Defense: Hernandez witnessed shooting

Associated Press

FALL RIVER, Mass.

Jurors began deliberating Tuesday in the murder trial of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez after his lawyer acknowledged for the first time that his client was at the scene of the killing and saw it happen but described him as a kid who simply did not know what to do.

“Did he make all the right decisions? No,” lawyer James Sultan said during his closing arguments. “He was a 23-year-old kid who witnessed something, a shocking killing, committed by somebody he knew. He really didn’t know what to do, so he just put one foot in front of the other.”

Hernandez is charged in the June 17, 2013, death of Odin Lloyd, 27, who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee. Lloyd was shot six times in an industrial park less than a mile from Hernandez’s home. At the time, the star tight end had a $40 million contract with the Patriots.

Sultan pinned the killing on Hernandez’s co-defendants, his friends Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz. Both men have pleaded not guilty and will be tried later.

But Assistant District Attorney William McCauley told jurors the evidence showed that Hernandez was the gunman, that he had a plan to kill Lloyd and that he drove Lloyd to his death in a deserted place in an undeveloped part of the industrial park.

He said Hernandez’s behavior after the crime also showed that he was involved.

Jurors deliberated for a little more than an hour Tuesday before being sent home for the day. They were scheduled to resume work this morning.