Ex-NFL star Hernandez hangs self in prison
Hours before his former New England Patriots teammates were due to visit the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl victory, prison officials say, Aaron Hernandez ended his life.
Hours before his former New England Patriots teammates were due to visit the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl victory, prison officials say, Aaron Hernandez tied one end of his bedsheet to a window and the other around his neck and hanged himself.
In a maximum-security prison outside Boston, about an hour from the stadium where he played alongside stars such as Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski, Hernandez jammed the door to his one-man cell lest guards try to stop him and put an early end to the life-without-parole sentence he received for a 2013 murder. He was 27.
Gone was the college football national championship, his own trip to the Super Bowl in just his second NFL season, and the $40 million contract extension he received as a reward. Just days after Hernandez was acquitted in a separate murder case, his friends, family and his legal team were searching for an explanation.
“There were no conversations or correspondence from Aaron to his family or legal team that would have indicated anything like this was possible,” said his attorney, Jose Baez. “Aaron was looking forward to an opportunity for a second chance to prove his innocence. Those who love and care about him are heartbroken and determined to find the truth surrounding his untimely death.” No suicide note left
Guards found Hernandez shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday at the state prison in Shirley, Correction Department spokesman Christopher Fallon said. The former tight end was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead about an hour later.
Fallon said he was not aware of any suicide note and officials had no reason to believe Hernandez was suicidal. Otherwise, he would have been transferred to a mental health unit, Fallon said.
Hernandez was housed in a single cell in the general prison population. Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins. He had appealed the verdict.
Hernandez was found not guilty last Friday in a second murder case, a drive-by shooting of two people in Boston in 2012.
Hernandez was born Nov. 6, 1989, and grew up in a tough neighborhood in Bristol, Conn., and played at the University of Florida, where he was chosen the country’s best tight end. He also ran into trouble there, getting into a bar fight and testing positive for marijuana.
He was a fourth-round NFL draft pick by the Patriots.
In 2013, Hernandez and Lloyd began dating sisters, and the two men socialized together. In June 2013, at a Boston nightclub, Hernandez became angry with people Lloyd was talking with. Investigators said that Hernandez might have suspected that Lloyd was talking with them about the double murder case that Hernandez eventually was acquitted of.
Though no murder weapon was found and no witness to the shooting of Lloyd came forward, prosecutors built a circumstantial case tying Hernandez to the killing.
Hernandez’s fiancée, Jenkins, spoke of a box that she said Hernandez instructed her to remove from their house and discard the day after Lloyd’s body was found. She also said Hernandez called her from the police station and asked her to give some money to Ernest Wallace, a friend who eventually also would be charged in the killing.
It was enough for the jury, which deliberated for six days before finding Hernandez guilty. Conviction will be vacated
Hernandez’s death means his murder conviction will be vacated under a centuries-old legal doctrine enshrined in Massachusetts’ criminal case law.
“Aaron Hernandez goes to his death an innocent man under the eyes of the law,” said Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar Association, adding, “It’s as if the case never existed.”
Under the doctrine, known as “abatement ab initio,” criminal convictions are essentially nullified if a person dies before he has a chance to complete the process of appealing it, Healy said.
Hernandez had a daughter with Jenkins, Avielle, now 4. He has an older brother, D.J.