Former National Football League star Aaron Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for murdering an acquaintance in an industrial park near his Massachusetts home, concluding the first of two murder trials he faces this year.
A Massachusetts jury found Hernandez, 25, guilty of first-degree murder in the June 2013 slaying of Odin Lloyd, who had been dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancée at the time. During the trial in Bristol County Superior Court in Fall River, the two men were described as having been in the early stages of friendship, but Hernandez soured on Lloyd after he hung out with people the former New England Patriots tight end disliked.
After the jury announced the verdict, Massachusetts Superior Court Associate Justice Susan Garsh sentenced Hernandez to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the mandatory punishment for first-degree murder in the state.