BOSTON (Reuters) - The mother of the semiprofessional football player murdered by former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez said on Wednesday that she would resume her wrongful death civil suit against the ex-NFL star.
In a tearful news conference, Ursula Ward, whose son Odin Lloyd was fatally shot by Hernandez in an industrial park near his North Attleborough, Massachusetts home, said she was renewing a legal effort that had been put on hold during Hernandez's trial for the murder of her son.
"I thought my life ended with his," Ward told reporters. "I always wish I was there to take those bullets for Odin."
Last week Hernandez, 25, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for first-degree murder for Lloyd's slaying.
His conviction cleared the way for the civil suit, first filed in Bristol County Superior Court in December 2013, to proceed, said Ward's attorney, Douglas Sheff.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Hernandez will face a second trial later this year in Boston, where he has been charged with fatally shooting two Cape Verdean men outside a nightclub after one of them spilled a drink on him in 2012.
Hernandez had been a rising star in the NFL with a $41 million contract when he was arrested in June 2013 and charged with Lloyd's murder.