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Ex-Patriots Star Aaron Hernandez Commits Suicide in Jail Cell

Ex-Patriots Star Aaron Hernandez Commits Suicide in Jail Cell

He killed himself on the day the Patriots will visit the White House to commemorate their Super Bowl victory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53bKI-l-2k4

Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez, 27, hanged himself in his prison cell early Wednesday morning while serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder charge at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, MA.

He committed suicide on the day his former team will visit the White House to commemorate their Super Bowl victory over the Atlanta Falcons in February.

The suicide comes five days after a jury found Hernandez not guilty for the 2012 murders of two men, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.

But in 2015, a jury found Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder for the death of Odin Lloyd. The judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Guards discovered Hernandez at 3AM and transported his body to UMass Memorial-HealthAlliance Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.

Department of Correction spokesman Christopher Fallon explained that Hernandez had “a single cell in a general population housing unit in the maximum security state prison.”

Fallon stated that “Hernandez tried to block the cell door from inside by jamming the door with various items.” He then used a bed sheet to hang himself “that he attached to a cell window.”

A Patriots spokesman told ESPN that he does not believe the team “will be commenting today” on Hernandez’s death.

The team cut Hernandez in 2013 when police arrested him.

Hernandez leaves behind his wife Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez and a four-year-old daughter.

Reactions

TV and social media lit up when news broke of Hernandez’s suicide. In the clip above, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota called the suicide tragic while former NFL player Cory Wire described Hernandez as brethren:

Coy Wire: I have the chills. This is the NFL brethren. He lost his way. He was a guy in the locker rooms. His life took a turn for the worse. Hearing this news is shocking and stunning.

Alisyn Camerota: Even somebody who is not a sports follower. It is just the latest tragic turn in the case. Just so tragic. Up and coming star as you can tell us. Then the fact something weird and mysterious happened that night with his friend. And nobody could figure out what that beef was about.

But Chris Cuomo became the voice of reason. Yes, Cuomo reminded Camerota and Wire what’s important:

To be clear, the victims in the story of Aaron Hernandez are the family of Odin Lloyd. And Odin Lloyd himself. A cold-blooded murder. That judge wanted to see Hernandez in the jail cell for rest of his life. Let’s not forget the victims.

Hernandez’s agent doesn’t believe the football player took his life:

Hernandez’s lawyer Jose Baez also doesn’t think Hernandez committed suicide. From TMZ Sports:

We’ve learned attorney Jose Baez — who just got a not guilty verdict for Aaron last week in the double murder case — has launched an investigation on behalf of Hernandez’ family and they are not buying the suicide story.

We’re told Baez believes this could be a murder either by inmates or the folks who run the prison.

Baez says the family is “devastated” and does not believe Aaron was in a frame of mind to take his life.

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Comments

We humans are a bizarre species. Some of us can be imbued with the drive, desire and determination to excell at a world class level inside the sports arena, yet tragically cannot get out of our own way in order to tame our violent passions and refrain from murdering another.

Now, Hernandez joins the ’27 club’.

May the Lord have mercy on your miserable soul.

Dejectedhead | April 19, 2017 at 1:18 pm

Everyone wants to talk about his fall from grace and how he ruined his life. This guy was a psychopath that ruined numerous lives of other people. Now, on his way out, this douche ruined MY night by getting my wife so excited that she woke me up at 4 am to tell me that Aaron Hernandez killed himself.

Just one final act for his rein of terror.

still guilty and serving life for other murder charges.
dunno why people keep harping on the not guilty of other charges when already guilty and in prison.

    maxmillion in reply to dmacleo. | April 19, 2017 at 1:53 pm

    Mainly because the murder he’s serving life for was supposedly committed by him to cover up the ones he was found not guilty of.

    scaulen in reply to dmacleo. | April 19, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    Unfortunately not guilty any more. His lawyer is going to file for this.

    A legal principle called “abatement ab initio,” means that the death of Hernandez will revert the case to its status at the beginning, as if no conviction ever happened.

    His original conviction was still in the process of appeal so could very well go to his grave as innocent.

“His original conviction was still in the process of appeal so could very well go to his grave as innocent.”

This is actually impossible. He died and went to his grave a convicted murderer having completed his life sentence. Now he could be exonerated in the future but in Hillary’s famous words “At this time what difference does it make?”

    Milhouse in reply to gmac124. | April 19, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    Nope. Under Mass. law his death automatically canceled his conviction, so he died legally innocent.

      Arminius in reply to Milhouse. | April 19, 2017 at 7:13 pm

      No doubt very true. But somehow I can’t imagine his legal status at death under Massachusetts state law will carry much weight in the Hereafter.

A tragedy? The word does not mean what you think it means.

    Milhouse in reply to Obie1. | April 19, 2017 at 3:20 pm

    The word doesn’t mean what most people think it means. It’s misused a lot more often than it’s used properly. How many times do we hear the death of some completely innocent child called a tragedy? There’s nothing tragic about such a death, but people seem to think it means “very sad”, so they use it.

CaptScientist | April 19, 2017 at 3:26 pm

for once I agree with cuomo….I just don’t see the point of all the talk about him….he was a murderer and now the people of Mass won’t have to pay anymore money for his up keep.

If that sounds cold, so be it…he was a murderer, no sympathy here.

Right now, this incident is still a homicide. There has not been enough time to confirm a ruling of suicide and it does not appear to be accidental. So, it should be investigated as a homicide. One of the first factors that is investigated in the matter of motivation. People do not kill themselves for no reason. Usually, a person commits suicide because they fear having to publicly answer for specific actions. Others act out of guilt. Still others do it for financial gain. And some do it from fictitious reasons stemming from delusion. We’ll have to wait to see if there is any evidence that supports any of these motivations.

Then we have the physical scene. Covering the bars of one’s cell, to keep guards from seeing the inmate securing a ligature to the bars and hanging himself, is a double edged sword. It could also be used to block the view of a murder being committed. Depending upon how professional the guard force is, blocking the view of the interior of a cell may actually trigger an investigation of the cell. There is also the lack of a note. While less than half of all suicides leave some form of communication, this does not seem to fit with Aaron Hernandez’ personality. It would seem, at the least, that he would want to reiterate his claim of innocence in the murder for which he was serving time, especially after being acquitted of the homicides which were the presented as the motivation for that killing. And, he, apparently, exhibited no outward signs that would lead anyone to suspect that he was a suicide risk.

There are still far too many questions which have to be answered before this can ruled a suicide, with any conviction.

    Massinsanity in reply to Mac45. | April 19, 2017 at 4:39 pm

    It was suicide plain and simple.

    Given the prison he was in, that he had the cell to himself, that they run stand up checks every 3-4 hours at that prison and that he was found at ~3AM there was no way another prisoner or prisoners got into that cell.

    Add to that the fact that Hernandez was 6’2″ 245 pounds and an elite athlete and gang member. Were he attacked by another prisoner or guard, it would have been one hell of a fight that would have caused so much noise and commotion numerous other prisoners and/or guards would have been alerted to it.

    As for motive, 2 are theories are making the rounds in Boston… first, that he was outed as gay by a local writer in Boston on Monday and that being gay doesn’t go over well in the bloods so he took his life to avoid the misery he was facing. The second that he was supposed to take the fall for the double murder given that he was already serving a life sentence. Since he was found not guilty others may be at risk. There is also the potential that his family was threatened.

    It should also be noted he was on suicide watch less than 2 years ago.

      Point 1): You assume that the prison staff is competent and totally honest. But, it there were guards who were complicit in a plot to kill Hernandez, their “procedures” go out the window.

      Point 2): Again, if the guards were complicit, it would not make any difference how much noise Hernandez made. And, if he was drugged, he might noty have been in any condition to struggle.

      Point 3): Motive #1. A high profile prisoner who has just been acquitted of a double homicide which now makes his appeal of his previous conviction much more likely to succeed, is not going to be put in general pop by any civil servant who wants to continue his career, if the inmate is gay and there is any chance that this would lead to his being harmed.

      Point 40: Motive #2. This is plausible. But, only if his family is threatened. However, in that eventuality, he would most likely have communicated incriminating evidence to someone, such as lawyer, before committing suicide, thereby providing insurance against threats to his family.

      We will know better if this was an actual suicide or not, as time goes on. However, I have never seen a hanging able to be classified as a suicide within 24 hours, even with a witness. The post usually takes more time than a single day to complete. Initially, all such deaths are initially worked as a homicide and then classified as a suicide when evidence is developed that sustains that classification. One other possibility is an accidental death due to auto-erotic hanging. So, it is a wee bit premature to jump to the conclusion that this is a suicide.

Hernandez was probably so freaked out by the fact that he was found not guilty of the crime he committed murder to cover up, he did himself in.

Karma.

After a review, the call on the field stands. Hernandez did not get both feet on the ground in time.

Rumor has it he wasn’t feeling too well from the synthetic weed he smoked. He asked for help but since it was so late the guard told him to just hang out by his window for a while.

Thank you folks I’ll be here all week, tip the staff they work hard and try the fish you’ll love it.