Jenkins standing by her man, even after murder
For Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, love once meant never having to ask Aaron Hernandez, the father of her daughter, questions like:
What’s this gun doing in the junk drawer of our custom kitchen?
Or: How did your best friend, Alexander Bradley, wind up getting shot in the face when he was with you in Florida?
Yesterday, for the second time in as many years, the woman who is not married to the Patriots’ dark angel, but has taken title of his name anyway, found herself testifying in another of his murder trials.
Shayanna never lost her composure under direct questioning from A.D.A. Patrick Haggan, but she did offer a few haunting glimpses at the compromises people make for fame, money and love.
She told Haggan that being pregnant with his child did not stop Hernandez from going to nightclubs and often not coming home. Asked how she felt about that, Shayanna replied.
“No, it’s not normal, but it happened,” she said, with a rueful smile lighting her face.
When Haggan asked her thoughts on that moment “when your life was about to change,” when Hernandez signed his $40 million deal with the Patriots, Shayanna turned coy.
“In all honesty,” she said, “I didn’t know the number. To me, it meant he was becoming an official NFL athlete.”
Haggan then asked Shayanna if she had spoken to Aaron about the Florida trip he took with his best friend and marijuana supplier, Alexander “Sherrod” Bradley.
The jury has already heard Bradley testify he was Hernandez’s wingman on the night Safiro Furtado and Daniel de Abreu were shot to death in the South End in July 2012. He also fingered the Pats’ $40 million man as the assassin who shot both men over a spilled drink inside The Cure nightclub.
And it was Hernandez, Bradley said, who tried to execute him in Florida by firing point-blank into his head. He lost a right eye, but not his life or his memory.
Shayanna told Haggan she tried to ask Hernandez what happened to his best friend, but she also added, “I learned to keep my mouth shut in certain situations. I played my role.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“There are some things that are worth arguing about,” she said, “and there are some things that aren’t. Sherrod wasn’t my friend.”
Shayanna told the jury, “I was kind to everyone who came into our home,” adding that, “when he was in the man cave, I was upstairs taking care of my child. I had more important things to worry about.”
As for that gun she found in the kitchen drawer, Shayanna told the jury she flashed her lover “the look” but never bothered to ask about it again.