It was July 2012. Two men were sitting in a BMW at a stoplight in Boston's South End. They’d just finished a night out at Cure Lounge. They were young, working-class guys from the Cape Verdean community. Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado had no idea that a chance encounter inside a club—a spilled drink, a bumped shoulder—was about to end their lives.
The shooter wasn't a career criminal from the neighborhood. It was Aaron Hernandez. He was the star tight end for the New England Patriots. He had a $40 million contract. He had a baby on the way. And yet, according to the prosecution's narrative that eventually gripped the nation, he opened fire on that car because he felt "disrespected."
The Night Everything Changed for Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado
Boston nights in the summer are usually loud. Music, traffic, people shouting. But the silence after the gunshots at the corner of Shawmut Avenue and Herald Street was heavy.
Daniel de Abreu was 28. Safiro Furtado was 29. They worked for a cleaning company. They weren't looking for trouble. They were just out. Earlier that night, inside the club, witnesses and investigators suggested that de Abreu accidentally bumped into Hernandez. A drink was spilled. To most people, that's a "my bad" moment. For Hernandez, it was apparently a declaration of war.
People often ask why this case took so long to surface. Honestly, it’s because Hernandez was a god in New England at the time. He played a full season after these murders. He caught passes from Tom Brady. He went to the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the families of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado were grieving in silence, with no lead on who had killed their sons in a drive-by shooting that seemed totally random.
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The Investigation's Slow Burn
The police were stuck. They had a silver SUV with Rhode Island plates on surveillance, but the trail went cold. It stayed cold until the Odin Lloyd murder happened in June 2013. When Hernandez was arrested for Lloyd's death, a tip came in about a dusty silver Toyota 4Runner sitting in a garage in Bristol, Connecticut.
That SUV was the missing piece.
Investigators found it at the home of Hernandez’s uncle. It had been sitting there for a year. This discovery linked the NFL star to the 2012 double homicide. It turned a tragic "unsolved mystery" into one of the most high-profile trials in Massachusetts history.
The Trial and the Alexander Bradley Factor
The 2017 trial was a circus. You had Jose Baez—the guy who defended Casey Anthony—representing Hernandez. The star witness was Alexander Bradley. Bradley was Hernandez's former friend, a guy who claimed he was in the passenger seat when Hernandez pulled the trigger on Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
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Bradley’s testimony was harrowing. He described Hernandez becoming obsessed with the "disrespect" from the club. He told the jury how Hernandez followed the BMW, pulled up alongside it, and shouted, "Yo, what's up now?" before firing.
But the defense was ruthless. Baez basically dismantled Bradley’s credibility. He pointed to the fact that Bradley was a drug dealer. He pointed to a lawsuit Bradley had filed against Hernandez after Hernandez allegedly shot him in the face in Florida. The defense argued that Bradley was the one who pulled the trigger over a drug deal gone wrong.
In the end, the jury didn't buy the prosecution's version of events beyond a reasonable doubt for the murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. Hernandez was acquitted of the killings in April 2017.
He was already serving life without parole for the Odin Lloyd case, so he wasn't going anywhere. But for the families of the victims, the "not guilty" verdict was a crushing blow.
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Why This Case Still Haunts Us
If you look at the evidence today—the ballistics, the car, the timeline—it’s hard to reconcile the acquittal with the facts. But trials aren't always about what happened; they're about what you can prove in a courtroom.
Five days after he was acquitted of killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, Aaron Hernandez took his own life in his prison cell.
The Aftermath for the Families
The legal battle didn't end with the suicide. There's a weird quirk in Massachusetts law called abatement ab initio. Basically, if a defendant dies while an appeal is pending, their conviction is vacated. It's like it never happened. This was eventually overturned, but for a while, Hernandez was technically an innocent man again.
The families of the victims eventually settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the Hernandez estate. It wasn't about the money. Most of the money was gone anyway, swallowed up by legal fees. It was about some form of acknowledgement.
Actionable Takeaways for Following Cold Cases
When we look back at the tragedy of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, there are things we can learn about how the justice system handles high-profile defendants and the importance of witness testimony.
- Check the Primary Sources: Don't just rely on Netflix documentaries. Look up the actual court transcripts from the Commonwealth vs. Hernandez (2017). They reveal the nuances of why the jury reached an acquittal despite the 4Runner evidence.
- Understand Forensics: Ballistics matched the shell casings at the scene to a gun found in a car driven by a woman with ties to Hernandez. In your own research of true crime, follow the physical evidence rather than just the narrative of the "star witness."
- Support Victim Advocacy: Often, the names of the victims get lost in the shadow of the famous perpetrator. Organizations like the National Center for Victims of Crime provide resources for families who find themselves in the middle of media firestorms.
- Monitor Legal Precedents: The "abatement" ruling in the Hernandez case changed how Massachusetts views the death of inmates with pending appeals. Keep an eye on local legislation regarding victim rights during the appeals process.
The story of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado is a reminder that celebrity status can complicate the pursuit of truth. They were two men with lives, families, and futures that were cut short over something as trivial as a spilled drink. Understanding the timeline and the legal hurdles of their case helps keep their memory alive beyond just being footnotes in a football player's downfall.