Aaron Hernandez Biography
Aaron Hernandez an American football tight end in the National Football League (NFL). He earned All-American honors at the University of Florida and established himself as a quality NFL tight end for the New England Patriots. In June 2013, his promising career was derailed when he was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd.
2014 May, he was accused of two murders related to a drive-by shooting in 2012. In April 2015 he was convicted of first-degree murder in the Odin Lloyd case. On April 19, 2017, he committed suicide in his jail cell.
Aaron Hernandez Age
He was born on November 6, 1989, in Bristol, Connecticut and raised on Greystone Avenue. He was 28 at the time of his death.
Aaron Hernandez Height| Weight
His height was 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) and he weighed 245 lb (111 kg).
Aaron Hernandez College and Early Life
Aaron played basketball for Bristol Central High School. In 2006, he led his team to Connecticut Conference Southern Division Championship and earned first-team All-State honors. His father died during his senior school year due to complications from routine hernia surgery.
Many teams were wary of drafting Hernandez due to his admitted flunking of a drug test. Many teams also worried much about his association with gangs. In 2010, he got the fourth round in NFL draft he was later selected by New England Patriots with the 113th overall pick.
Aaron Hernandez NFL Career
When 2010, the season began he was the youngest player in NFL and through his hard work, he proved he could thrive to the top level. He set the record for tight ends with 45 catches, helping the Patriots notch an impressive 14-2 record en route to an AFC Championship berth.
In August 2012, he was given a five-year contract extension.
Aaron Hernandez Tattoos
Odin Lloyd Murder
The body of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd was found in an industrial park a mile from Hernandez’s mansion in North Attleborough, Massachusetts on June 17, 2013. Police later traced evidence back to Aaron.
Aaron was later arrested and charged with first-degree murder and five firearms violations. He was released two hours after his arrest and was soon dropped by corporate sponsors.
There was the motive and clear evidence that implicated him to the murder. It showed that Aaron and two other friends drove Lloyd around in a rented Nissan Altima before shooting him multiple times at around 3:30 a.m. on June 17.
There were other allegations against Hernandez surfaced. He was accused by a Florida man of discharging a weapon that caused him to lose an eye, and he was being investigated in a drive-by shooting from the previous summer. He found himself facing the prospect of life behind bars.
Aaron Hernandez Murder Charges
He found himself facing new charges in connection with a 2012 drive-by shooting in Boston in May 2014. Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado were killed in this incident, which occurred a week before he began training with the New England Patriots. Boston jury charged him with two counts of first-degree murder and faced assault and weapons charges in connection with this case. His lawyer disputed these charges and claimed that Aaron was innocent of these charges.
Aaron Hernandez Verdicts and Suicide
In January 2015, he went to trial for the killing of Odin Lloyd. His trial lasted for more than two months. The jury later deliberated for six days before reaching their decision. He was found guilty and he automatically received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his crime according to Massachusetts law.
He was acquitted of two counts of murder in the drive-by shooting of Abreu and Furtado outside a Boston nightclub in July 2012, on April 14, 2017. On April 19, 2017, he was found dead hanging from a bedsheet in his jail cell and could not be resuscitated. He left behind a young daughter, Avielle, born to Shayanna Jenkins who was his fiancee in 2012.
Aaron Hernandez CTE Diagnosis
On September 2017, it was revealed that Hernandez had been suffering from an advanced case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease, at the time of his death. The disease is found in football players and other athletes who participate in high-impact sports, CTE is often marked by problems with controlling aggression, mood swings, lapses in judgment and varying degrees of dementia.
Doctors report said that he was found with the most severe form of the disease they had ever seen in a 27-year-old.
Aaron Hernandez Legal Issues
A 17-year-old Aaron Hernandez was involved in a bar fight at a restaurant in Gainesville, Florida, on April 28, 2007, after refusing to pay for a couple of drinks he took. He reportedly punched the employee who escorted him out, rupturing his eardrum, but the case was settled out of court with a deferred prosecution agreement.
Aaron again faced legal troubles after he was investigated for the double murder of immigrants Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Teixeira Furtado in Boston’s South End on July 16, 2012. He was indicted of the two murders based on the testimony of a drug dealer but was acquitted of most of the charges, including that of murders, on April 14, 2017, days before his death.
In June 2013, he was accused of shooting Alexander S. Bradley, a friend, during an altercation back in February, which allegedly cost him his right eye. The lawsuit was settled in February 2016, but he was indicted on witness intimidation charges for the Boston double murders. He was acquitted of these charges later during his 2017 trial.
Following the murder of Odin Lloyd, one of his friends, on June 17, 2013, in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, the police searched his house due to multiple suspicious activities, like destroying his home security system intentionally. Soon after, he was asked not to be near Gillette Stadium, as the Patriots’ team management had decided to cut ties with him fearing his arrest.
On June 26, 2013, he was arrested by the police and was released from the Patriots team soon after, before he was charged with first-degree murder and five more gun-related charges later that day. After being indicted by a grand jury on August 22, 2013, he pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of Lloyd on September 6, 2013, and was held at the Bristol County Jail.
On April 15, 2015, he was found guilty of first-degree murder, as well as five firearms charges, which according to state laws, resulted in a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He was initially taken to the maximum-security facility, the Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Cedar Junction, but was later transferred to another maximum-security prison, the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, to serve his sentence.
Aaron Hernandez Death
Aaron Hernandez was found hanging by his bed-sheets from the window in his cell on April 19, 2017, and was declared dead after being taken to UMass Memorial Hospital-Leominster. Three handwritten notes were recovered from a Bible opened to John 3:16, and drawings in blood were found on the walls of his cell.
After his death, his lawyers filed a motion at Massachusetts Superior Court to vacate his murder conviction, which was granted on May 9, 2017. As he was in the process of appealing against his conviction, according to state laws, he technically died as an innocent man.
While the autopsy report declared his death as suicide, his family requested for the release of his brain for diagnosis at Boston University, which revealed that he had brain injuries consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Considering CTE is prevalent in footballers who suffer concussions repeatedly, his fiancée and daughter sued the Patriots and the NFL for causing his death and depriving his daughter of her father’s companionship.