By Jenny Wilson, Hartford Courant
A Bristol woman with ties to accused killer Aaron Hernandez died Monday, fewer than six months after she survived the car crash that killed a man married to the former New England Patriot’s cousin.
Tabitha Perry, 27 previously was interviewed by Massachusetts law enforcement probing the June 17 shooting death of Odin Lloyd. She was friends with several individuals in Hernandez’s hometown social circle whose names surfaced after his late-June murder arrest.
Southington police said Perry’s death is being investigated, but is not considered suspicious. Authorities responded to a 911 call from 25 Darling St. in Southington to find Perry, who was visiting a friend, unconscious and not breathing. Police and the state medical examiner’s office are awaiting the results of toxicology testing before ruling Perry’s cause of death.
Perry was injured in the June 30 car accident that killed Thaddeus Singleton III, who lost control of his car and flew 100 feet through the air before crashing into the side of Farmington Country Club. Singleton had a child with Perry, but was married to Tanya Singleton, a cousin of Hernandez who faces an accessory charge in Lloyd’s death.
Police have described Singleton as the “nexus” of Hernandez’s Bristol network, and said that he is the man who connected the former Patriot tight end with his two alleged accomplices, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz. Wallace and Ortiz, both charged in Lloyd’s death, used to stay with Thaddeus and Tanya Singleton at 114 Lake Ave., a Bristol home owned by Hernandez’s uncle that has been searched multiple times this summer.
Hernandez was identified as a suspect in a 2012 drive-by shooting that killed two men in Boston after police seized a car from the garage of the Lake Avenue house that matched the description of the vehicle used in that crime. Sources said the car had been parked in the garage for about a year. The home is owned by Andres Valderrama, an uncle of Hernandez’s on his late father’s side.
Individuals from Hernandez’s hometown have felt their group of friends dwindle in the past several months.
“Five months…everyone around me is gone,” said Johnny Booze III, a New Britain resident who previously lived with the Singletons at 114 Lake Ave. He also was close friends with Wallace and Tanya Singleton, neither of whom has posted bail and are both in custody in Massachusetts.
“It’s painful, it’s hard,” Booze said.