Last respects for Hernandez
NFL pals among mourners
BRISTOL, Conn. — Friends, family and a few NFL football players paid their last respects to Aaron Hernandez at an invitationonly funeral in his hardscrabble hometown.
About 100 people descended on the O’Brien Funeral Home yesterday for funeral services. Burial arrangements are also private.
Some of those stepping from an endless succession of Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs and black Cadillac SUVs were NFL twin centers Mike Pouncey of the Miami Dolphins, his brother Maurkice Pouncey of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and free agent linebacker Brandon Spikes, Hernandez’s former Patriots teammate. All three also played with Hernandez at the University of Florida.
Arriving guests had to show security officials identification and were checked against a list of names several pages long before they were permitted entry.
Famed Miami-based criminal defense attorney Jose Baez, who earlier this month won Hernandez, 27, a stunning acquittal on charges of killing Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston’s South End in 2012, attended with his trial dream team co-counsel Ronald Sullivan Jr., Linda Kenney Baden and George Leontire.
Baez told reporters the attorneys would make a statement on behalf of Hernandez’s family, but would not take any questions about the service.
“We ask that you respect the family’s privacy,” Baez said.
Reading from the statement, Sullivan said, “The family of Aaron Hernandez wishes to thank the public for its thoughtful expressions of condolences. The family wishes to say goodbye to Aaron in privacy. They thank everyone in advance for affording them some measure of privacy during this difficult time.”
Hernandez hung himself in his cell at the SouzaBaranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass., Wednesday using a bed sheet attached to a window.
Despite beating the double-homicide rap just five days earlier, he was still serving life with no chance of parole for the 2013 execution-style slaying of his friend Odin L. Lloyd in North Attleboro, Mass., where Hernandez had purchased a mansion after signing a $40 million contract with the Patriots.
Hernandez’s longtime fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, arrived holding the hand of the couple’s 4-year-old daughter, Avielle Hernandez.
Hernandez’s mother, Terri Hernandez, strayed onto the historic funeral home’s wraparound porch prior to her son’s service to smoke a cigarette. She and Hernandez’s only sibling, Ledyard High School varsity football coach Jonathan “D.J.” Hernandez, left separately.