Former player’s brain to be examined for trauma

Aaron Hernandez’s death in prison has been ruled a suicide and the former NFL star’s brain is being donated to sports concussion researchers, Massachusetts authorities said Thursday.

Aaron Hernandez’s death in prison has been ruled a suicide and the former NFL star’s brain is being donated to sports concussion researchers, Massachusetts authorities said Thursday.

The declaration by prosecutors, state police and public health officials came after a tumultuous day in which Hernandez’s lawyer suggested the state was mishandling the investigation and illegally withholding his brain after releasing the rest of the body to a funeral home.

Authorities said the medical examiner had ruled cause of death was asphyxia by hanging and that investigators had found three handwritten notes next to a Bible in Hernandez’s cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. Authorities previously said Hernandez had not left a suicide note and he hadn’t been on suicide watch.

“There were no signs of a struggle, and investigators determined that Mr. Hernandez was alone at the time of the hanging,” the statement read.

Hernandez had been locked into his cell at about 8 p.m. and no one entered the cell until a guard saw him just after 3 a.m. and forced his way in because cardboard had been jammed into the door track to impede entry, authorities said. Hernandez was found hanging from a bedsheet and rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later.

Earlier Thursday, Hernandez’s lawyer complained that state officials had turned over the 27-year-old’s body but not his brain.