BOSTON (AP) — A spilled drink prompted former New England Patriots tight end 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.
"I think I got one in the head and one in the chest," Hernandez said to a friend as they fled the scene in an SUV, prosecutors told the court at the former star's arraignment.
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. A third man was wounded.
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."
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.
