Hernandez was indicted

On May 15, 2014, Hernandez was indicted on murder charges for the killings of de Abreu and Furtado, with additional charges of armed assault and attempted murder associated with shots fired at the surviving occupants in the vehicle. The trial began on March 1, 2017. The prosecution case was strongly based on testimony by Bradley, a known drug dealer who had been feuding with Hernandez since the NFL player allegedly shot him in the face and left him to die. Hernandez and Bradley each claimed the other person pulled the trigger. Jose Baez, Hernandez's attorney, argued that the proposed motive was implausible, and Hernandez was a suspect of convenience to close two unsolved murders. Bradley alleged that Hernandez was angered after the victims spilled a drink on him at a nightclub several hours before the shooting and killed them in retaliation. Security camera footage confirmed Hernandez was in the club for less than ten minutes. In that time he calmly posed for a photo with a fan and left by himself — contradicting Bradley's testimony that he departed with Hernandez. Furthermore, Baez characterized the police investigation as extraordinarily sloppy (e.g., the victims' bodies were kept in their bullet-riddled vehicle as it was towed away from the shooting scene, a major protocol violation) with no physical evidence tying Hernandez to the murders.