FALL RIVER, Mass. — Aaron Hernandez once seemed to be a man with a bright future. At age 23 he had a Super Bowl appearance under his belt and a $40 million contract as a star tight end with the New England Patriots. He and his fiancee had started a family, living in a mansion in the Boston suburbs with their 8-month-old daughter.

This week, prosecutors will portray him as a killer who orchestrated the shooting of semiprofessional football player Odin Lloyd.

Hernandez was arrested days after Lloyd’s bullet-riddled body was found in an industrial park near his North Attleborough mansion. He has pleaded not guilty and, after more than two weeks of jury selection, his trial is expected to kick off in earnest this week with opening statements.

The case will be laid out in the courtroom just as Hernandez’s old team prepares for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Patriots’ first appearance since 2012, when Hernandez caught a touchdown pass in Super Bowl XLVI. The Patriots cut him less than two hours after he was arrested.

Hernandez, now 25, is also charged with killing two men in Boston in 2012 after one of them spilled a drink on him at a nightclub. He pleaded not guilty after being charged in those shootings in May, and the case has not yet gone to trial.

Lloyd, 27, played for the Boston Bandits football team and was dating the sister of Shayanna Jenkins, Hernandez’s fiancee. Prosecutors say he and Hernandez were friendly and had been at a nightclub together a couple of days before he was killed.

Christopher Dearborn, a professor at Suffolk University Law School, says that while the Bristol County District Attorney’s office has a lot of circumstantial evidence, its challenge is to offer a motive to jurors.


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