Aaron Hernandez Trial Day 3: Stirring testimony pits sister against sister

As Shaneah Jenkins sat in Aaron Hernandez's living room, just hours after learning her boyfriend Odin Lloyd had been found murdered, her sister Shayanna, Hernandez's fiancée, was acting "secretive" and "not normal."

Shayanna was fielding phone calls and responding with one-word answers, Shaneah Jenkins testified Tuesday in the trial against Hernandez who is charged with Lloyd's murder. At one point, Shaneah testified, Shayanna slipped down to the basement with a black plastic bag in her hand.

Moments later, Shaneah looked out a window and saw her sister in the backyard walking toward the house. Shortly thereafter, Shayanna came up the stairs, returned to the living room and asked to borrow Shaneah's car, something she'd never done before, because she needed to go to the bank.

Thirty minutes later, Shayanna returned.

In compelling yet circumstantial testimony Tuesday, the prosecution attempted to paint the jury a picture of a cover-up. No murder weapon has been discovered since Odin Lloyd was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds the morning of June 17, 2013. The prosecution's theory is that the murder weapon was discarded by Shayanna Jenkins.

The state presented video footage of Hernandez holding a gun inside his home minutes after Lloyd was murdered, but when police inspected the home a day later no gun was found.

The inference in Tuesday's testimony is that Shayanna Jenkins retrieved the gun from the basement, walked it outside without her sister seeing her do so, then used her sister's car to dispose of it.

It's all entirely circumstantial, and the defense will have no trouble poking holes in the prosecution's narrative. But even so, the jury might still buy it.

There's no question the case against Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star, will largely be built on circumstantial evidence. There are no witnesses to the killing, unless one of the two associates who were with Hernandez that night turn on him, and there is no murder weapon.

What the prosecution does have, though, is a mountain of circumstantial evidence:

• Video places Hernandez in a car with Lloyd on the night he was killed.

• Video shows Hernandez driving a with three passengers down the road where Lloyd was killed, to return with only two passengers.

• Hernandez's DNA on a joint found beside Lloyd's dead body.

• Hernandez's DNA on a bullet casing found inside the car he was driving.

Tuesday's testimony provided the first real grit in the case. Shaneah Jenkins had been dating Lloyd for over a year. She called him the morning of June 17, 2013, on her way to work, but got no answer. She tried him several more times that day but again got no answer.

That night she was awoken by a phone call from police. Odin, she was told, was dead.

To that point, Jenkins had remained composed on the stand. When describing the phone call, tears began streaming down her face. Still, her testimony kept on.

Early the next morning she left for Massachusetts from her home in Connecticut. She went to see Lloyd's family, then went to her sister's house in North Attelborough, Mass. She didn't see Hernandez at first, but an hour or so later saw him in the dining room where Hernandez, she testified, put his arm around her and said, "I've been through this death thing before. It gets easier."

At some point Hernandez left, she testified.

Throughout the morning her sister was getting phone calls that "were really short," and "she kept getting up and leaving."

Shaneah described her relationship with her sister as close. When asked by prosecutor William McCauley how her sister was acting that morning, Shaneah responded, "Not normal … secretive."

Shayanna Jenkins has been charged with perjury, with prosecutors alleging that she destroyed evidence. According to court documents, Shayanna Jenkins received on June 18 a cryptic text message from Hernandez that read:

"Go back in back of the screen in movie room when u get home an there is a box…jus in case u were looking for it!!! Member how you ruined the big tv Imao WAS JUST THINKIN bout that lol wink wink love u TTYL….K”

An hour after Shayanna received the text message, court documents state, home video shows her leaving the house with something "rigid" inside a black trash bag. That's when she borrowed her sister's car. When she returned, she no longer had the "rigid" item.

Shayanna Jenkins had been inside the court room when the trial began on Jan. 29. She was not present the following day when her sister took the stand and was absent again Tuesday when Shaneah's testimony resumed.

Tuesday's session, delayed when questions arose about a juror who was eventually dismissed, ended with Shaneah Jenkins still on the stand. She'll continue testimony on Wednesday.