Aaron Hernandez identified as the shooter by survivor of 2012 double homicide
A man who survived a drive-by shooting in Boston that left two of his friends dead identified Aaron Hernandez as the shooter on Tuesday at a pretrial hearing.
The 2012 shooting occurred at a traffic light late at night in the South End. Raychides Sanches was riding with Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado after the men had left a nightclub. Surveillance video showed an SUV pulling up next to their car and a shooter opening fire, killing Furtado and de Abreu. Sanches, who was unharmed, said someone in the SUV shouted "What's up, (racial expletive)?" before the shots were fired.
Asked whom the shooter was, Sanches nodded in the direction of Hernandez in Suffolk Superior Court, the Boston Herald reported. "Looked like him," he said. "Hernandez."
Hernandez had been at the nightclub as well, surveillance video showed, and prosecutors say he was angered when one of the men bumped into him without apologizing. Hernandez and a friend left the club, returned to their SUV and then waited for the men, prosecutors claim.
"There was panic, screaming, crying, crazy...I saw my friends die quickly," Sanches said.
Hernandez is charged with two counts of murder and has pleaded not guilty. The trial is set to begin Feb. 13. The former New England Patriots star was convicted in the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd and is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
