Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Is Aaron Hernandez suicide note real or was NFL star murdered?

Episode Date: May 15, 2017

Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez suspects Aaron Hernandez did not write the notes prosecutors say were found in the prison cell where he was found dead last month. The mother of the NFL star’s young daughter tells Dr. Phil she doubts he killed himself and that someone forged the “suicide notes” and murdered him. In this episode, Nancy Grace and Alan Duke discuss the evidence, including an exclusive CrimeOnline.com comparison of his handwriting. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. The former NFL player Aaron Hernandez has killed himself inside his prison cell. Hernandez was found hanged with a bed sheet on the window area of his cell. That 27-year-old former Patriots player was just acquitted of a double murder last week, but he was serving a life sentence for a separate murder. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The state just releasing one of three suicide notes that he left. In one of his 10 final sentences for Cheyenne Jenkins Hernandez, he asks,

tell my story fully, but never think anything besides how much I love you. He ends his final message writing, this was the Supreme's, the Almighty's plan, not mine. How about the handwriting? Did it look like him? The handwriting was similar, but I feel like, again, you have nothing but time in there. So I feel like it's easily duplicated or could be. Superstar Aaron Hernandez suicide note. A fake? What? After all we have been through,

he was a suspect in multiple murders. This after a $40 million football contract. Just right down the crapper. There's really no nice way to put it. He allegedly murders one person after the next, just always the same M.O., modus operandi, method of operation. Finally, kills himself behind bars after writing John 316 on the walls and blood on his forehead.

He leaves a suicide note to his fiancée, writing John 3.16 on the walls and blood on his forehead. He leaves a suicide note to his fiancee, the mother of his little girl, and now claims that suicide note is a fake? That can only lead to one conclusion. If the suicide note is a fake, then that strongly suggests someone believes Aaron Hernandez was murdered. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Let's get right down to it. Joining me her reasoning behind why she believes Aaron Hernandez's suicide note is a fake. Roll it.

Did that note strike you odd in any way? No, I thought it was addressed to Shea instead of, you know, babe or bae, the way he would refer me as that was a little odd to me. But as far as the content, it seemed to be his loving self. It was addressed to Shea. You would have thought it would have been a term of endearment, more close, more intimate than that. Right, absolutely. How about the handwriting? Did it look like him? The handwriting was similar, but I feel like, again, you have nothing but time in there.

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for the 10% off your home security system. SimpliSafe.com slash Nancy. SimpliSafe, thank you for what you are doing for Americans that believe home security is unaffordable. It's not thanks to you. Now let's get back to our podcast. She tells Dr. Phil that Hernandez's note was odd, claims the handwriting could have been easily, easily duplicated. But we are posting for you on Crime Online today a handwriting analysis that we have been able to obtain.

We have obtained a known sample of Aaron Hernandez writing. A known handwritten note by Aaron Hernandez cannot reveal our sources, but we have obtained his writing and we know it to be his writing to compare to the suicide note. Let's go to the likelihood before you analyze the known writing and compare it to the suicide note. Alan, how likely is it that he could have been murdered behind bars? It would have been very difficult, in my opinion, because of the way that the cell door was blocked, the way that he was found hanging.

It would have been a massive conspiracy among the staff at the jail and the inmates, I would think, in order to pull that thing off. It just physically, I just don't see how it would have happened. And what Alan means, I think, is Aaron Hernandez's door to his cell, his private cell, was barricaded from the inside. So how do you barricade the door on the inside and manage to shut the door? But on the other hand, it is the jail personnel, the CI, Correctional Institute personnel, saying it was barricaded. So I guess if you want to go down this rabbit hole, could imagine you could argue if it was a fake and they set it up then why would we believe in the barricade also there was apparently soap or some type of substance slick substance on his self floor that he had allegedly smeared on the floor to make it harder if anyone was trying to stop him in his suicide

to get to him. He was hung. That's how he died with a lot of self-markings. His hands and feet were marked with the stigmata when Christ was crucified. And who would do that? Who would turn the Bible to John 3.16? Who would write John 3.16 on his forehead? But let's just go down the rabbit hole. Let's just play it out. How could it have occurred? He is not a snowflake. You cannot just go in and kill Aaron Hernandez. He usually does the killing. Let's just get that straight. How would you kill him, get him into the position that he was found in without him struggling mightily, making a lot of noise and causing you a lot of pain? I just don't see that happening. I don't see it happening either. play out the theory that he was killed in the suicide note as a fake. He could have been asphyxiated some other way from behind,

caught unawares, asphyxiated, and then set up to look like this. Easily could have been. But do I think that's likely? I think it's highly unlikely. So where is she going with this? Is there some insurance policy out there that precludes recovery if the person commits suicide? Because remember in his note, he says, you are rich. You're rich. The reference to you're rich

followed his request that she take care of a couple of people who were his boys, if you will. The names of these boys were redacted from the letter, but he was suggesting, hey, you're going to have plenty of money to take care of my boys, so please do it. You know, she also says that he was extremely positive just before his death, that there was no hint he was going to commit suicide. To me, that's a much stronger argument than the suicide handwriting doesn't match. You know what? I remember my first handwriting analysis.

Alan, you're going to laugh. I was so thrilled because I got a bank robbery case to prosecute, and state prosecutors, violent felony prosecutors, rarely got those. They were usually federal cases because of the FDIC. Okay? So we rarely got a bank robbery, so I was all set to do the bank robbery. Here's the problem. Nobody could identify the defendant, including me. That's a problem. Now, they did not have bank surveillance. They had surveillance, but you could only see it in still photos. The bank robber that I prosecuted had on a wig, a big wig, a hat, a fake mustache,

sunglasses, and a suit and a beard. I forgot that part. So very difficult to identify. He had a bank robbery note, Alan. He was dyslexic and the note said, don't touch the Al ram this is a roby okay don't touch the alarm this is a robbery and there were all sorts of it's like he had heard yeah the owl ram don't touch the owl ram this is a roby and it was more like this don't comma touch apostrophe comma comma comma the comma owl ram apostrophe apostrophe period comma this comma is comma a apostrophe, Alram, apostrophe, apostrophe, period, comma, this comma is, comma, a apostrophe, Roby, period. It's like he had heard a punctuation but didn't really understand how to use it, you know? If I were the teller and he handed me that note, I would die laughing.

He wouldn't have to shoot me. Well, she did take a long time looking at it. And anyway, he got the money and left. Well, nobody could find him. Nobody could identify him. But in the alleyway, long after police had arrived and tried to process the scene for prints, which they didn't find, in the alleyway was a suit, a wig, a mustache, a beard, and a hat. What he did was he had a bicycle park there. He had a breakaway suit, as we called it at the time. He basted it up the back and underneath he had on shorts and a shirt

and some tennis shoes. And he just drove, pedaled off on his bicycle with the money as the cops came in the front door. It was Keystone Cops. Anyway, where do you go when you can't find your guy? The jail. So I start snooping around the jail, finally come upon one person. I show the bank robbery picture. And I said, does this look like anybody you know? And he goes, yeah, it looks like my old roommate a little bit. And I said, well, when's the last time you saw him? He said, well, we got in a fight because he wouldn't pay me my rent. I said, well, what was he doing when you last saw him? He goes, he was sewing the back of a suit. Okay, I knew right then I had my man.

But in order to really prove it, because, you know, what was I putting up on the stand? Another doper or convicted felon, you know, so I didn't want to hinge my case on him. So I did a handwriting analysis. And sure enough, he put all the letters backwards and put apostrophes. I mean, that was my first handwriting analysis case. So there you have it. It also helped that he was duck footed, slew footed. And so when this guy took the stand, the whole jury hung over the railing to see how he walked. Sure enough, he walked just like a duck. That helped. So I got the conviction. Long story short, that's when I first learned the importance of handwriting samples. And I guess I've lived through several hundred of them by now. This handwriting sample, in my mind,

looking at all of the similarities, there's no doubt this is Aaron Hernandez handwriting in my mind. I mean, look at it for Pete's sake. And look at some common words here. We have four sentences, four lines here. It's actually the same kind of paper. I guess that's what you get in jail. He uses, you can't help, and even Shiana acknowledged it looks like his handwriting. But her point was somebody in jail had all the time in the world and they could have gone and they could have duplicated his handwriting. That is really a far-fetched conspiracy. Wait a minute. Look at this.

Look at this. Look at the comparison. This is the one I guess we're going to post on Crime Online. If you look at the first word, Shay, look at the comparison. This is the one I guess we're going to post on Crime Online. If you look at the first word, shea, look at the Y. Now look down at the Ys in his known handwriting. He alternates between putting an upper curl at the bottom of the Y and then a straight down veering from right to left. Look at the U's.

There's always a tail. Look at the O. And look at the word always. Look at the word always. And look at the S. Look at the S at the end. There are so many. You can just dissect this word for word, stroke by stroke, and come away with a very clear idea that this was him. All the T's start top to bottom, then they go left to right. They're always slanted, usually downward to upward. The A, a big giveaway, is how you make your A's, believe it or not, and your S's as you identified. Also, the N's exactly alike and the E's. People make their E's in a lot of different ways. Look at the W. On the bottom sample, the one from 2015 that we know was him,

I want, look at the W in want, and then look up at the suicide note, and there are several W's, like on the bottom sentence where it says to, T-W-O. Compare those two. They're identical W's, like on the bottom sentence where it says two T-W-O. Compare those two. They're identical W's. I'm seeing that. You would have to be really good to forge this. Really good. Now, she believes that people were behind bars.

They had plenty of time to forge or even trace or copy. That's going to be a tough sell. So let's talk about motivation. What's in it for her? If he was murdered versus suicide, there may be some insurance clause that would not be triggered if there's insurance floating around out there. But also this whole battle with the NFL because of the abatement ab initio. It sounds like a Harry Potter Hicks. But abatement ab initio is that if you die in about seven states in the union before your

criminal conviction is confirmed on appeal then you're automatically an innocent person that would mean to some people the nfl owes her all of his money because he was never convicted the nfl is going to argue alan that we let him go when he was first arrested for conduct unbecoming an NFLer, not when he was convicted. That's going to be their argument. It's going to be quite a debate on that. And then there is also, will her fortune, if she does get this money, will it then have to go to the victims in a civil suit? Yes, it will. A wrongful death suit? Yes, it will. The court's going to side with the victims in a civil suit? Yes, it will. A wrongful death suit.

Yes, it will. The court's going to side with the victims. O.J. style. Yeah, the court's going to side with the victims. Unless right now, well, she doesn't have the money to hide like O.J. did. O.J. Simpson hid everything, including his heist money. He hid everything. That's going to be the issue.

Does she have money that she can hide? If not, will the victim's families get the money before her? And my argument would be yes. So her claiming this is not a suicide note, how does that benefit her other than for her peace of mind? I think it's a peace of mind thing. And I think it's a perfectly natural thing. I'd love to ask Karen Stark about this. Why would somebody try to rationalize the suicide of a loved one? Well, I think there are a lot of really deep emotional reasons to do this. First of all, also for that little girl, that daughter of theirs, it would be better for her not to think her dad didn't want to live to see her grow up.

With me, well-known psychologist Karen Stark, joining us from New York. Karen, why do you believe, first of all, thank you for being with us, but Karen, why would Hernandez fiance desperately want this not to be a suicide? The thing is, Nancy, that people have problems when someone dies no matter what. It's very hard to accept the loss and not look for some kind of blame. And in this situation with somebody killing themselves, it's very painful and shocking. And it leaves, the worst part of suicide, one of the worst parts, is that it leaves the people that survive hurting and feeling responsible. It's in some ways a very angry thing to do, leave people with that kind of unresolved situation. And so in this case, she would think, how could I not have known? What could I have done to stop that from happening? It seems

so improbable that I can understand why someone would think, well, he was murdered or it can't be him. Karen, what do people go through when their loved one commits suicide? A lot of self-blame. So it's not just regular sorrow that you have the way you would when somebody normally dies. This is much more painful because you do wonder, what could I have done to stop this? It just seems so unlikely and difficult to accept that somebody would take their own life, that you can help reviewing and thinking, I should have done this, or I should have seen the signs, or he's telling me that he communicated it to me indirectly. How did I miss that? So it's worse than somebody dying under normal circumstances. What will the little girl go through in her later years?

Well, I say this all the time, and I hate to sound redundant, but the truth is she needs some help because she's not just in a situation having to deal with a father who killed themselves, which makes you feel like maybe that's going to happen to you too, that you'll wind up killing yourself because sometimes it just runs in families, that kind of history. But she has to deal with the fact that he had been so successful

and then kind of self-destructed and was accused of murdering somebody. That's a terrible stigma to have to carry when you're a child growing up and an inheritance that nobody would really want to have. He's already going to be cleared of the convictions, not necessarily in every jurisdiction, but what will that mean for his estate? And in order to believe this was not a suicide, I agree with you on the conspiracy thing. If more than one person knows about it, the cat's

out of the bag. Nobody can keep a secret. There'll be plenty of snitches in that jail to call them on it. So that's the last place you want to try to keep a secret. The next thing, I think we're going to have a civil lawsuit trial. And that's going to probably, just like with the OJ thing, it's going to reveal more than the criminal trial did because there's less restrictions on the evidence. So for right now, the issue is, was the suicide note a fake? If it is a fake, why and how will it be determined? I hate the heartbreak that Hernandez's fiance is going through. I hate the heartbreak his daughter will go through when she's old enough to understand.

But I also hate the heartbreak that his murder victim's families have gone through and what they will go through for the rest of their lives. There's no good outcome to any of this. And again, if you're not there when a fire starts, who will be there to save your home? With Simply Safe Home Security, your smoke detectors immediately alert emergency services at the first sign of a fire. Get 10% off your system today at simplisafe.com slash Nancy. That's simplisafe.com slash Nancy. Thank you, SimpliSafe. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.