Prosecutors are turning up the heat on Shayanna Jenkins, Aaron Hernandez's fiancée. In a filing, they list more than a dozen instances of evidence contradicting Jenkins's testimony to a grand jury in the murder case against Hernandez.
The most crucial discrepancy deals with Jenkins's disposal of a box of evidence, which investigators have strongly implied contained a handgun used to murder Odin Lloyd. Here's how a separate court filing from last year described it.
According to the records, June 18 footage from the home shows Shayanna Jenkins leaving the basement of the house around 1:15 p.m., carrying a trash bag, which authorities say contains a heavy "rigid object," resembling a lock box or safe. She placed the trash bag in the trunk of a red Nissan Sentra. Surveillance footage showed her returning 35 minutes later and opening the trunk of the car, which no longer held the trash bag and "rigid object," the records show.
Carlos Ortiz, one of the suspects charged in connection with the case, has told police that shortly after the shooting, Hernandez stashed two guns in a box in the basement.
The footage referred to in the documents shows Shayanna driving the Nissan toward Landry Avenue, where police the next day found a .22-caliber handgun. The gun, authorities said, looked like it may have been "recently discarded."
Prosecutors have indicated they believe it to be the same gun that Ernest Wallace, also charged in the case, and Ortiz were both seen carrying the night of the crime — a weapon Ortiz described as a "deuce deuce." Hernandez, meanwhile, was captured on surveillance footage carrying a larger handgun, which prosecutors say is the .45-caliber Glock pistol used to kill Lloyd.
Jenkins was charged with perjury last year. At her arraignment last month, a prosecutor laid out how she had answered questions regarding that box before the grand jury.
"She was asked what she did to the item that Mr. Hernandez instructed her to get rid of; she repeatedly told the grand jury that she couldn't remember, she didn't know, she'd thrown it in a dumpster, and she couldn't tell anybody where it was."
In yesterday's filing, the prosecution says it has direct evidence that will prove Jenkins lied about "how, why and the manner in which she removed the items from the home."
So what's the point of this? Almost assuredly, it's to put pressure on Jenkins with her looming trial for perjury, a charge to which she has pleaded not guilty. Prosectors don't want her, but they do want her to provide testimony that would help convict Hernandez.
We now have a tentative date for the beginning of Hernandez's (first) murder trial: Monday, Jan. 5, 2015. The judge has been seeking a postponement to the start of the trial, originally scheduled for October, and today Hernandez's attorneys have agreed, suggesting the Jan. 5 date. Which would put his trial smack dab in the middle of the NFL playoffs. Which would be the perfect timing to get a look at 33 pages of Bill Belichick's text messages.