If only Aaron Hernandez had Netflix. He could’ve watched 13 Reasons Why, the popular anti-suicide series that everyone’s talking. Perhaps we’d still have him with us today.
Hernandez, an ex-NFL player and former New England Patriots player, hung himself yesterday in his jail cell with a bedsheet. He scrawled the Bible verse “John 3:16” in red ink on his head, and colored his hands and feet with red markings also.
For a quick second, there was a smidge of doubt. Was it, perhaps, murder?? Turns out, nah. Wasn’t murder. After a medical examination, the Worcester County district attorney’s office confirmed Hernandez committed suicide.
Also, prison officials found suicide notes next to a Bible in the cell. Three of them to be exact, one for his fiancee, one for his 4-year-old daughter and then one whose recipient is unknown. Their contents are also unknown.
Next, they’ll send his brain off to a lab to study it for CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, in accordance to his family’s wishes. Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center will receive his brain and hope it doesn’t stab or shoot the other brains.
His brain will be missing some parts thanks to the coroner’s office.
The DA says the state’s chief medical examiner had withheld some tissue samples from the ex-NFL star’s brain as part of the effort to confirm he took his own life.
The last one to see Hernandez was a close friend who’s currently on “eyeball suicide watch” in isolation. No news on if he was interviewed or what he saw, but he could be helpful in filling in the last moments of Hernandez’s life.
Hernandez had some reason for optimism. As optimistic as someone serving a life sentence could be. He got acquitted of a double murder last week. That helped him avoid two additional life sentences. Also, his lawyer, Jose Baez, had a plan to get him out of prison early.
If only Hernandez could’ve held on for another 40 years, he could’ve maybe been released on appeal.