In final hours, Hernandez thought of family, not football

Family, not football, dominated Aaron Hernandez’s final hours as a lifer in prison.

As the hour of his death approached, the former NFL star chatted on the phone with his longtime fiancee, Shayanna JenkinsHernandez. Authorities say the pair stayed on the phone until the 8 p.m. lockdown at the maximum-security prison where he was serving a life sentence for murder.

Alone in his cell, the exNew England Patriots tight end scribbled three notes. He laid them carefully next to a Bible.

Then he turned his bedsheet into a noose and hanged himself.

Those cryptic details emerged Thursday as authorities ruled Hernandez’s death a suicide and turned his body over to a funeral home so his family could lay him to rest.

Investigators wouldn’t say what Hernandez’s handwritten notes said. But they said they were satisfied he died at his own hand, and they said his brain would be donated to sports concussion researchers, ending a brief public dispute over its custody.

Authorities said the medical examiner had ruled Hernandez’s cause of death was asphyxia by hanging and investigators had found the notes and 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.