The crimes of Aaron Hernandez span a 2013 first-degree murder conviction for killing Odin Lloyd, a 2017 acquittal in a 2012 Boston double murder, a witness-intimidation shooting in Florida, and multiple illegal firearm charges in Massachusetts. The former New England Patriots tight end was arrested on June 26, 2013, released by the team the same day, and died by suicide in prison in April 2017 at age 27. Months later, researchers diagnosed him with severe chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and in 2019 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reinstated the murder conviction that had briefly been vacated after his death.
The Odin Lloyd Murder
Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-professional football player who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancée, was found shot to death in a North Attleboro industrial park on June 17, 2013. He had been shot multiple times with a .45-caliber handgun that police never recovered. Prosecutors said the killing followed a dispute at a Boston nightclub days earlier.
The case was almost entirely circumstantial. Cell tower records placed Hernandez near the scene around the time of the shooting. Surveillance cameras inside his own home captured him holding a firearm shortly afterward. Shell casings in a rental car linked to him matched casings recovered near Lloyd’s body. Prosecutors did not have to prove he pulled the trigger. They proceeded on a joint venture theory, which under Massachusetts law requires only that a defendant knowingly participated in the crime with the intent to make it succeed.1Mass.gov. Model Jury Instructions on Homicide: II. Joint Venture
On April 15, 2015, the jury convicted Hernandez of first-degree murder under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 265, Section 1.2General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 265 – Section 1 First-degree murder in Massachusetts carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole, and the judge had no discretion to impose anything less.3General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 265, Section 2
Two associates, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, were charged alongside him. Neither was convicted of murder. Wallace was acquitted of the murder charge in May 2016 but convicted of being an accessory after the fact. Ortiz pleaded guilty to the accessory charge in June 2016 in exchange for the murder count being dropped. Both received sentences in the range of four and a half to seven years.
The 2012 Boston Double Murder
While serving his life sentence, Hernandez stood trial for a separate double homicide that had happened almost a year before Lloyd’s death. On July 16, 2012, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado were shot and killed as they sat in a car at a red light in Boston’s South End. Prosecutors said Hernandez opened fire from a silver SUV after a perceived slight involving a spilled drink at a nightclub earlier that night.
The case leaned heavily on Alexander Bradley, a former associate who said he was the driver of the SUV. The defense attacked Bradley’s credibility, pointing to his criminal history and the immunity deal he had received in exchange for his testimony. On April 14, 2017, the jury acquitted Hernandez of both murder counts and most related assault charges. He remained in prison on the Lloyd conviction, but the acquittal spared him additional life sentences.
Shooting of Alexander Bradley and Firearms Charges
Bradley was also at the center of a separate set of charges. He alleged that on February 13, 2013, Hernandez shot him between the eyes in an industrial park in Palm Beach County, Florida, after an argument at a Miami-area strip club. Bradley survived but lost his right eye. Prosecutors believed the shooting was meant to keep him quiet about the 2012 Boston killings.
That incident produced a witness intimidation charge under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 268, Section 13B, which criminalizes threatening or harming a witness to interfere with a criminal investigation and carries a potential sentence of up to ten years in state prison.4General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 268 Section 13B
Searches of Hernandez’s home turned up firearms and high-capacity magazines, producing multiple illegal firearm possession counts under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269, Section 10.5General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Code Chapter 269, Section 10 A conviction for unlicensed firearm possession in Massachusetts carries a mandatory minimum of eighteen months with no eligibility for probation, parole, or a suspended sentence during that period.6Mass.gov. Massachusetts General Laws c.269 Section 10 During the double murder trial, the jury convicted him on one count of illegal firearm possession even while acquitting him of the two murders.
Death in Prison
Five days after the double murder acquittal, on April 19, 2017, Hernandez was found dead in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center. Correctional officers discovered him at 3:03 a.m. hanging from a bedsheet. The chief medical examiner ruled the death a suicide by asphyxia.7Worcester County District Attorney’s Office. Hernandez Prison Death Ruled Suicide Investigators found cardboard jammed into the door tracks to block entry, three handwritten notes next to a Bible, and no signs of a struggle. A Department of Correction report released after his death said prison officials had identified Hernandez as a member of the Bloods street gang and had disciplined him for possessing gang-related paraphernalia while incarcerated.
CTE Diagnosis
Researchers at Boston University’s CTE Center later examined Hernandez’s brain. Dr. Ann McKee, the center’s director, diagnosed him with Stage 3 chronic traumatic encephalopathy on a four-stage scale, with Stage 4 being the most severe. His brain also showed early atrophy and large perforations in a central membrane called the septum pellucidum.8Boston University CTE Center. BU CTE Center Statement on Aaron Hernandez CTE is a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma, and researchers said his case was the most severe they had seen in someone his age. The diagnosis did not excuse any specific act, but it became a central piece of the broader story.
What Happened to His Conviction After He Died
Hernandez’s death created an unusual legal problem. Massachusetts at the time followed a common-law doctrine called abatement ab initio, which erased a defendant’s conviction if they died before their direct appeal was resolved. Because Hernandez had been appealing his first-degree murder conviction, Bristol County Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh vacated the verdict under the precedent as it stood. For a time, the jury’s guilty verdict carried no legal effect.
In March 2019, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court resolved the question. In a unanimous ruling in Commonwealth v. Hernandez, the court declared the doctrine of abatement ab initio “outdated and no longer consonant with the circumstances of contemporary life” and reinstated the first-degree murder conviction.9Justia Law. Commonwealth v. Hernandez Under the new rule, when a defendant dies during an appeal in Massachusetts, the appeal is dismissed and the conviction stands, “neither affirmed nor reversed.” That ruling closed the Lloyd case and permanently changed state law.