EX-PAT’S DEATH RULED A SUICIDE
Hernandez left notes, scrawled Bible verse on head
Disgraced former Patriot Aaron Hernandez, whose brain has been sent to Boston University to be tested for concussion-related anomalies, wrote “John 3:16” on his forehead and left notes to his 4-year-old daughter and his fiancee beside an open Bible in the prison cell where he hanged himself, the Herald has learned.
Details about the 27-year-old’s death, which has been ruled a suicide, emerged yesterday after authorities announced he was alone when he died, there were no signs of a struggle and the convicted killer jammed cardboard into the tracks of the door to his single-inmate cell to “impede entry” before taking his own life early Wednesday morning.
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Henry N. Nields performed an autopsy on Hernandez Wednesday and concluded yesterday that the death was a suicide caused by asphyxia by hanging, according to a joint statement issued by Worcester District Attorney Joseph R. Early Jr., state police Col. Richard McKeon and Secretary of Public Safety Daniel Bennett.
Prison guards who managed to force their way through the door shortly after 3 a.m. found a Bible open to John 3:16 — a passage about “eternal life” — and Hernandez hanging from a bedsheet connected to the window with “John 3:16” written in ink on his forehead, a source told the Herald. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner released Hernandez’s body Wednesday but “withheld some tissue including his brain until the cause of manner of death was determined,” according to the statement. The brain, officials said, “will be released to Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center as Mr. Hernandez’s family wishes.”
The former Pro Bowl tight end’s brain was released hours after his high-powered attorney, Jose Baez, called a press conference outside the medical examiner’s Albany Street headquarters to blast officials for what he called “illegally” refusing to turn his client’s brain over to BU researchers.
Hours later, Hernandez’s attorneys filed a motion asking a judge to force the state to maintain items “potentially relevant” to his death. George Leontire, who helped represent Hernandez in his double murder trial, argued that his team needs the items, which includes video records of the former Patriot’s cell block and records of any 911 calls related to him.
The suit is also seeking “any recorded telephone calls made to or from Hernandez to any individual for the period of 30 days leading up to his death.”
An emergency hearing on the motion will be heard today in Bristol County Superior Court in New Bedford.
Hernandez’s highly publicized suicide caused lawmakers to take a look at the issue of prisoners taking their own lives in Bay State correctional facilities.
“Anytime anybody kills themselves in a prison, something clearly went wrong,” Gov. Charlie Baker told reporters yesterday.
Attorney General Maura Healey separately called for a probe into Massachusetts’ dismal ranking among states with the highest rates of inmate suicides.
The Bay State has one of the highest levels of prison suicide in the country, according to federal statistics. Only Rhode Island, Utah and Nebraska had a suicide rate higher than the 32 per 100,000 inmates in Massachusetts from 2001 through 2014. The Massachusetts rate is twice the national average of 16 suicides per 100,000 inmates.
Hernandez was serving a life sentence at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center after being convicted of first-degree murder in 2015 for the 2013 shooting death of Odin L. Lloyd in North Attleboro. He had been acquitted last week of a 2012 double-murder in Boston.