48 Hours - The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez

Episode Date: January 21, 2018

What made NFL star Aaron Hernandez kill and kill himself?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. When I write a book, I imagine a person sitting across from me, one person. I'm telling them a story, and I don't want them to get up until I finish. Matthew Kent ran track and played football at a high school in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

So I was running home from the gym down the road. I came over the hill and saw someone lying on the ground. He looked like he was dead. That's where the body was found, right there, by the way. Once I got to the body, I did take a pulse, and the body was cold. In the man's wallet, they found an ID. Odin Lloyd, 27 years old.

You get a call from the police. He says, I'm sorry, Mom, but your son was shot and killed. At the scene, a lot of evidence. You found a set of car keys. Enterprise ran a car. And we learned that the car was rented to Aaron Hernandez. Both of us are football fans. Pretty much everybody out there is a Patriot fan.

It can't possibly be that Aaron Hernandez. I mean, I think you get a kid like this who's been a star right from when he was 15, 16 years old. He begins to believe that he's invincible on some level. Watching Aaron Hernandez on the football field was magical. He was a superstar on every level he played. From high school. Just a man amongst boys.

To college. I'm not sure you'll ever see another guy that can do what he can do. To the NFL, he was a guy that can do what he can do. To the NFL. He was a superstar. Off the field, Aaron was just charismatic. If you see Aaron, he's always laughing or cracking a joke. To me, a great guy. The love of my life.

The father of my child. All of a sudden, he signs a $40 million contract with the Patriots. He's got it made. This is probably one of the best days of my life. All I can do is play my heart out for them. Could have been one of the greatest NFL players ever, and threw it all away. Aaron Hernandez was pulled out of his home in handcuffs this morning,

charged with murder. It was shocking. This has got to be a mistake. There was just no way possible that it could have been Aaron that was involved in handcuffs this morning charged with murder. It was shocking. This has got to be a mistake. There was just no way possible that it could have been Aaron that was involved in something like this. Like involved with a murder? Like, I could see that.

I know he fooled a lot of people into thinking he was a great guy. Me, I'm one of them. He had a secret life. Guilty of murder in the first degree. I was devastated. Completely devastated. My whole world changed. He's all I know. Now this isn't the only trouble that Aaron Hernandez is facing just last week. Two new murder charges laid out today for the unsolved double murder in Boston's South End.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And what do you see? I saw the glass being blown out of the car. That's not the Aaron that I know. You know, unfortunately, I don't think that anyone ever really ultimately found out who Aaron Hernandez was, and I'm not sure Aaron Hernandez ever figured it out. Well, the day he arrived, I explained to him, look, Aaron, I'm the sheriff here. You're not going to be treated any better or any worse than anyone else here.

You hear stories about the fall from grace, and this might be one of the most tragic of all time. This is where the clock ran out for Aaron Hernandez. He killed himself in a cell just yards from here in this Massachusetts prison. Aaron Hernandez was a dead man walking because his brain had been so damaged by his playing football. I'm James Patterson. I write mystery novels. The Hernandez story was so remarkable, I had to write a book about it.

And you don't know the half of it yet. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list.

She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand,

lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story

that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice

that has brought a unique, lonely, Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Bristol, Connecticut is a working class town, football country. From Bristol, Aaron Hernandez. It was November 2006.

All eyes were on Aaron Hernandez. It was amazing to watch. We played right on this field back here, here at Muzzy Field. It was just unbelievable to see the skills that he had. He has the moves of a basketball player. He's very shifty. He dances. His footwork is amazing. Everything just stood out that, wow, this kid is really, really good.

He was the best player in the state of Connecticut. He was probably the best player in the whole Northeast. Yeah, we don't want to tie. We want to win the games. The formation of Aaron Hernandez's mask began at home in a small cottage on Greystone Avenue in Bristol. Small town. Everyone knows everyone here. Growing up, Aaron shared a bedroom with his brother DJ, who was three years his senior. DJ's dad was a former coach of mine.

That's how I was introduced to the Hernandez family, you know, through Dennis. Aaron's parents, Dennis and Terry, were determined to keep the boys on the straight and narrow. Aaron and DJ worshipped their father. He loved kids. He loved helping anyone he could. Aaron's father had played at the University of Connecticut. He was a really good guy. Kind, thoughtful, loud, funny, charismatic. If you do anything great in life, it will come from within, Dennis would tell them. And if it is to be, it is up to me.

Off the field, Aaron was just charismatic, loving. A young woman by the name of Cheyanna Jenkins was Aaron's high school sweetheart. Cheyanna shared their love story with Dr. Phil. He would say it was middle school. I'd say it's more towards high school. It was high school love, high school sweethearts. She loved Aaron Hernandez when Aaron Hernandez had nothing. He was full of life, so sweet, very lovable, would do anything for anyone. anyone. Then tragedy struck. When Aaron was 16, his father went in for a hernia operation and died very unexpectedly. The largest funeral parlor in Bristol was too small

to host the thousand plus people who turned out for the man who was known around town as the King. His father passing away was one of the most important and damaging moments of his life because it was when he went the other way. He picked up new running mates, a drug adult townie named Carlos Ortiz and an older man named Ernest Wallace. Those are people that we grew up with.

They may not be the best people to hang out with. And I don't think his father would have let that happen. In February 2006, every major college football program in the country was trying to contact him. A lot of pressure for a teenager. Hernandez opened up about it all with a local TV station. Half my family told me to go to Notre Dame, Michigan, Miami.

DJ was already playing at the University of Connecticut. It's like, what do I do? Then the Florida Gators made their full court press. And Aaron went down to University of Florida and went, wow. Great coach, Urban Meyer. I remember watching the videotape. I'm not sure you'll ever see another guy that can do what he can do.

When Aaron went down to the University of Florida, Urban Meyer really watched over him. Urban Meyer definitely has a soft spot for people who do not walk a straight line. There was times where he would, I mean, it was a meltdown in my office. Sobbing about his dad and how much he missed him and it happened so fast he never had a chance to say goodbye, those type of things. I would have my daily routine when I'd come in the morning and I'd read the Bible and he'd say, can I come and do that with you in the mornings? And I said, absolutely.

It does not surprise me one bit. Aaron Hernandez was a chameleon. Whatever audience he was with, that's sort of what he became. Me and Harry was good friends. Just a beast. You want him in your foxhole. Play hard, play with his heart.

He's one of the best players in America. Get him the ball. He was ridiculous. But blows sustained on the football field were already altering the structure of Aaron's still-developing brain. If a child plays football for just one season, that child's brain suffers brain damage. CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Dr. Bennett Omalu discovered CTE

and was the first to identify it in football players. It is a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head. There is no safe blow to the head. People get hit in the head a lot. Doesn't seem to turn out very well for an awful lot of people. The greater he was at his job, the more damage that he sustained. Up in Bristol, he'd kept up his friendship with Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace. When he would go home, when he would have friends from home come visit him, I would notice a difference in him. Aaron didn't have much of a support system once his father died.

From everything we can tell, he was certainly a serial weed smoker, PCP. I'd hear stories about marijuana. We would test him frequently, and he only had two positive tests. He was suspended for a game. You know, they certainly made allowances for him. No, no, no. Counseling, firm discipline. An ugly off-campus incident provided a glimpse of the demons that lurked behind the mask. He was in a big bar fight, kind of cold-cocked a bartender. Never really heard about the bar fight.

We all had fights, and, I mean, we still was kids. You know, things happen when you're a kid, drinking. Things happen. Three or four players wanted to be questioned I still was kids. You know, things happen when you're a kid, drinking. Things happen. Three or four players were, wanted to be questioned about being a witness to a shooting in downtown Gainesville. There never was a time when they said he was a suspect. Is it looking the other way, or did he fool everyone? No, never looked the other way.

He was as good of a player as you could imagine. Sooner or later, he was off to the NFL. The NFL scouts knew he was a freak of nature. They didn't know what he was like as a person. He had issues. There had been a lot of stories that circulated through the NFL that this kid could be trouble. Aaron Hernandez had to wait until the last day of the draft to hear his own name

called. 113 overall. The New England Patriots had taken him as the 113th choice of the draft. Draft day was definitely long, way longer than expected. When the Patriots drafted him, they talked to Urban Meyer, and Urban said, you have to stay on top of him. When you get him in the building, he's great. When he leaves the building, you cross your fingers. When he goes to Bristol, you pray. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times

into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free,

with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand-new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye?

Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. Brady throws, caught, touchdown, Aaron Hernandez. When Aaron Hernandez got to Foxboro,

the team Belichick had built was at the top of the NFL. He contributed immediately. Oh, he was great. He was excellent. Brady's not going to throw it to you unless you're going to catch it. He was a model football player. He was a hard worker. He wanted to be great. Aaron Hernandez's personality was electric.

First thing I think of is the touchdown dances. Open the safe. Door open. Grab the money. Make it rain. I just had to be in front of the TV when the game started and just how proud his dad would be. The boy from Bristol found himself in Indianapolis playing in his first and only Super Bowl. Here's a guy that went through that tough stretch

of losing his father, and it seemed like everything was in order. He had a secret life, and I don't think the people in the Patriots knew about it. Tell me about the tattoos. It's a quote my father always used to give me, and it says, if it is to be, it is up to me. So the life I want to live is all in my hands.

Are you living the life you want to live? As of right now, I am. Aaron was always around his locker, and we were friendly. We exchanged numbers, and he was like, you're my guy. If you ever need anything, you let me know. But if you ever f*** me over, I'll kill you. And I was like, okay, and I kind of laughed a little bit. Thank you.

That's amazing, thank you. I'm very close with Coach Belichick. My whole thing was make sure he's around good people. That was a major concern for the Patriots too. When he was in New England, Bristol was close. There were old friends like Carlos Ortiz to hang out with, and there were new friends like Alexander Bradley. Alexander Bradley owned a lot of guns.

He didn't have the best choice in some friends, but that doesn't, you know, that didn't make him a bad person but alexander bradley and aaron hernandez got along well he'd leave the facility and he'd morph into something else based on the people he was hanging out with the kid from bristol was a superstar now he loved the limelight the action the nightlife one of his favorite haunts here in b, on the pulsing dance floor of Cure Nightclub. On July 15, 2012, Bradley and Hernandez set out for Cure in a silver SUV with Rhode Island plates. Just ahead of them, two total strangers, Daniel D'Abreu and Zafiro Furtado, were paying the entrance fee.

The dance floor was packed when D'Abreu bumped into Hernandez. Spilled a drink on Aaron Hernandez. Aaron goes ballistic. Alexander Bradley gets Aaron out of the club. So you guys were working at a club in this area. So what happened that night? We came out of the club that we worked at, and we got into our car. A silver SUV came out of nowhere.

Ran right through the red light. At the time, you didn't recognize who it was? No, did not. Did you see the two cars side by side? Yeah. Okay. And all of a sudden, we heard gunshots. We saw two people in the front had been shot.

There was a lot of blood. It was Zafiro Furtado and Daniel D'Abreu, two friends who had just gone out dancing. Both died after midnight on a Boston street. Breaking news. Reports of shots fired. They found a BMW, two people dead inside. Police are looking for a silver SUV with Rhode Island plates.

The police made no progress in the weeks that followed. But Aaron sure did. They signed him to a $40 million extension. Life-changing money. This is probably one of the best days of my life. I just hope I keep making the right decisions and be there to live a good life with my family. Huge accomplishment, of course,

but I don't think anything changed for us. You know, we just had more money in the bank, in a sense. All I could do was play my heart out for them and live like a patriot. ¶¶ Erin and Shayana got engaged that October. A few weeks later, they celebrated the birth of their daughter,

Avielle Janelle. Definitely a life changer, especially every time I come to the stadium, can't wait to go see her. He's just, to me, a great guy, the love of my life, the father of my child. I mean, that's the tragedy in all of this, is that, you know, it could have been a fairy tale. But in fairy tales, the hero doesn't shoot at strangers,

doesn't blow away his pals. Hernandez was definitely capable of shooting his friends. It was February 2013, more than six months after the still-unsolved murders of D'Abreu and Furtado. Hernandez and Bradley headed south to party. They hit the Miami strip club, Tootsies. Aaron Hernandez withdrew $15,000 cash, apparently on the way back from Tootsies up to Palm Beach County.

Aaron Hernandez expected Mr. Bradley to pay half of it. Mr. Bradley didn't have any money. Bradley and Hernandez left Tootsies and headed north. Mr. Bradley was asleep in the car when all of a sudden he woke up right around this area. And when he did, he was looking down a barrel of a gun. The bullet tore through Bradley's hand, blowing off part of one finger, passed through the bridge of his nose, and exploded

his right eye in its socket. This is where we found him, right in this area. And the police asked Bradley who did it. He won't tell them. He did not want to assist with the investigation, didn't want to cooperate. Our case becomes cold at that point. But he's in contact then with Aaron. Aaron was receiving a steady barrage of text messages from Alexander Bradley.

The two men went back and forth, mixing threats with endearments. You did that bulls**t for no reason, and me being the real friend I was to you, I didn't try to ruin you even after you tried to kill me. I miss you and love you and still watch videos of us having fun every single day and can't believe this.

You read them and you go like, what's going on here? Whatever went down between Bradley and Hernandez, whatever happened on that bloody Boston street, both cases remained cold, a ragged jigsaw of evidence.

Hernandez stayed in the spotlight as a New England patriot. And by spring 2013, Hernandez was hanging out with a new friend, Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player. He was a decent, hard-working, good kid. And he took care of his family to the highest extent that a loving son could. He's a silly kid. He just make you smile. Oden Lloyd grew up here in the gritty neighborhood of Dorchester. He worked hard, never had a lot of money, but he did have at least one thing in common with Aaron Hernandez, football.

My relationship to Oden, football coach, I would say mentor, friend. Oden did not have the money for college. He could just do it all on the field. He played for a semi-pro team, the Boston Bandits. Here we go. These guys are not paid. He rode his bike to practice. That shows you commitment. Probably the most amazing person in this whole story was Ursula Ward, who was Odin Lloyd's mother. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you. Nice meeting you. Thank you for... Take a left right here.

This is Odin Jersey, Boston Bandits. That's just a breeze. Tell me about Odin. He would turn a bad situation into a good one. Tell me some other things about him. He's a don't-do-it person. He never take anything for granted. So Shania was sort of the first girl that you were going like, that would be a good idea? Shania was the one. Shania Jenkins was the sister of Shayana,

Aaron Hernandez's fiancée. Aaron Hernandez and Oden Lloyd simply dated sisters. And clearly, I mean, you get the chance to hang out with Aaron Hernandez, and you love football, and you love the Patriots, so that's a pretty cool thing, right? The last time you saw Odin was what, Father's Day, right? Yeah.

And he wished you a happy Father's Day because you've been a good father and mother to him, right? He sure did. And he says, Ma, you look so beautiful today. I love those colors on you. Who would have thought that those were the last words I would have ever heard from my son? It was the night of June 16, 2013. Hernandez texted down to Bristol, to Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace. Soon, the three headed for Dorchester

to pick up Odin. One of Odin's sisters saw them pull up. A half hour later, she began getting a series of texts from Odin. You saw who I'm with, NFL, just so you know. After that, there were no more messages. I came over the hill and saw someone lying on the ground. Tonight, police in North Attleboro are investigating the discovery of a body. There were 45 rounds around the body, no gun. So at that point, I knew we had what looked like a homicide. You're going to go into the victim's pockets, and what do you find there?

We find car keys. It's an Enterprise rental car. Then we find out the car was rented to Aaron Hernandez. And what's your reaction to that? That Aaron Hernandez? Which Aaron Hernandez is this? Yeah, yeah. It can't possibly be him. Car keys in the pockets. The car is a rented car in Aaron's name.

Less than a mile from his house. This is crazy. If I wrote something like this in one of my books, you go, Patterson's lost it. This thing could never happen. But it happened. You get a call from the police he says do you know what in Lloyd I said yes and he says ma'am I'm gonna send two detectives to your

home I remember one of them says I'm sorry mom but just one shot I'm sorry, Mom, but your son was shot and killed. I fell to the ground. I said, that's my son. I don't remember nothing else after. And then my daughter, Shakila, said, oh, wait a minute, my brother was texting me. She gave the police her phone. The same phone Odin had texted to about just who had picked him up that night.

NFL. So they went to the house, they're knocking on the door, but no one comes to the door. He called me and said, hey Murph, there's a policeman outside my door and I'm not sure why they're here. I said, well, just go ask him. And eventually Aaron opens the door. So they go back and forth a little bit. And ultimately, Aaron says to him, what's with all the questions?

We're investigating a death, the detective said. He just slams the door when he finds out there's a death investigation. He doesn't say, who's death? How's Odin? Is Odin OK? So we go into the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, speak to one of the people there.

And she says, hey, I don't know if this is important, but I found a bullet. It was the sort of break detectives live for. The shell casing looked exactly like ones the detectives had found at the scene of Odin Lloyd's murder. And the news breaks that he was a person of interest. And, you know, I'm talking to some of the editors, they're like can you believe this like Hernandez and I so vividly remember thinking I could see that what he was being accused of it was just take your breath away like how how did this happen he may have been at the wrong place wrong time but I don't think that he you know what is said to be out there is

actually accurate. We were going wall-to-wall coverage at that point. The helicopters are following his car. Are you involved in the murder at all? Can you tell us anything you want to say? As the investigation went into overdrive, the spotlight was on Aaron Hernandez, but in a whole new way. Can you just tell us what happened on Monday night?

Everybody collectively decided it's time, and we decided that we were going to get an arrest warrant. The police had marched Aaron out of the house in handcuffs, a white V-neck t-shirt that stretched over his hulking torso like a giant straitjacket. I just remember him spitting on the sidewalk as they're taking him into the cruiser. Less than two hours after Aaron's arrest, another news bulletin had come in. He has just been released by the Patriots team following his arrest. The Patriots had cut Hernandez.

This was home now. Cell G1. It's where those on suicide watch and the most high-profile inmates are locked up. And no one was more high profile than Aaron Hernandez. Aaron Hernandez is being held without bail in a Massachusetts jail. Hernandez is accused of executing his friend, Odin Lloyd, allegedly. Once he was arrested, he basically disappeared

from everything Patriots. He was out of the record books. The Patriots announced that fans who had bought Hernandez jerseys could swap them out. We don't support murderers. The Hernandez jerseys would all be burned. It's like he never existed. And it's sad because he definitely existed.

I loved him. My whole family loved him and it's extremely painful. And he was very close with my kids. He was very close with my wife, Shelly. It was looking so bright. We were going up a ladder, in a sense, to the positive direction. I haven't

been able to grasp any of it yet. This is it. It's a Bristol County jail. Aaron Hernandez's home away from home. I don't think we've ever seen a case quite like this. Somebody who had everything going for them and had this bizarre other life. We're actually in the unit that Aaron Hernandez was spending his time in. It's a segregated unit. Here is this guy that had a dream life. Have you ever talked about that? What he lost? No, he never really did. I've never seen anybody

that just seamlessly acclimated the way he did. And he actually mentioned this today. I don't see myself in jail. I'm working myself toward getting back on the team and I'll be working out here and I just see this as training camp. Aaron Hernandez's field of dreams had been reduced to this metal exercise cage, the only place he was allowed to work out, as he prepared for the most high-stakes contest of his life. It was January 29, 2015. The trial would finally be starting. If convicted of first-degree murder, Hernandez would spend the rest of his life in prison.

He believed he could kill Odin Lloyd, and nobody would ever believe that he was involved. We are here because the police and the prosecutors targeted Aaron from the very beginning. You never know what's going to happen at a trial, but we felt the evidence was extremely strong. Everything was leading to Aaron Hernandez. He was the one that shot the gun.

We had surveillance from his house, and it showed Aaron Hernandez went in that house with a gun that night. We had text messages where Aaron was basically telling Ortiz and Wallace to get up here quickly. They did, and one of them pulled the trigger, says Hernandez's lawyer. A shocking killing committed by somebody he knew. Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace were in the car with Aaron when Odin was murdered.

With the defendant driving, they drove to a secluded, isolated area in North Attleboro. There, full load was shot six times. But as yet, there was no smoking gun. In fact, there was no gun at all. According to Assistant D.A. Bomberg, that's because Cheyenne Jenkins had disposed of the murder weapon, a Glock 45 that was never found. Aaron Hernandez did have Jenkins remove a box from their sprawling home after the murder.

And did he indicate to you what was inside the box? No. Did he say why he wanted you to do this? I believe he said it was important. I'm not too sure. By the end of the trial, prosecutors had all but proven that Aaron had been in the clearing on the night of the murder. Guilty of murder in the first degree. I was devastated. It was a shock to all of us. Everything changed. He wasn't there anymore, financially, emotionally.

Why does Aaron do this? I think it's a whole lot of things. One, probably high as a kite. Two, doesn't think the rules apply to him at all. Three, has gotten away with stuff since forever. And four, maybe at this point there is some brain damage. Maybe he really is literally crazy at this point. You're committed to the NCI Cedar Junction for the term of your natural life without the possibility of parole. is literally crazy at this point. You're committed to the NCI Cedar Junction

for the term of your natural life without the possibility of parole. I don't know if Aaron pulled the trigger or not, and if he did pull the trigger, that's an Aaron Hernandez I can't even imagine. I have a hard time believing still to this day that he was the one that actually did it, but it's very, very sad for the Odenloid family.

I mean, my heart absolutely goes out for them. My son Oden was the most precious gift in my life. I just let everyone know who Oden was, how he would be missed. The most significant thing I observed in Ursula Ward was what happened just after the conviction. I forgive the hands of the people that had a hand in my son's murder. What gave you the strength or the feeling that you needed to forgive? Because I felt like my son is in a better place and him seeing me holding on to hatred

and anger is not going to get me anywhere. My son always said, Ma, once you have life, you smile. And I try to live by those words. Thank you, God, for your many blessings. If not for Odin Lloyd's murder, the drive-by killings of Daniel De Abreu and Zafiro Furtado might have been forgotten. Boston police, who had stalled in their investigation of the 2012 double homicide, have been looking more deeply into the case.

Police are looking for a silver SUV with Rhode Island plates. The vehicle vanished for nearly a year. We received an anonymous call here about it. Found that SUV in Connecticut. Covered in dust and cobwebs, the missing SUV had been stashed in the garage at the home of Aaron's uncle in Bristol. Already convicted for killing Odin Lloyd,

Aaron Hernandez was indicted for two new counts of first degree murder, charges resulting from the investigation into the double homicide in Boston. And it is said, though not proven, that it is the motive for the killing of Odin Lloyd. Just two nights before he died, Lloyd hit a Boston nightclub with Hernandez.

Witnesses said Aaron seemed edgy and angry. From what we could gather, he felt as though that some people that Odin Lloyd were talking to were people that he had a problem with. Aaron might have seen Odin speaking to friends of Zafiro Furtado and Daniel De Abreu and grown suspicious.

Was that a motive for murder? He didn't like being disrespected. This may have been just one of those situations where Oden apparently took it too far and disrespected him, in his eyes. May have heard some things and knew some things that he probably wished he did not know that ultimately might have resulted in his death. What was it that made him go to that extreme

where he wanted to kill somebody? He talked a lot about how much he revered his father. And because they were so close, I believe that whenever you disrespected Aaron Hernandez, you disrespected his father. Here's a tough view of the Aaron Hernandez story. Hit him in the head several thousand times, add PCP, then weed,

you get a recipe for disaster, and that's exactly what happened. Disaster. Sousa Baranowski Prison. This would be the last stop for Aaron Hernandez. He wasn't an evil man. No, he wasn't. He was a sick man, and what made him sick was...

football. On March 1, 2017, Jose Baez and Linda Kenny Bodden joined together to defend Aaron Hernandez in his second murder trial. And our claim is that he didn't do it, that another person did it. Bodden and Baez would point to Alexander Bradley, who was with Hernandez that night

DiAbreu and Furtado were murdered on that Boston street in 2012. Alexander Bradley was in the car the night that the victims were killed. Alexander Bradley stonewalled Florida police. He just didn't want to talk to us. Staying silent about who shot him. He didn't stay silent for long.

He wound up saying, yo, again. They turned, and then he started firing rounds into their vehicle. He wound up saying, yo, again. They turned, and then he started firing rounds into their vehicle. And now, Hernandez's loved ones were back in court, looking on as Bradley testified, swearing Hernandez killed two strangers because one of them spilled a drink on him. His drink splashed up and spilled on Mr. Hernandez,

and something got on myself as well. That was the whole theory that somebody would commit double homicide. How sure are you that it was Hernandez in that car? 99% sure. You know, when it came to thinking about somebody's freedom, you know, I wasn't willing to go there. The prosecution could not show that Aaron Hernandez was the shooter. What transpired in the Cure Lounge is the foundation of this case.

All rise. The jurors deliberated for five and a half days. Not guilty. Dennis Hernandez had taught his boy not to cry. But now, Aaron did cry. Hernandez cried tears of joy. Everything was looking more positive than negative. His other conviction was up for appeal.

We've had talks about him coming home. Aaron was halfway to freedom. He was still young, 27. If Jose Baez could work his magic again, he might have a few years of football left in him. Now it was the evening of April 18th, 2017. Aaron stayed on the line with Shayana. I remember him saying, babe, I've got to go. They're shutting the doors. And I honestly don't think that we said I love you to each other. And that was it.

At around one in the morning, Aaron hung part of a bed sheet over the window cut into the door of his cell. He opened his Bible to the book of John. A drop of his blood would be found on the page. He wrote John 3.16 in red ink on his forehead. It talks about everlasting life. By the time the guards found him, Aaron Hernandez was cold to the touch. I got a call at 5.27 a.m. He informed me that, indeed, Aaron was deceased.

And at first I thought it was a hoax. I thought that, you know, this was some cruel person. I haven't spoken to anyone who really understands why he killed himself, especially given that things seem to be going his way suddenly. I just broke down, didn't think it was real, and just cried. I was crushed. I was devastated. I couldn't imagine the kid that I knew doing this. When I heard that, I just prayed that he had an opportunity to ask God to forgive him.

But Hernandez's death in this prison doesn't end our story. It opens up a whole new arena of conflicts and questions. In Massachusetts, there's an antiquated law that says if appeals have not been completed, then the conviction may be vacated. And that's what's happened here. Aaron's conviction in the first case involving Odom Lloyd has been thrown out. His family made the decision, his lawyers made the decision to donate his brain to science. Boston University has a research center that studies CTE, and as summer drew to a close,

has a research center that studies CTE. And as summer drew to a close, researchers there announced the results of their examination of Aaron Hernandez's brain. This would be the first case we've ever seen of that kind of damage in such a young individual. This is substantial damage that undoubtedly took years to develop. There have been suicides, a lot of violent behavior,

but, you know, can you make a direct connection to CTE? I think a lot of people think you can. The verdict is out. People who have been exposed to traumatic brain injury are more likely to commit violent crimes. I have a hard time drawing a link to, he had CTE, therefore he was a murderer. One of the ironies here is not too many people are interested

in the death of the good guy, Odin Lloyd. I love you, boo. Everybody's interested in the death of Aaron Hernandez, the bad guy. Both the NFL and the New England Patriots declined our request for an interview about Aaron Hernandez. Let's use his brain, let's use his tragedy to find some more information to protect, you know, other football players going forward. On the football field, no one could catch him. And when Aaron was caught and convicted for Odin Lloyd's murder, he continued to find new ways to escape. By killing himself, he escaped a long life behind bars.

In the end, he escaped understanding. Prosecutors are appealing to have Aaron Hernandez' murder conviction reinstated. Cheyenne Jenkins Hernandez has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the couple's daughter against the NFL and helmet maker Riddell, seeking damages for the brain injuries Hernandez sustained. Ursula Ward has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Aaron Hernandez's estate. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.

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