Investigators in the Aaron Hernandez murder case were prepared to interview a Bristol man who was killed in an early Sunday car crash.
Multiple law enforcement sources said Thaddeus Singleton III, 33, was associated with Hernandez and of interest to investigators. Singleton was killed when the car he was driving flew off the road, split a pole in half and careened into Farmington Country Club. Police said the car was registered to Aaron Hernandez’s uncle, who is Singleton’s father-in-law.
His death was ruled an accident, and it is unclear whether he knew of investigators’ interest in his connection to the former New England Patriot star tight end, a Bristol native.
Hernandez last week was charged with first-degree murder in the June 17 shooting death of Odin Lloyd, 27, of Dorchester, Mass. He is being held without bail.
Hernandez, who was released by the team after his arrest, is one of three suspects, all from Bristol, arrested in connection with the homicide. Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace also have been charged, and prosecutors say they believe they have in custody all three men who were in the car with Lloyd the night he was killed. Lloyd was dating Shaneah Jenkins, the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins.
Singleton had been convicted of a number of drug charges in Connecticut, records indicate.
On Tuesday, an East Hartford man who in a civil lawsuit has charged that Hernandez in February shot him in the eye outside a Florida nightclub, was served an interstate subpoena Tuesday to appear before a Massachusetts grand jury investigating the Hernandez case.
Sources said investigators are interested in “similarities” between the Alexander Bradley shooting and the shooting death of Lloyd.
By The Courant’s Jenny Wilson, Don Stacom and David Owens