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Aaron Hernandez’s Football Career

Aaron Hernandez was an elite football player at Bristol High School in Connecticut. He was the Gatorade Football Player of the Year in Connecticut as a Senior and was named a US Army All-American.

He had scholarship offers from schools across the country. He was planning on staying close to home and playing football at the University of Connecticut with his brother, Dennis Johnathan Junior, but he changed his mind and accepted a scholarship from the University of Florida.

He started off slow in college but improved every year. By his Junior season, he won the John Mackey Award, which goes to the best tight end.

He was all first team in the SEC and a first-team all-American. He entered the 2010 NFL Draft after his junior season of college.

He was projected to be a second-round pick, but organizations had concerns about his size and off-the-field issues.

Since high school, Hernandez would hang out with criminals and had been known to drink alcohol and smoke weed. He reportedly failed several drug tests in college.

Before his freshman year in April 2007, he was accused of punching a bar manager who tried to get him to pay for his drinks, but he was never charged.

Hernandez slipped in the draft and was selected in the fourth round by the New England Patriots. He signed a 4-year, 2.37 million dollar contract.

In August 2012, after two great seasons with the Patriots, he was given a 5 year, 40-million-dollar contract extension. It was the second-largest contract given to a tight end. Hernandez would never get a chance to play out that contract.

Murder of Odin Lloyd

On June 17th, 2013, Hernandez’s friend, 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, was found dead two minutes from Hernandez’s home. Someone shot Lloyd six times.

The investigation quickly led authorities to Hernandez, and police searched his home the next day. The NFL superstar was arrested on June 26th, 2013, for first-degree murder and five weapons charges. The Patriots cut him from the team 90 minutes later.

Two other men, Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace, were also arrested.

Boston Detectives Eye Hernandez For Two Additional Murders

With Hernandez locked up for murder, Boston, Massachusetts detectives looked into an old case from July 16th, 2012, when Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Teixeira Furtado, 28, were shot and killed outside Cure nightclub.

Hernandez was at the club that night, and a witness said Hernandez’s SUV pulled up next to the men before the shots were fired. Hernandez was indicted for the double murder as well as the attempted murder of the vehicle’s surviving occupants.

Odin Lloyd Murder Trial

When the Odin Lloyd murder case went to trial on January 29th, 2015, Prosecutors had a lot of evidence. They had text messages showing Hernandez wanted to meet Lloyd that night.

They were able to show the jury that the two were together in the early hours of the morning near where Lloyd’s body was found.

They also expressed that keys belonging to a car rented by Hernandez were in Lloyd’s pocket. Surveillance footage the night of the murder showed Hernandez walking around his home with a dark object in his hand, which looked like a gun.

The prosecution had a video of Hernandez buying blue bubble gum hours before the murder. Later, they recovered a shell casing with blue bubble gum stuck to it that was left in a Nissan Hernandez rented.

The shell casing matched the ones found at the murder scene, and the DNA on the gum was a match for Hernandez.

Shoe tracks found at the scene were linked back to Hernandez, and tire tracks were linked back to the rental car Hernandez was driving that night.

The jury learned that after the murder, Hernandez tried to destroy his in-home security system, and he broke his phone. He also hired house cleaners the day Lloyd’s body was found.

The evidence was overwhelming, and on April 15th, 2015, Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder and several weapons charges. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

His accomplice, Ernest Wallace, was acquitted of murder but received 4.5 to 7 years after he was found guilty of accessory after the fact. Ortiz pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact and received the same sentence as Wallace.

Boston Double Murder Trial

In 2017, Hernandez went on trial for the double murder that occurred in 2012 in Boston. Casey Anthony’s former lawyer, Jose Baez, defended him.

Prosecutors claimed Hernandez killed the men because they spilled a drink on him earlier. Their star witness was a drug dealer who had beef with Hernandez. The man wasn’t credible, and the evidence was lacking.

On April 14th, 2017, Hernandez was found guilty of illegal firearm possession, but he was acquitted on all the other charges.

Five days later, just after 3 am, he was found hanging by a bed sheet in his cell in Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts.

He was taken to the hospital and later pronounced dead. He was 27 years old.