Prosecutor: Spilled drink in club led ex-US football star Aaron Hernandez to kill 2 in 2012

BOSTON – A spilled drink prompted former football star Aaron Hernandez to stalk the stranger who had accidentally bumped into him at a Boston nightclub then open fire on his car, killing him and a second man, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Hernandez, already charged with killing another man last year, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to seven charges — including two counts of first-degree murder — in the 2012 shooting that killed Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, recent immigrants of Cape Verde. A third man was wounded.

“I think I got one in the head and one in the chest,” Hernandez said to a friend as they fled the scene in a sport utility vehicle, prosecutors told the court at the former star’s arraignment.

In the months before the killings, Suffolk County First Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan said Hernandez had become increasingly convinced that people “had been testing, trying or otherwise disrespecting him when he frequented nightclubs in the area.”

De Abreu and Furtado were shot about six weeks before Hernandez signed a five-year, $40 million contract with the New England Patriots, the team he starred for during his brief NFL career.

Hernandez, 24, was released by the Patriots last summer after he was charged in the June 17 killing of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd, who was dating a sister of Hernandez’s fiancee. Lloyd’s body was found in an industrial area near Hernandez’s home in Massachusetts.

The night de Abreu and Furtado were killed, Haggan said Hernandez and a friend drove from Connecticut to Boston to go to a nightclub called Cure. They were standing at the edge of the dance floor when de Abreu accidentally bumped into Hernandez, smiled at him and did not apologize, according to prosecutors. Haggan said de Abreu and his friends did not appear to recognize Hernandez and had no idea he was upset.

Hernandez became increasingly agitated and told his friend that de Abreu had deliberately bumped into him and “was trying him,” Haggan said.

Surveillance video outside the club shows Hernandez pacing back and forth on the sidewalk as his friend tried to calm him down, Haggan said. Hernandez and his friend then crossed the street to another nightclub, where Hernandez thought he saw de Abreu and his friends come in, according to Haggan.

Hernandez then told his friend he believed he was “being targeted and being disrespected,” according to Haggan. In fact, de Abreu and his friends had not left the other club.

Haggan said Hernandez later drove around with his friend until he saw de Abreu, Furtado and others going to their car. He followed them and pulled up alongside their car at a red light.

“At this time, the victims were completely unaware there was any problem with the defendant,” Haggan said.

Hernandez leaned out the driver’s side, said “Yo, what’s up now,” followed by a racial slur, then fired at least five shots into the car, killing de Abreu and Furtado, and injuring a man sitting in the back seat, Haggan said.

Hernandez’s attorney, Charles Rankin, objected, saying the prosecutor’s account of the shooting was an attempt to poison the jury pool. Clerk Magistrate Gary Wilson dismissed the objection, saying it is standard procedure for prosecutors to describe evidence during arraignments in murder cases.

Family members of the victims filled four rows in the courtroom. One woman sobbed loudly as Hernandez entered his not guilty pleas.