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Text messages a focal point in Aaron Hernandez trial

Updated Mar. 5, 2020 1:12 a.m. ET

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FALL RIVER, Mass. — Less than a week before Odin Lloyd’s murder, Aaron Hernandez sent text messages to an associate referring to a “clip” and using the phrase “I wanted to kill u.”

The context of each wasn’t clear, but the implication was: In the days before Lloyd was gunned down, Hernandez may have referred to an ammunition magazine for a semiautomatic weapon and used the word “kill” in a message to a longtime friend.

The messages were displayed on Hernandez’s BlackBerry cell phone and were shown to the jury on the 16th day of the former football star’s murder trial.

The two messages were sent from Hernandez’s phone to one belonging to Ernest Wallace Jr., one of two men allegedly with the former New England Patriots tight end early the morning of June 17, 2013, when Lloyd was killed.

The first message, sent at 2:45 p.m. on June 11, 2013, read: “U grab everything out of car … clip and cds and everything.”

The second, sent at 1:39 a.m. on June 13, 2013, read: “love u f*** I wanted to kill u but u know I love u hit me tomorrow get some rest and tell the rest I love them.”

Both text messages hit on earlier assertions made in court.

Prosecutors have alleged that Lloyd was killed with a .45-caliber Glock semiautomatic pistol. Such a weapon uses a magazine — commonly referred to as a “clip” — to feed ammunition into the firing chamber.

Defense attorneys have repeatedly stressed that Hernandez and Lloyd were friends. In his opening statement, defense attorney Michael Fee repeatedly referred to Lloyd as Hernandez’s “good friend.”

But Hernandez also had a longtime friendship with Wallace.

Those two texts, which had not previously been publicly disclosed, came near the end of the testimony that detailed numerous other messages that were long ago detailed in court documents.

Prosecutors allege that Hernandez summoned Wallace and another man, Carlos Ortiz, to his home in North Attleboro, Mass., at the same time he was communicating with Lloyd and arranging to meet him.

Much of that communication occurred through text messages — and they were being sent and received while Hernandez, his fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins, and four others were out to dinner at a Providence, R.I., nightclub to celebrate Father’s Day.

Ricardo Leal, a records custodian for Sprint, spent nearly two hours on the witness stand, testifying in great deal about the company’s records, which are captured when people make calls and send texts from cellular telephones.

Prosecutor Patrick Bomberg walked back and forth, showing the jury records that documented text messages and then displaying Hernandez’s phone to show the actual texts.

Initially, they confirmed texts that have already been detailed in court documents — specifically texts in which Hernandez told Wallace to travel from Bristol, Conn., to North Attleboro.

Bomberg then went back in time, showing texts between the two phones two days before the killing. One at 3:15 p.m. from Hernandez to Wallace read: “Time u gon b back my ninja.” One at 3:20 p.m. from Wallace to Hernandez that read: “I at.”

Then Bomberg went back to the phone records, which showed two more texts from Wallace to Hernandez between those two — one at 3:16 p.m. and one at 3:19 p.m.

But when Bomberg put the phone back on display, no texts for those times showed on the screen.

Bomberg asked Leal if he saw those texts that existed in the records.

“No I do not,” Leal said.

The implication was clear: Some texts between the phones of Hernandez and Wallace were deleted.

They are apparently unrecoverable. Leal testified that because of costs Sprint stopped archiving the actual content of text messages.

In addition to texts and calls, phone records are likely to play another major role in the prosecution’s case.

That’s because prosecutors are expected to introduce data captured from a number of cell phone transmission towers — data that they believe shows Hernandez’s movements in the hours leading up to the murder.

Hernandez faces one count of murder and two firearms charges in the slaying of Lloyd, who was gunned down in a secluded field used to store dirt, asphalt and gravel. Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-professional football player, was dating Shaneah Jenkins, the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée.

Prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez, Wallace and Lloyd allegedly headed to Boston early the morning of June 17, picked up Lloyd outside his home in the Dorchester neighborhood and returned to North Attleboro. According to court documents, Hernandez allegedly drove into the field at 3:23 a.m. There, Lloyd was shot multiple times a few minutes later, according to prosecutors.

Although prosecutors have not said who they believe fired the fatal shots, they have asserted that Hernandez “orchestrated” the killing. Ortiz and Wallace also have been indicted on murder charges but will be tried separately. The prosecution does not plan to call either as witnesses in the trial.

Under a Massachusetts law known as “joint venture,” a person can be convicted of murder even if someone else carried out the actual killing. To prove that, prosecutors would have to prove that the person knowingly participated in the killing and did so with intent.

Hernandez has separately been indicted on multiple murder and assault charges in a July 16, 2012, shooting in South Boston that left two men dead and another wounded.

In the Boston killings, prosecutors have alleged that Hernandez became enraged after a man bumped him on a nightclub dance floor, spilling his drink, and failed to apologize. They alleged that Hernandez later followed the man and his friends as they drove away from the club, then pulled up next to their car at a stoplight and opened fire with a .38-caliber revolver, killing Daniel De Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, and wounding another man.

That trial originally was scheduled to begin May 28, but the judge there indicated recently he would push it back given the anticipated length of the trial in the Lloyd case. No new trial date has been set.

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