Plan B Forum

Aaron J. Hernandez took his own life, the state medical examiner ruled Thursday, designating suicide as the official cause of the death this week of the former New England Patriots star who was imprisoned on a murder conviction.

Hernandez was found hanging from a bedsheet by a corrections officer around 3:05 a.m. Wednesday in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, where the 27-year-old Hernandez was serving a life sentence, officials said.

“There were no signs of a struggle, and investigators determined that Mr. Hernandez was alone at the time of the hanging,” the office of Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr said in a statement.

Hernandez marked his forehead with a reference to a biblical passage before apparently taking his own life in his cell at the state’s maximum security prison Wednesday, according to records and a law enforcement official.
Authorities said they found three hand-written notes next to a Bible in Hernandez’s cell. A spokesman for Early would not disclose who the three notes were addressed to or what they said.

The determination of the cause of death provided some resolution to a controversy that had erupted Thursday afternoon, when defense attorney Jose Baez complained that the family was having trouble getting Hernandez’s brain from the office of the medical examiner.

Now that Hernandez’s death has been definitively ruled a suicide, the brain will be released to researchers for the study of whether he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is a progressive degenerative disease found in the brains of athletes who have had repeated brain trauma.

“Now that the cause and manner of death have been determined, the brain will be released to Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center as Mr. Hernandez’s family wishes,” prosecutors said.

About seven hours before his death, Hernandez was on the telephone with Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, his longtime fiancee and the mother of his 4-year-old daughter, according to Ronald Sullivan, one of his lawyers.

“She spoke to him until telephone hours were over at about 8[p.m.],” Sullivan wrote in an e-mail Thursday.

He did not say what they discussed. Attempts to reach Jenkins-Hernandez for comment since Hernandez’s death have been unsuccessful.

Hernandez, who was convicted of shooting Odin L. Lloyd to death in North Attleborough in 2013, was rushed by corrections officers to UMass Memorial-HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster Wednesday, where he was pronounced dead at 4:07 a.m., officials said.


Governor Charlie Baker said Thursday that the death of Hernandez — or any other inmate — suggests a failure in the management of the prison. However, he expressed “full faith and confidence” in DOC Commissioner Thomas Turco.

“Our response is going to be primarily to investigate and to make sure that everybody understands exactly what happened,” Baker said, adding he first heard of Hernandez’s death about three hours after it happened.

According to the governor, no one has faced any disciplinary action in the wake of Hernandez’s suicide.

“Any time anybody kills himself in a prison, something clearly went wrong,” Baker said.

Baker reaffirmed his “full faith and confidence” in the Commissioner.

Although he believes that over the past few year progress has been made on the issue of prison suicides, “one suicide is too many,” he said.

Hernandez’s body was released before his brain to the Faggas Funeral Home in Watertown. Funeral home owner Nicole Faggas said there are no current plans to hold services there. She said Hernandez’s body will be shipped to another location, which she declined to identify, in the near future.

Hernandez’s apparent suicide came five days after he was acquitted for the murders of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, who were shot to death on a South End street in 2012. During that trial, Suffolk prosecutors said Hernandez tattooed a confession to the crime on his right arm by adding an image of the murder weapon next to the phrase “God Forgives.’’

“God Forgives” was written backward so it could be read in a mirror, according to testimony during the Suffolk Superior Court murder trial.

As part of his apparent suicide, Hernandez marked his forehead with a reference to a passage in the Bible. He wrote “John 3:16” onto his forehead with red ink, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said Thursday.

According to the King James version of the Bible, the notation refers to the following passage, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’’

According to Early’s office, Hernandez was locked in his cell at about 8 p.m. Tuesday, and nobody went in until a corrections officer saw him early in the morning and forced his way into the cell in an attempt to provide aid.

Early’s office said investigators had found cardboard jammed into the door tracks of his cell, an apparent attempt to block entry.

The death of the convicted killer came the same day that many of his former teammates were honored at the White House for winning Super Bowl 51. At one time, Hernandez was a key piece of the team’s offense. He had been a football prodigy, selected by the Patriots in the fourth round of the 2010 National Football League draft.

Corrections department spokesman Christopher Fallon said Wednesday there was no suicide note found during the initial search of the cell Hernandez occupied alone. He was not on a suicide watch because he had not signaled he was at risk, Fallon said.

Hernandez is the 27th recorded suicide in Massachusetts state prisons since 2010 and the second this year, according to state records.

Under state law, Hernandez’s conviction for the Lloyd murder could ultimately be voided because his trial was not reviewed by the Supreme Judicial Court prior to his death. His appellate attorney said he will file the required paperwork when a death certificate is issued.

That legal technicality may, in turn, require the Patriots to make a multi-million dollar payment to his estate, a payment the Patriots refused to make following his arrest for the Lloyd killing in 2013, according to lawyers representing relatives of the three murder victims.

I would think that would be dependent on why the Patriots terminated his contract and whether it was because he was convicted or based on his arrest and conduct.

oldr_n_wsr wrote:

I would think that would be dependent on why the Patriots terminated his contract and whether it was because he was convicted or based on his arrest and conduct.

Yeah, I figured. One thing is certain, no team can give him a "second chance" now.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:

oldr_n_wsr wrote:

I would think that would be dependent on why the Patriots terminated his contract and whether it was because he was convicted or based on his arrest and conduct.

Yeah, I figured. One thing is certain, no team can give him a "second chance" now.

Surely the Browns wouldn't rule him out?