Former New England Patriots star tight end Aaron Hernandez has died after hanging himself with bedsheets in a Massachusetts prison, according to the Associated Press. Hernandez was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the 2013 killing of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player who had been dating his fiancée’s sister.
Guards found Hernandez in his cell, which he tried to block from the inside, at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley just after 3 a.m., Department of Correction spokesman Christopher Fallon reportedly said in a statement. The 27-year-old was pronounced dead at the hospital an hour later.
Fallon reportedly said there was no concern about his well-being, and if officials thought Hernandez was planning on taking his own life, he would have been transferred to a mental health unit. Hernandez had just been acquitted in the 2012 Boston shooting deaths of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.
The former New England Patriots tight end leaves behind a four-year-old daughter, who he was seen blowing kisses to in court just before his acquittal last week.
—RealClearLife
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