BOSTON (WHDH) - Two men who survived a double shooting in Boston’s South End in 2012 took the stand Wednesday in the Aaron Hernandez murder trial, recalling the moment his friends were murdered.
Aquilino Freire told the court that he was in the car on the night on July 16, when Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado were allegedly shot dead by Hernandez, who was riding in an SUV.
Hernandez is accused of opening fire on the men outside the Cure Nightclub after he allegedly became enraged over “a simple bump, a spilled drink and an exchange of looks.”
Freire said he was struck by the hail of gunfire, but that it was his friends who didn’t survive the attack.
“He was dying and I was just trying to talk to him,” Freire said of one of the victims. “He was trying to say something, but he didn’t.” The second witness, Raychides Sanches, said he tried talking to de Abreu and told him help was coming, but de Abreu died in his hands.
Multiple witnesses have been called to the stand in the trial, including a sweet sweeper and a man who heard the shots ring out.
Defense attorneys contend Hernandez’s friend Alexander Bradley was the one who shot the men over a drug deal gone bad. Sanches said he saw no drug deals going on that night and said he and his friends did not do drugs.
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