Aaron Hernandez, upbeat murder defendant

FALL RIVER, Mass. – Aaron Hernandez, bright-eyed and sharply dressed, came bouncing into the fifth-floor courtroom here Wednesday, just before 9 a.m., wearing a soft smile, like he does almost every morning of his now 6-week-old murder trial.

 

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Aaron Hernandez consults his attorney during his murder trial. (REUTERS)
Aaron Hernandez consults his attorney during his murder trial. (REUTERS)

Aaron Hernandez consults his attorney during his murder trial. (REUTERS)

He was confronted with an empty front row of seats. The realization that not one family member or friend came to support him (the second time it's happened this week alone) didn't outwardly faze him, though. His expression never changed as he instead locked eyes on the small cluster of media and offered a welcoming grin, a nod of hello and a "good morning."

He remained engaged, upbeat and active across another day of plodding, powder dry testimony – finger-print analysis, tire-tread-mark comparison and mitochondrial DNA defining.

At the end of hours of evidence piling up against him, he stood casually and shared a big back slap with one of his attorneys, James Sultan, as he strolled out (albeit under the escort of multiple court officers) with a carefree step.

Almost everyone else here – lawyers, jurists, court employees – look exhausted. Jury selection started way back in early January and there is no end to the trial in sight. Worse, these are the dull, churning days of a murder case, a long way from Hollywood fireworks.

Yet there each day is Hernandez, his hair cut high and tight, looking clean and fit in a nice suit. He sports no bags of sleeplessness under his eyes. There is no hint of nerves in his demeanor. He looks cheerful and content, eager for what's to come.

[Related: Aaron Hernandez avoids major defeat in trial]

He was probably never the type to brood and cry all day, although some men fighting for their freedom or coming to the realizations of their wickedness do just that.

Yet who foresaw this? Aaron Hernandez, the upbeat murder defendant.

He barely reacts even when the prosecution alleges awful things about him: that he orchestrated the violent murder of his buddy Odin Lloyd in the middle of the night behind an industrial park. Or when they bring up the time he allegedly shot another friend, Alexander Bradley, right between the eyes and then left him to die on the side of a Florida road because he was too cheap to properly split a bar tab at a strip club.

No anger at the accusation. No head shaking for the jury. No disgust at what's being said.

Hold up the sweatshirt Lloyd wore when he was murdered, the one riddled with 11 bullet holes (as was dramatically done Wednesday), and Hernandez just looks on pleasantly, outwardly unmoved.

Who the heck knows what's running through his mind?

He's 25 years old and once seemingly had it all – fame, money, friends, family. He spent his final days of freedom drinking, smoking pot, hitting up night clubs and hanging out in the man cave he built in the basement of his Massachusetts' McMansion, complete with theater room, bar and New England Patriots-logoed pool table.

Then in an instant it was over, a life lived at warp speed traded for protective custody at the Bristol Country House of Corrections, where he spends 21 hours a day isolated in a 10-by-7 foot cell with a bunk, a toilet, a metal desk and no electronics of any kind.

He even adjusted to that strangely well, showing no signs of distress when he was first jailed in June of 2013.

"Others would perhaps be devastated, withdrawn, have very difficult times," Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson told the Washington Post at the time. Hernandez "didn't seem at all nervous, which surprised me a little bit."

Well, nothing seems to have changed.

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He's facing life in prison for orchestrating the 2013 murder of Lloyd, and the case isn't exactly rolling in his favor. And even if he somehow beats this rap, prosecutors up in Boston are waiting to try him for two homicides in a 2012 drive-by outside a South End nightclub they say started because someone spilled a drink on him. That case appears even stronger than this one.

Aside from a minor victory on Wednesday keeping a prior incident out of this trial, not much else is going well. His high-profile legal team is almost assuredly going to test the depths of his monetary reserves from his NFL days.

His girlfriend Shayanna Jenkins – the mother of his young daughter – apparently is sticking with him, but he is charged with murdering her own sister's boyfriend and Jenkins has an immunity deal on the table from the Commonwealth to testify against him. Besides, she only comes to court sometimes; he always mouths, "I love you" to her.

You'd expect some anguish or at least a hint of hopelessness, or nervousness, or something.

 

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Forensic scientist Sherri Menendez holds up a shirt recovered from from the body of Odin Lloyd. (REUTERS)
Forensic scientist Sherri Menendez holds up a shirt recovered from from the body of Odin Lloyd. (REUTERS)

Forensic scientist Sherri Menendez holds up a shirt recovered from from the body of Odin Lloyd. (REUTERS)

Not for Hernandez apparently. On Tuesday morning, when an aunt and uncle came, he chatted them up during breaks, casually asking about other relatives, telling them to send his best, like this was just a family picnic or something.

Maybe it's a sign of being a sociopath. Maybe this is the personality needed to live a double life of alleged killer and football star.

Maybe it's just that after 20 months of what is essentially solitary confinement, anything – literally anything – seems fun.

After all, he gets out of his cell, takes a round-trip ride into this old mill town, steals a few gulps of fresh air and then spends the day surrounded by bright lights and other people. There is lively dialogue, lawyers who share notes and strategy with him, the vision of females and the possibility that someone, anyone, might smile back at him. There is civility.

Then there's lunch. The court pays $4.60 per meal for a subcontractor to deliver something to eat to the generally 40 or so people on trial or dealing with arraignment each day. Each meal features six ounces of off-brand cola and a seven-inch sub of bologna, ham, tuna or chicken salad.

That's it. It's pretty bleak unless you're used to jail food or perhaps understand you are facing a lifetime of whatever a prison kitchen is going to concoct. Court officers said Hernandez is enthusiastic about lunch.

Which sandwich does he like most?

"He loves all of them," one said.

Of course he does. He seems to be enjoying everything.

Hours of brutally boring testimony that, say, painstakingly matches cell phone calls with cell phone towers? The slow realization that you kicked away a dream life and young family just so you could play street punk? Not being able to avoid the vision of your victim's heartbroken family, sobbing in pain? A prosecution labeling you the scum of the earth as they tighten the evidential noose in an effort to send you away for ever and ever?

Hey, no need to sulk; bring on tomorrow, another apparently bright, exciting day starring Aaron Hernandez in his very own murder trial.