Aaron Hernandez: the terrible story of the American football star who became a brutal killer

On April 19, 2017, five years ago, the guards found Aaron Hernandez hanging in his cell. He had used the sheets on his bed. In the previous hours he had used marijuana. Five days earlier he had been found innocent of a double crime, but that did not release him nor was it enough. He left three letters. One for his wife, one for his daughter and the third for his lawyer José Baez. The news caused a shock (a suicide of someone known and young) but was not surprising.

This is the story of an unexpected, unlikely fall. From magazine covers, cheers and fortune to smear, jail and suicide. However, the possibility of collapse was always close, it was always a certain possibility.

A man who seemed to have it all. Career success, fame, family, youth, millions of dollars. All that, seen from afar. As we approached the life of Aaron Hernández, by scrutinizing more deeply, the cracks, the difficulties, the shortcomings were appreciated. The signs were in sight, they were evident. But no one wanted to see them.

He started on the biggest football team, the New England Patriots. His contract had been renewed a short time ago. 40 million dollars in five years. However, one night in June 2013, he murdered Odin Lloyd, a friend and brother-in-law, with several shots. Investigators had quick indications that the Patriots tight end was involved in the crime, but they dismissed them. To them, experienced investigations, it seemed implausible that a figure like Aaron could have participated in that crime. However, as the hours went by, they no longer had any doubts. He was the murderer.

Then came the arrest, the interrogations, the raids in search of the murder weapon. A few hours after the police stopped him, his team discharged him. The cancellation of the contract was immediate. The fans changed the shirts that had their name and number at no cost. His figurine was taken from the albums that were reprinted. Then, would come the trial, the life sentence, the years in prison, a new trial for two other deaths, an acquittal and suicide.

Aaron's father had a glorious past as a collegiate athlete. Man of great physique, wide mustache and strong gesture ran his home like a despot. He did what he said and the mood of the rest of the family members depended on his own. He wanted his two sons to be football players. With his wife he had back and forth, separations, scandalous fights and beatings. Both husband and wife were arrested and tried for different crimes during their adult lives.

Aaron stood out from a very young age as an athlete. He represented his Connecticut school in every competition no matter what sport he was from. As he averaged his high school, many had a glimpse that his future could be in the NFL. He broke all state records and quickly became the target of several of the most important university recruiters.

At school he was popular, he had started to venture into marijuana and he fought quite often. “Boy's stuff” they all claimed. When Aaron was 16, his father died in the middle of a routine operation; he entered the operating room for hernia surgery but his heart failed. Several friends argue that Aaron never recovered from that absence.

When he was more than a semester away from high school, the University of Florida incorporated him. His coach Urban Meye r was a well-known figure and the program ambitious. They wanted to win titles. It didn't matter that Aaron was still not old enough, the right maturity and balance, or the academic merits to graduate. The most important thing was that no one steal the player from them and put him as soon as possible to study the prepared plays. Hernández entered university for his sporting qualities even if he did not meet the minimum academic standard.

During those university years, everything indicates that the authorities were lenient with his performance as a student. Something that was not an exception: it is the treatment that outstanding athletes usually receive. And he, without a doubt, was one of them. Later testimonies indicate that at the University, Aaron used drugs regularly. And that he tested positive for several internal drug controls. On some occasions this led him to be a substitute for a while. With Tim Tebow they formed a duo that led the Gators to win many games and two titles. Tebow would also become an NFL star.

His traps, yards won and touchdowns weren't enough. Urban Meyer, his coach, before entering the fourth year as a college student told him to run for the NFL draft, that due to his problems off the court, he was not going to take it into account anymore. When the time came when professional teams chose college players, Aaron was the candidate to be chosen in one of the first places. Some analysts thought he could be selected in the first round, although most said that some team would only take it in the second round. However, as the draft progressed, Aaron was not selected by any team. The journalists were surprised. Only in the fourth round, in 113th place, he was taken by the New England Patriots, the Boston team. That could have only one reason: his behavior was not adequate. The recruiters knew something that journalists and the public were unaware of. In the coaches there was a conviction: Aaron was a problem and no one wanted to risk dealing with him.

That's what the Boston team used to make him a low contract, for very little money but with interesting incentives if his performance was good. Aaron trained thoroughly. In the preseason, to the surprise of many, he won a place in the starting team. His performance during that first year was very good, especially considering that he was a rookie. In the second season, his work was even more outstanding. He was chosen for the Pro Bowl (the NFL All-Star Game) and started in the Super Bowl. In that final he even made a touchdown. The Patriots rewarded their performance and extended their contract: $40 million for the next five years.

Aaron Hernandez was already a superstar.

In the 2012 season, despite some injuries, his performances were also optimal. At the end of that year, he asked the owner and manager of the team to be transferred. His wishes were not heard. It didn't seem like a good idea. What they didn't know was that he wanted to escape from there, from that city. That his crimes were pursuing him.

In the middle of the 2013 preseason he was arrested by the police. The accusation for the murder of his sister-in-law's boyfriend accumulated strong evidence that incriminated him. Two years later, in April 2015, a jury found him guilty. During the process, there was speculation that fame could protect him, that it could be a new case like that of O.J. Simpson. The jury's verdict was delayed, which increased doubts. However, it was damning. A life in prison awaited Aaron. Although he didn't seem to understand it, as indicated by the carefree conversations he had from prison with his relatives.

But while this judicial process was taking place, several serious accusations were piled up against the athlete. The killing of two young immigrants from Cape Verde on the way out of a bowling alley brought him before a jury again. Another crime with no apparent motive, an excess of anger because someone spilled drink on his shirt. That stain warranted an execution from car to car while they waited for the light of a traffic light to change.

The evidence against Hernandez was strong. The van, the security cameras, several testimonies. However, this time he hired a skilled and media lawyer, José Báez, who managed to install doubt in the members of the jury. Aaron Hernandez was eventually acquitted in this process.

There were other accusations as well. One of his friends, a drug dealer suspected of committing the murders of young people in Cape Verde, denounced him for shooting him in the face. A failed assassination attempt that cost the victim the loss of an eye.

Cases of fighting, injury and gun abuse continued to appear from his college years from his early NFL days. Background that emerged only when his star had already gone out, when it was already known that he would not make any more touchdowns and that he would not participate in another Super Bowl. As the flash of success accompanied him, Aaron found leniency, complicity and cover-up for the vast majority of his crimes and excesses. Only then, when he was already a prisoner who was waiting a lifetime in detention, did his background be considered. Abuse as a child, violence in the home, repeated incidents of aggression since high school, problematic drug use, erratic behaviors, lack of education, self-discomfort regarding their sexual identity.

Several causes were considered to explain suicide. Someone said that Aaron believed that if he died his family would charge more money, that his death could secure the future for his wife and daughter. At that time, that state was governed by a law that provided that if a convicted person died while his sentence was not final, while any application application was decided, the sentence was considered not passed, and he was automatically considered innocent for the purposes of the law. This new legal situation allowed the 40 million Patriots contract to be disputed. The judges applied this principle and Hernández was considered, once dead, as innocent. Odin Lloyd's family appealed the decision and succeeded in reversing it, and the state Supreme Court ruled that the law was unjustifiable and obsolete.

Others say that what could have pushed Aaron to decide his own death was the broadcast on a radio program of his bisexual status. Several later testimonies argued that Aaron had homosexual relations in high school and at least one couple during his time in prison. In the homophobic environment of the NFL that was seen as intolerable. In some of his telephone conversations, Aaron implies that he is fighting against that desire and that he is not comfortable with his homosexual inclinations.

Hernandez's family authorized that after the autopsy his brain be removed for study by specialists. What the pathologists found was that it was terribly damaged. Even for someone who doesn't know the subject, the image of his brain compared to that of one without injury is shocking. His one has two huge craters on the site that on the other there are two small symmetrical cavities. Aaron's looked grilled. The diagnosis was chronic traumatic encephalopathy that occurs due to repeated traumatic brain injuries, from the constant and successive blows to the head.

Once again the topic of impacts to the head, concussions and the little interest that the NFL showed for decades in the health of its players came up. Aaron didn't play that long professionally, just a few seasons. In addition, his behavioral problems were long-standing, his unmotivated violence was expressed in different ways from a very young age. On the other hand, there are many players with brain damage and (almost) none of them shot dead those who liked them or stained their shirts.

Aaron Hernandez became a tabloid case, the protagonist of a police case. His story is compelling. A successful professional who kills almost on a whim, who believes that impunity will accompany him for life. That he is not enough to be a great sportsman, that he needs (or cannot avoid) playing, with real weapons, the gangster.

His story is also that of so many others who did not go to the criminal extremes that he ventured into. It is the story of so many other young people who were cheered for their triumphs on the playing fields, no matter what happened outside them. As if success would give them safe passage into the abyss. Young people who deserve maximum indulgences as long as they are effective on the court and as long as the police do not discover their crimes, or as long as they cannot be covered up anymore.

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