over the horizon. If Bill Belichick had shown himself to be a coach who won, at any cost, it seemed fair to ask: What had the Patriots known about Aaron’s past when they drafted him? Had they turned a blind eye to the violent acts he’d committed while playing for the team?
The families of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado had already expanded their wrongful-death lawsuit against Aaron Hernandez to include the Patriots and the team’s owner, Robert Kraft Enterprises. What would a guilty verdict mean for that lawsuit? And if Aaron Hernandez was found to be not guilty, how would the verdict affect the millions of dollars still left on his contract, at the time of his termination from the team?
Aaron’s trial would fuel the feeling that the NFL was its own world, with its own rules—rules that had long since gone out of alignment with core American values.
Hernandez believed he could get away with anything, up to and including murder. He’d gotten away with so much, for so long. He’d been rewarded with fame and riches. A verdict of not guilty would also prove that his sense of impunity had been justified all along.
In effect, it would prove that organized football had encouraged a monster—or even created one.