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Police search lake in Hernandez case
01:01 - Source: WFSB

Story highlights

Lake is mile from Connecticut home of Hernandez's uncle

Hernandez, a former NFL player, is charged with murder in Massachusetts

Hernandez charged in death of man who dated the sister of Hernandez's fiancée.

CNN  — 

A Connecticut State Police dive team was searching a lake in Bristol, Connecticut, Monday for an item linked to the case of former NFL player Aaron Hernandez, who is charged with murder in Massachusetts, a law enforcement source told CNN.

Hernandez, though he lives in the Boston area, is a Bristol native. The lake is about a mile from his uncle’s Bristol home, which police have searched several times while investigating last month’s shooting death of Odin Lloyd.

Law enforcement sources declined to say what was being sought in the lake.

Authorities have accused Hernandez, a 23-year-old former New England Patriots player, of orchestrating the shooting death of Lloyd, the 27-year-old boyfriend of Hernandez’s fiancée’s sister.

The former standout NFL tight end has pleaded not guilty to murder. He is being held without opportunity for bail.

Authorities have said Hernandez and two other men picked Lloyd up from his Boston apartment in the early morning of June 17. Surveillance cameras showed the car at an industrial park near Hernandez’s North Attleborough, Massachusetts, home.

Lloyd’s body was found in the North Attleborough industrial park later that day.

The Patriots released Hernandez, who had been one of their top offensive players, shortly after his arrest but before he was charged in court with murder.

Authorities have said they’ve yet to find the gun they believe was used in the shooting: a Glock .45.

The other men who were allegedly in the car with Hernandez around the time of Lloyd’s death are behind bars as well.

One of them, Ernest Wallace, has been charged with accessory after the fact to murder and has pleaded not guilty. The other, Carlos Ortiz, has pleaded not guilty to a weapons charge.

CNN’s Jason Hanna and Greg Botelho contributed to this report.