Victim Identified in the Homicide Investigation Involving Aaron Hernandez

Oh also, Hernandez is being sued for allegedly shooting someone in the face.

The victim in a homicide investigation that involved Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was identified Wednesday as Odin Lloyd, 27, of Dorchester, according to WBZ News. Lloyd dated the sister of Hernandez’s girlfriend, a neighbor tells WBZ, and he played for the semi-pro football team the Boston Bandits.

The Bandits posted a Facebook status acknowledging “the 30 Bandits that practiced and/or came through last night despite the rain and saddness associated to the field where most of us last all saw Odin.”

Police have questioned Hernandez and searched his home since Monday when a jogger found Lloyd’s body in an industrial park near where Hernandez lives in North Attleboro. A rented car near the crime scene was reportedly registered to Hernandez. Since then media and law enforcement have swarmed his home, though the player has yet to comment, and news reports vary between describing him as “not a suspect” and “not ruled out as a suspect,” two ways of describing essentially the same status, but with fairly different implications. Despite the ambiguity of Hernandez’s relationship to the investigation, the media is already looking into Hernandez’s not-exactly-pristine past. According to Sports Illustrated, Hernandez ran with a rough crowd in his home of Bristol, Connecticut, and he failed several drug tests for marijuana in college, which hurt his draft prospects.

Making matters still worse for Hernandez, news broke Wednesday that a man has filed a lawsuit alleging that Hernandez shot him in the face with an illegal firearm while driving from Miami to Palm Beach because the two had apparently gotten into an argument at a strip club called “Tootsies,” resulting in the plaintiff losing his eye.  Let’s all close our eyes and imagine the face Bill Belichick made upon hearing that news:

bill

Okay so that’s kind of his default face, but still, that’s not the mug of a happy man. It’s not a great week when a lawsuit alleging your player shot someone in the face isn’t the most newsworthy thing about your player that week. Yikes.