Hernandez’s Fiancee Can’t Remember Where She Dumped Box

FALL RIVER, Mass. — Aaron Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins, drove her sister out of the courtroom in tears and caused prosecutors to question her honesty Monday during testimony in which she claimed to have no recollection of what she did with a box she removed from her home the day after Odin Lloyd’s body was found.

The sister, Shaneah Jenkins, was Lloyd’s girlfriend. She went to Jenkins and Hernandez’s North Attleborough home the day after the shooting to mourn her loss, and was there when the former New England Patriots tight end called his fiancee to tell her to get rid of a box in their basement. Shayanna Jenkins, who described herself as having played a “neutral role” that day, obliged. Police had approached Hernandez the previous night, after a jogger found Lloyd’s body in a nearby park.

Prosecutors want jurors to infer that the box contained the murder weapon, which was never recovered. When asked Monday about its contents, Jenkins testified that the box was open and contained several smaller boxes. Later in the day, while being questioned by one of Hernandez’s defense lawyers, she said she thought it contained marijuana. She estimated the item’s weight to be 25 to 40 pounds.

Bristol County Assistant District Attorney William McCauley expressed skepticism when Jenkins struggled to recall even vague details about the location of the dumpster in which she says she disposed of the box after finding it in the basement. Jenkins said she placed baby clothes on top of it to conceal what was inside, put it in a black trash bag to carry it out of the house, and borrowed her sister’s car for the trip. She could not remember where she went.

“How is it that you wouldn’t remember where you would place this item in this dumpster?” McCauley asked. “Is there anything that interferes with your ability to remember?”

“At that point I was nervous,” Jenkins said.

“What were you nervous about?” McCauley asked.

“There were a lot of things going on,” Jenkins said. “I had to play a neutral role as far as trying to comfort my sister. Everyone’s emotions were kind of on me and there was a form of breaking down at that point, so yeah, I was nervous.”

It was not the first time prosecutors have questioned Jenkins’ honesty. She faces a perjury charge, accused of lying to the grand jury that investigated the Lloyd slaying. Prosecutors gave her immunity to force her to testify at Hernandez’s murder trial. They have said, with the jury out of the room, that they hoped she would realize the penalties for perjury in a murder trial are far greater than those for perjury in grand jury testimony.

In much of her testimony at trial, Jenkins was more forthcoming than she was when she appeared before the grand jury in 2013. But she re-affirmed her previous statements that she could not remember where she tossed the box, nor could she recall any conversations she had with Hernandez about its contents and why it was important for her to remove it from the home that day.

“I found a random dumpster, I don’t remember where exactly it was located,” Jenkins testified.

“Do you know off what road it was?” McCauley asked.

“I don’t.”

“Do you know if it was a commercial area or residential area?”

“I believe residential. I’m not sure,” Jenkins said.

She said she put the box in a dumpster during a run to get diapers and baby formula for her daughter, who was about 8 months old at the time. On the same trip, she withdrew $800 from an ATM in Plainville. She testified Monday that she could not remember why she needed the money. The previous night, she took $500 out of an ATM to give to Bristol, Conn., resident Ernest Wallace, who also is charged in Lloyd’s murder. According to Jenkins’ testimony last week, Wallace had asked for more.

Jenkins said it was important for her to not be seen removing the box from the home, but said she “wasn’t necessarily hiding it from certain individuals.”

Defense lawyer Charlie Rankin raised an alternate theory Monday when it was his turn to question Jenkins. He asked her if she smelled anything when she took the box out of the house.

Jenkins described “a sort of skunky smell” that she recognized as marijuana.

“Did you have any thought as to what was in there?” Rankin asked.

“I did,” Jenkins said. “Marijuana.”

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Testimony from Jenkins and others at Hernandez’s murder trial has revealed that the former Patriots tight end was smoking marijuana on a weekly, even daily, basis in spring 2013. Both sides agree that he and the victim bonded over a shared interest in marijuana blunts.

Defense attorneys used Jenkins’ testimony to support their contention that although Hernandez was perhaps immature, he was not a murderer. Rankin asked Jenkins about her relationship with Hernandez, whom she has known since they were elementary school classmates in Bristol, Conn.

Prosecutors have put witnesses on the stand to testify about Hernandez’s infidelity, and Rankin on Monday established that the former Patriots tight end’s promiscuous behavior was something his fiancee had accepted.

Jenkins told jurors that her relationship with Hernandez began in middle school, when they used to talk on the phone, pass notes in class and go out to dinner. They went through a “rough patch” in high school, she said.

“He was a star. There were a lot of girls trying to get his attention,” Jenkins said. “We had some issues we had to work through throughout high school.”

It was not until 2011, in Hernandez’s first offseason, that they officially decided to become a couple. Jenkins told jurors how she uprooted her life for him, and moved to Massachusetts. She started crying on the stand when Rankin asked her about a “falling out” they had not long after over Hernandez’s infidelity.

They reconciled weeks later.

“I made a decision that if I was going to move back in with Aaron, I was going to have to kind of compromise on his behavior and that included infidelity and everything that came along with it,” Jenkins said.

McCauley grilled Jenkins about the behavior she tolerated – which included cheating and smoking marijuana in the house. He asked her if she tolerated Hernandez’s infidelity with their baby sitter, who testified earlier this month that the former Patriots tight end kissed her during a night out in Boston in June 2013.

“I mean, I guess,” Jenkins said. “It depends on your definition … my definition is intercourse.”

“Did you tolerate guns?” McCauley asked.

“No,” Jenkins said.

The prosecutor grilled her about a gun she said she found in the kitchen junk drawer in spring 2013. She has testified that Hernandez removed the gun from the home after she gave him a “stern look.”

“So you put your foot down as to certain things?” McCauley asked.

“Honestly, he’s a grown man,” Jenkins said. “I can’t tell a grown man what to do – that’s decisions that he has to make. I accepted the fact that he would grow up and mature within time.”

Under cross-examination by Rankin, Jenkins told the jury about the “profound sadness” Hernandez experienced in high school when his father died during routine surgery.

McCauley referenced that response in one of his final questions, which Bristol County Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh did not allow Jenkins to answer.

“Was that similar to the profound sadness you saw in your sister when Odin Lloyd was found dead?”