Shayanna Jenkins, the fiancée of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, returned to the witness stand Monday in his murder trial, picking up where she left off last week, talking about a box she got rid of the day after Hernandez' alleged victim was killed.
Jenkins told the jury Monday that Hernandez called her at home and asked her to remove a large box from their basement. She said she did, putting the box in a black plastic bag, loading it into a borrowed car and dropping it in a Dumpster. She said she didn't look inside the box, or learn what was in it. She also couldn't recall where the Dumpster was.
Prosecutors have said the box may have held evidence or the murder weapon, which was never found. Jenkins' sister was dating the victim, Odin Lloyd, at the time of his 2013 death.
But under questioning from A defense lawyer, Jenkins said she thought the box smelled "skunky," like marijuana.
Her testimony contradicted in part what she told a grand jury that investigated the killing, saying then that no one told her to remove the box and that it wasn't important to her to do it. She said then that she did not remember where she threw it away. She was charged with perjury for that testimony and has pleaded not guilty.
Jenkins, Hernandez' high school sweetheart and the mother of his 2-year-old daughter, was compelled to testify under a grant of immunity.
On Monday, Jenkins said she was unable to remember many details about that day because she was preoccupied with Lloyd's death and consoling her sister. "There was a form of breaking down at that point," she said.
Her testimony was similarly spotty on Friday, where she paused for long periods before answering and frequently said she could not remember details of the time surrounding Lloyd's killing.
But she also said that after she dropped Hernandez off at a police station to be questioned about Lloyd's death, Hernandez asked her to meet one of his co-defendants, Ernest Wallace, and to give him money. She said she drove to Rhode Island and gave him $500, the maximum she could withdraw from the ATM in the early morning hours of June 18, 2013.
Shayanna Jenkins also testified about what happened after Hernandez came back from his visit to police.
"I believe I asked him at that point if he did, did it, and he said no," she said.
