Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez has been convicted of first degree murder in the shooting death of Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player who had been dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancée. The conviction was far from the end of Hernandez's legal battles.
He still has to stand trial in a 2012 double-murder in Boston in which he stands accused of firing into a car at a red light, killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado after they spilled a drink on him and failed to apologize. Hernandez is also facing a wrongful death suit filed by Ursula Ward, the mother of Lloyd.
Lawyer Douglas Sheff said, "She wants to ask what happened. Very simple: 'What happened?' And the next question: 'Why?'" Sheff also plans on calling on Hernandez to testify in the wrongful death suit. During his 77-day criminal trial Hernandez never took the stand, and a motive was never actually established for the shooting.
Per the Associated Press, Sheff is in the process of figuring out what Hernandez has left. His North Attleborough home, which his fiancée Shayanna Jenkins and the couple's daughter still live in, is worth $1.2 million. Another of Ward's lawyers said Hernandez had been paid $9.2 million of the $40 million contract he'd signed shortly before his arrest. There is a pending grievance from the NFL Players Association on behalf of Hernandez to get an additional $6.2 million.
Following the guilty verdict rendered in the criminal trial, Ward made a statement regarding her son's death.
"The day I learned my son was shot and killed, I thought my life ended with his. I always wished I was there to take those bullets for Odin."
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