“He was out in Connecticut, working for the electric company,” the coach recalls. “They put him up at a hotel, she worked at the hotel, and he liked her, so he kept working and working. He kept going down to her shift and talking to her. I knew that he was getting hooked because I’d be like, ‘Yo, we’ve got a game. We need you. I need you this week.’ But he would tell me that he couldn’t make it.”
Now, in Jamaica Plain, Branch watched Lloyd greet his friend Darryl Hodge—a running back who ran like a track star and treated Odin like a brother. The two of them had planned on hanging out after the scrimmage and watching game five of the NBA finals. But Odin’s boss had called to say that he would be needed early in the morning. They got barbecue with the rest of the Bandits instead, with Odin dropping Darryl off afterward in the SUV, which Aaron Hernandez had rented and loaned to him.
Just as he was pulling up in front of Darryl’s home, at around nine in the evening, Lloyd received a text from Hernandez.
Earlier that day, Aaron had gotten a text from Brian Murphy: They are voluntarily withdrawing lawsuit so we can engage in settlement talks without this getting to the media, the agent had written. Huge win for us. Call me.
Murphy had informed Bradley’s lawyer that, if he did file the lawsuit, Hernandez would have no incentive to settle. Aaron “had clearly not done what was being claimed,” the agent says, “but the negative publicity was not welcome. We may have been willing to pay a small price to avoid that.”
According to Murphy, the lawyer wanted to settle, and agreed to withdraw the suit. It’s also possible that the lawsuit was withdrawn due to a filing error. Whatever the case was, Murphy was happy to pass along the news.
But if Aaron had managed to escape at least one of the traps that Bradley had laid for him, he was about to get himself into far more trouble over Odin Lloyd.
I’m coming to grab that tonight, Aaron told Odin. u gon b around I need dat and we could step for a little again.
Odin looked at the text and told Darryl that they’d catch up soon.
But the next time that Darryl would see Odin’s face, it would be on the news.
Chapter 53
Two minutes after texting Odin Lloyd, Hernandez texted Bo Wallace: Please make it back CuZ, I’m Def trying to step for alittle.
Then Aaron texted Odin again: Whaddup.
Aite where, Odin replied.
Idk it don’t matter but imam hit you when I’m dat way like Las time if my phone dies imma hit u when I charge it which will be in a lil.
One minute later, Aaron texted Wallace again: Get ur ass up here, he wrote.
Wallace and Carlos Ortiz were at Tanya Singleton’s house in Bristol, a hundred miles southwest of North Attleboro. Aaron told them to hurry, but they were still driving at midnight, when Lloyd texted Hernandez again.
We still on? Odin asked.
Surveillance footage from the security system at Aaron’s house shows Wallace and Ortiz arriving at Hernandez’s house eight minutes later. Aaron’s nanny, Jennifer, lets them in and they go down to the basement to wait for Aaron’s arrival.
Twenty minutes later, Shayanna’s Audi Q7 pulls up and Aaron and Shayanna get out. Bo and Carlos walk outside to greet them, then the four of them go back inside. In the living room, surveillance cameras capture Hernandez passing a gun from one hand to the other before he accompanies Wallace and Ortiz back to the basement. A little while later, they head back upstairs, go outside, and climb into a Nissan Altima Aaron had rented.
Over the course of the next hour, Lloyd got five calls from Wallace’s cell phone. Then, at two thirty in the morning, Hernandez picked Odin up at the Dorchester home he shared with his mother and sisters.
One of those sisters—Shaquilla—was sitting in a car down the street when Hernandez pulled up. She watched Odin get into the Altima. A half hour later, he sent her a text: U saw who I’m with, Odin had written.
A law enforcement official familiar with the case says that, after picking Odin up, Aaron blew through tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike and fired a Glock .45 at road signs they passed.
The official also believes that Hernandez hit a traffic cone on the turnpike, broke off his driver’s side mirror, and kept driving.
Inside the Altima, Odin kept checking his cell phone. It had been ten minutes since he’d texted Shaquilla. Ten minutes and no response.
Odin sent another text: hello.
Eight minutes later, Shaquilla finally replied: my phone was dead who was that?
Lloyd responded: Nfl.
Lol you’re aggy, Shaquilla wrote back—cell-phone shorthand for “aggravated.” But inside the Altima, the mood had turned.
One minute later, Odin sent Shaquilla one more text: just so you know, he wrote.
After that, there were no more messages.
Chapter 54
Odin Lloyd’s mother, Ursula Ward, had gone to church—the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, in Mattapan—on Sunday morning. Afterward, Odin pulled up at the house to wish her a happy Father’s Day.
“Mom,” he said. “You look so beautiful today. I love those colors on you.”
Ursula was wearing earth colors: A dirt-brown top along with a brown skirt that had yellow, green, and gold “entwined into the whole.”
“I wore the same outfit at his funeral,” Ursula says. “I know he loved to see me in it.”
Ursula had raised Odin by herself, in Saint Croix and Massachusetts, where she worked as an aide in a senior citizens’ home. “He was one of those kids,” she says now. “His smile alone would brighten your life.”
In 2011, Ursula Ward lost her job. By the summer of 2013, she had used up her unemployment and was paying her mortgage by dipping into her 401K. “It was a struggle,” she says. “A really right struggle.” But Ursula was a strong woman. She had gone back to school. Her church and her children gave her life meaning. Odin—Ursula’s only son—was her pride and joy.
Ever since Odin had met Shaneah Jenkins, he had been happy and full of purpose.
“Mom,” Odin would tell her. “She’s the one, Mom. I’m really serious with her. She’s going to be my future wife.”
Afterward, Ursula says, she grew to love Shaneah “like she’s my child.”
On his way out of the house that Sunday, Odin had told his mother that he was on his way to a scrimmage. “Mom, you know I love you,” he said.
At nine thirty on Monday evening, a call from Trooper Eric Benson came through.
“Ms. Ward,” Benson said.
“Yes?”
“Do you know Odin Lloyd?”
“Yeah. That’s my son.”
“Okay, ma’am. I’m sending two detectives, and probably two detectives from Boston Police, to your house.”
Ursula did not allow herself think, immediately, that anything had happened to Odin. But then her daughter Olivia started to cry.
“Why are you crying?” Ursula said.
“Mom, they don’t just send the police to your house for nothing,” Olivia said.
“What do you mean?”
“Mom,” Olivia said. “I watch enough CSI.”
“She kept saying these things,” Ursula recalls. “Well, I am not going to think anything bad. Maybe my son is in a hospital. Maybe he needs blood. That’s why they’re coming over here. She’s like, ‘No, mom.’ I say, ‘Take the negative thing and get out of my room, please.’ She walked out of the room, and went into her room, and started crying. I was already in my pajamas, so I got up and put on some clothes. At about ten thirty, they arrive at the house.
“I don’t remember who answered the door. But I remember it was four officers that came up the stairs. One asked me a bunch of questions. I said, ‘Listen. I am not answering any more questions until you all tell me what is going on with my son.’ One said to me, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but your son was shot and killed.’