Silver Chrysler linked to Odin Lloyd murder recovered in Bristol, Conn.

By Wesley Lowery, Globe staff

Officials have recovered the silver Chrysler 300 with Rhode Island license plates that prosecutors were searching for in the investigation into the murder of Odin L. Lloyd, according to the Bristol, Conn., resident who spotted the vehicle and called the police.

Also today, authorities in Florida captured Ernest Wallace, the 41-year-old man who is accused of being an accessory after the fact to the murder of Lloyd, who was last seen driving the Chrysler. Wallace was arrested by the Miramar police department, officials said.

Bristol District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter’s office in Massachusetts issued a statement Thursday night that police were searching for the car.

Bristol (Conn.) police tow car

Last night, a resident of a Bristol, Conn., apartment complex saw news reports about Wallace and the car that authorities were searching for and realized that a similar vehicle had been sitting in the complex’s parking lot for most of the week

After checking the vehicle’s license plate against the news report – plate number 451-375 – the resident called North Attleborough police at 11:01 p.m. By 12:15 a.m. Bristol police cruisers had arrived at the complex and towed the car, the resident said.

According to Massachusetts prosecutors, former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez – who has been charged with first-degree murder in Lloyd’s slaying — rented the vehicle the day after Lloyd was shot in order to allow his two alleged accomplices to leave the state.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.

The resident who located the car told the Globe today that the vehicle first appeared in their personal parking spot at a Bristol apartment complex on either Friday or Saturday.

By Sunday, the resident said, the car had been moved two parking spaces away. Without a parking pass for the lot, the car received tow notices on Monday and Tuesday and was then towed across the complex on Wednesday.

“I never saw anyone getting in or out of the car,” said the resident, who has lived in the complex for about a year. “I’ve called the leasing office and they said police have already asked for any video footage that might show who parked (the car).”

Photos provided to the Globe show the silver Chrysler being loaded onto a tow truck early this morning.

The property manager at the complex could not immediately be reached for comment. The apartments sit about one mile from the home of Carlos Ortiz, a Bristol man arrested on Wednesday in connection to the investigation.