Aaron Hernandez: A Football Tragedy | The End Zone | 4
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A listener note, this episode contains descriptions of suicide and may not be suitable for a younger audience. It's the morning of June 26, 2013, on a beach in Connecticut.

DJ Hernandez unfolds a towel and lays it neatly on the sand. He kicks off his sandals and lies face down, savoring the warm sun on his back and the salty Atlantic air in his lungs. As DJ takes deep breaths, he begins to feel the tension melt away, and there's no shortage of that.

For the past week, DJ's brother Aaron Hernandez has been at the center of the sports universe for all the wrong reasons. Aaron is being investigated for his possible involvement in the murder of his friend, Odin Lloyd. Aaron keeps telling DJ that he had nothing to do with Lloyd's death. Still, DJ can't help but imagine the worst. What if his brother, whether guilty or not, actually ends up in jail? Aaron's NFL career would be over and he could be looking at life in prison.

Even if that doesn't happen, the accusation alone is already wreaking havoc on the Hernandez family. Between the 24-7 media coverage, the multiple police searches of Aaron's house, and the fact that DJ had to take a leave of absence from his coaching job to be with Aaron and their mother Terry, it's all been a lot to handle. That's why DJ has taken today for himself. He's come to the beach alone, hoping to relax and forget about the chaos for a few hours.

But just minutes after lying down, DJ's phone rings. It's his mother, Terry, and she's in a panic. DJ tells her to calm down and speak slowly, but she keeps yelling the same phrase. They're taking him. They're taking him. Aaron is being arrested.

DJ tells his mother that he'll be home as soon as he can. He hangs up, grabs his towel and sandals and runs to the car. He races to his mother's home as fast as he can, driving with no shoes on, his sandy feet pressing the gas pedal and accelerating well past the speed limit. Arriving at his childhood home, DJ rushes up the front steps and through the front door.

He finds his mother clinging to the living room wall, barely able to stand on her own. Mom, mom, what's happening? My poor baby, how could they do this to him? Did they take Aaron yet? The cops are at his house. It's on TV. Oh, DJ, what are we going to do? It'll be okay, mom. Just sit down. DJ guides his mother to the couch. He takes a seat next to her and turns up the volume on the TV.

The camera is fixed on the front door of Aaron's upscale suburban home in Massachusetts. DJ covers his mouth in shock as he sees Aaron appear in the doorway, his hands cuffed behind his back. Then he's led down the driveway by two detectives in suits and ties. Oh my God, there he is. This is really happening. Why do they need to put cuffs on him? He's not going to hurt anybody.

Aaron is dressed in a plain white V-neck t-shirt and baggy red basketball shorts. They wouldn't even let him put on decent clothes. They're treating him like some sort of criminal. They want everyone watching to think he's guilty. Oh, Mom, it doesn't matter what people think. There's no evidence against him. I just wish I could be there with him. Oh, my baby. DJ wraps his arms around his mother, comforting her as she begins to sob. They watch as Aaron is led into the back of a police cruiser and driven away. Oh, DJ, I'm...

I think I'm gonna be sick. Terry gets up and runs to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Now alone on the couch, DJ watches as the news replays the perp walk over and over again like a highlight film. He looks closely at his brother's face. Aaron has acted so outwardly confident, even nonchalant about this investigation. But now for the first time, DJ can see real fear on Aaron's face.

DJ mutes the TV and leans back on the couch. It doesn't really feel real to him that his baby brother is facing arrest and a possible murder charge. Aaron's gotten into his fair share of trouble in the past, but almost every time, his incredible talent helped him get off the hook. Aaron always seemed almost untouchable, like the rules didn't apply to him. But now DJ wonders if his brother has finally gone too far. Maybe this time, football won't be enough to keep Aaron Hernandez out of prison.

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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American Scandal.

In the spring of 2013, Aaron Hernandez seemingly had it all. He leveraged his athletic gifts as a pro football tight end into a record-setting $40 million contract with the New England Patriots. He had a suburban mansion he shared with his fiancée and baby daughter, a fleet of cars, and the adoration of fans. Hernandez had overcome an abusive childhood, the premature death of his father, and multiple serious head injuries to create a life beyond his wildest dreams.

But in June of 2013, Hernandez was arrested for the murder of his friend Odin Lloyd. The star tight end now found himself in jail, facing a mountain of evidence against him and a possible life sentence.

Throughout his career, both in college and the NFL, Hernandez had lived on the edge. There were failed drug tests, a high-speed police chase, a bar fight, and several shootings he was present for, including one that resulted in two fatalities. But he almost always escaped any consequences for his actions, falling back on the special privileges afforded to a man of his unique football talents.

But now, as Hernandez awaits trial for murder, it looks like his reckless and sometimes violent behavior may finally cost him his freedom. This is Episode 4, The End Zone. It's January 29th, 2015, in Fall River, Massachusetts. DJ Hernandez sits in a courtroom at the Justice Center, gnawing on his fingernails as he waits for the trial of his brother Aaron to begin.

Aaron has spent the last 18 months in jail, charged with first-degree murder and the death of Odin Lloyd. It's been a terrible time for the whole family. But today, Aaron will finally have his day in court, and DJ knows how important it is to be here, supporting his brother, and to show the world, and the jury, that Aaron's family is standing behind him.

DJ is seated in the court with his mother, Aaron's fiancée, and a handful of other relatives. Just six feet in front of them is Aaron, flanked by a team of lawyers at the defense table. And as the judge enters, they all stand. Aaron takes the chance to look back and mouth, I love you, to DJ and his family. DJ smiles and puts his hand on his heart.

As they sit back down, DJ glances to his right and sees a middle-aged black woman in a blue dress in the first row behind the prosecution, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. DJ realizes that this must be the mother of Odin Lloyd. The sight of her puts a lump in his throat. No matter the outcome of this trial, he knows that this poor woman is never going to see her son again.

Then, as the jurors file in and take their seats in the jury box, DJ looks them over. He wonders what they must be thinking about Aaron. DJ still thinks of Aaron as his sweet, fun-loving little brother, but he worries how the jury will perceive him, a muscled, six-foot-three young man covered in tattoos. The court is called to order, and DJ listens as Prosecutor Patrick Bomberg begins his opening statement, laying out what the state believes happened in the early morning hours of June 17, 2013.

That night, Bomberg says Aaron texted his friends Bo Wallace and Daniel Ortiz, two men with lengthy criminal records. He asked them to come by Aaron's home, and then around 2.30 a.m., the three men picked up the victim, Odin Lloyd, at his home in Boston. Then the prosecutor brings up a video on a TV mounted in the courtroom. It's surveillance footage of a white Nissan Altima rented in Aaron's name outside Lloyd's home at 2.33 a.m.

Then the prosecutor shows a text message from Lloyd to his sister, indicating that he was heading out with Aaron. Bomberg explains that in the days prior, Lloyd had said something to Aaron that made him so angry and so suspicious that he decided to kill his friend. So he drove Lloyd to a nearby industrial park and shot him six times. Next, in footage from Aaron's own home security cameras, Bomberg shows the same white Altima pulling into Aaron's driveway an hour later.

Aaron, Wallace, and Ortiz get out of the car, but Lloyd is nowhere to be seen. Aaron is carrying a dark-colored object in his hand. Bomberg says it's a Glock pistol, the same caliber as the gun used to kill Lloyd. DJ is shocked by what he's seeing. He had no idea this footage existed. Now he feels torn about what to believe.

Aaron swore to DJ that he was not present when Lloyd was killed and that he had no idea what happened that night. But now DJ realizes that was a lie. This video makes it clear Aaron was with Lloyd the night he died. DJ feels his stomach churn. For the first time, he's starting to think that Aaron could really be guilty of murder. Over the next few months, more than 100 witnesses are called before the jury, nearly all by the prosecution.

The court hears testimony from detectives, ballistic experts, and pathologists who examine the victim's corpse. They also hear from a DNA expert who explains that a marijuana blunt discovered next to Lloyd's body contained DNA from both Lloyd and Hernandez. Also called to testify is the Enterprise employee who rented cars to both Hernandez and Lloyd, and an employee from Glock who identifies the gun Hernandez is seen holding in surveillance footage.

The jury also hears from Alexander Bradley, Hernandez's former friend and personal assistant, who testifies that he had seen a similar-looking Glock inside a small black box in Hernandez's home prior to the killing.

In several especially tense days in court, Hernandez's fiancée, Cheyenne Jenkins, has called to the stand. She testifies that on the day after Lloyd was killed, she disposed of a black box similar to the one described by Bradley. Cheyenne says she got rid of it at Hernandez's request and that she never asked him what was in the box or even looked inside herself. Instead, she says she stuffed it in a garbage bag, covered it with old clothes, and threw it into a dumpster somewhere around town.

but she can't recall the location. After Cheyana finishes her testimony, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is called to the stand. He recounts a conversation he had with Hernandez in the team's weight room just two days after the killing. Kraft explains that Hernandez claimed total innocence, telling Kraft that he was at a nightclub during the time of the murder. This elicits gasps from the courtroom because this alibi Hernandez gave Kraft conflicts with the surveillance footage that the jury has already seen.

By the time both the prosecution and the defense have rested their cases, things are not looking good for Hernandez. The prosecution has demonstrated that he was at the scene of the killing, that he carried a gun similar to the one used in the crime, and that he had lied about where he'd been on the night of the murder.

But as Aaron Hernandez waits for the jury to decide his fate, he tries to remind himself that the case could go either way. His lawyers have explained that all the evidence against him is circumstantial, that even if one juror votes in his favor, the judge will declare a mistrial. So when Hernandez and his lawyers are informed that after seven days of deliberation, the jury has finally reached a verdict, Hernandez is feeling optimistic.

And a little after 10 a.m. on Wednesday, April 15th, 2015, Hernandez and his legal team file into the courtroom, already packed with prosecutors, investigators, friends and family of the victim, and reporters, all eager to hear the decision.

Hernandez, in a freshly pressed charcoal suit with black and white tie, stands to hear the verdict. He's flanked by his lawyers. A team of bailiffs stand close behind to keep the peace, and Hernandez watches as the judge asks the forewoman to rise in the jury box. As the judge reads through an assortment of legalese, Hernandez can feel his heart beating faster. He knows he could be going home this afternoon, or he could be never going home again. Either way, his fate is sealed.

Finally, the judge asks the jury's forewoman to deliver the verdict. Hernandez looks on as she calmly reads the words written on a piece of paper in her hand. Guilty of murder in the first degree. There are more gasps in the courtroom. A feeling of shock surges through Hernandez's body. It's surreal, like a waking nightmare. He tries to remain stoic, but he nervously licks his lips and looks around the room, trying to get his bearings. Then he begins to feel dizzy.

Soon after, Hernandez's legs give out, and he falls back into his chair. His lawyer puts a hand on his shoulder, but Hernandez just shakes his head back and forth as he listens to the judge and foreperson work through the technicalities of the verdict. Hernandez sees his mother and fiancée on the bench behind him, holding tight to each other and sobbing. He wishes his brother DJ was here too, but DJ had to return to his coaching job in Iowa.

Then Hernandez looks across the aisle and sees that Odin Lloyd's mother is also beginning to weep. Bailiff kneels down in front of Hernandez and then places shackles on his wrists and ankles. The judge orders Hernandez back to his feet, and as he's being led out of the courtroom, he turns to his fiancée and mouths the words, "'It will be okay.'"

but he's not really sure if he believes that. He's lost his multi-million dollar contract, he's spent a fortune on lawyers, and now he's facing life in prison with no way to provide for his young family. After sentencing, Hernandez is transferred to the Sousa Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum security facility in a small town outside Boston, where he will spend the rest of his life without the possibility of parole.

Alone in his cell, Hernandez is left with nothing to do but sit and think about what kind of life he will lead moving forward. Abandoned by both the world of football and his hard-partying friends, Hernandez comes to realize that family is all that he has left, but even those relationships feel uncertain.

For years, Aaron has had a fraught relationship with his mother, Terry. After Aaron's father died, Terry quickly began a new romantic relationship. And to Aaron, this felt like a betrayal. He reacted by cutting Terry out of his life almost completely. But now that his mother is one of the few people still standing by him, Aaron regrets treating her so harshly. And he's been working up the courage to be more honest with her.

So when Terry comes to visit him in prison in 2016, Aaron decides to share something he's been hiding from his mother for more than 20 years. That afternoon, Aaron makes his way down a long prison hallway, accompanied by a guard. He shuffles along at half speed, his gait impeded by shackles on his wrists and ankles. At the end of the hall, he arrives at the dingy visiting room, lined with half a dozen booths, each outfitted with plexiglass dividers and old corded phones.

Aaron sees Terry already seated at a booth at the far side of the room. He smiles, takes a seat, and picks up the phone. Hey, Mom. Thanks for coming. Hi, baby. How are you doing? Looks like you got some new tattoos. I guess you're just going to cover up your whole body, huh? Aaron self-consciously runs his hand along the fresh ink crudely drawn into his neck. Yeah, it's the thing to do in here, I guess.

How's my big brother? Oh, DJ's all right. He gave up on coaching, though. The publicity was just too much, you know. But he's doing sales for a roofing company. Oh, that's cool. For a long beat, Aaron looks down at his hands in front of him, not sure how to proceed with what he really has to say. Aaron, what's on your mind? You're fidgeting. There's a lot I haven't told you. You didn't always make it easy to talk about stuff. Aaron's eyes begin to water. Oh, honey, what is it?

You remember that babysitter down the street you used to leave me and DJ with? Guess I was like six. I haven't thought about that in a long time, but yeah, I remember. Well, there was an older kid at that house, like a high schooler. And some stuff happened over there. Mom, he molested me. Aaron, why didn't you tell me? I could have protected you. I've never told that to a single person. I was too ashamed.

Oh, baby, I'm sorry that happened to you. It lasted for a couple of years. Aaron begins crying harder. He puts his head in his hands. There's something else, Mom. I'm gay. Oh, honey, you didn't have to hide that from me. You know I love you no matter what. I do know, but you know how Dad was. He was always trashing gay people. He would have kicked me out of the house. Well, you're probably right, but I can't imagine having to hide this for so long. I had a boyfriend in high school.

Prison guard approaches Aaron. Visiting time is up.

Aaron quickly wipes his tears on his sleeve, careful not to reveal any weakness to the guards or other prisoners. And as Aaron is led away, he mouths I love you to his mother. She puts her hand on the scratched plexiglass between them and mouths it back. As Aaron makes his way down the prison hallway toward his cell, he lets out a deep sigh. It feels like he's finally able to let go of a burden that he's been carrying for more than 20 years. It's possible that he'll have to spend the rest of his life in prison,

But now, you won't have to spend it lying to his mother about who he really is.

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Soon after being sentenced to life in prison, Aaron Hernandez totally immerses himself in prison culture. The maximum security facility where he's incarcerated is overcrowded and often violent. New inmates are essentially forced to join one gang or another for protection, and Hernandez is no exception. To show his affiliation, Hernandez gets a new tattoo on his neck. It's a five-pointed star with the words Lifetime Loyalty, a phrase commonly associated with the Bloods gang.

Not long after this, Hernandez gets into his first fight, which is also believed to be gang-related. And in the following months, he's slapped with a dozen more disciplinary offenses, including possession of a shiv and drug use. But then, in 2017, something changes. That March, Hernandez heads back to court, where he faces charges for the double murder of Daniel de Abreu and Safira Furtado, the two men who were shot and killed outside of a Boston nightclub five years prior.

And although the odds seem stacked against him, when the jury returns their verdict on April 14th, they find Aaron Hernandez not guilty for the murder of the two men. Hernandez openly cries in the courtroom. On phone calls with family and friends, he talks about feeling like the weight of the world has been lifted off his back. This acquittal gives Hernandez hope, and for the first time, he can imagine a future in which his first conviction is overturned.

In Massachusetts, first-degree murder convictions are automatically appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, and Hernandez promises his loved ones he's going to fight to the end to get himself home. But Hernandez would not be coming home, as a corrections officer named Gerard Breaux would tragically discover just a few nights later on April 19th, 2017.

That night, Bro is working the late shift at the maximum security prison where Aaron is incarcerated. It's Bro's job to walk the halls of the prison's G2 block, making visual checks of every prisoner in their cell. And at 3 a.m., when Bro is making his fourth check of the night, he notices something new, a white bed sheet covering the door on Aaron Hernandez's cell.

Bro's view inside is completely obstructed, so he knocks on the cell door and calls out for Hernandez. There's no answer, so he tries again. Bro feels his heart beat faster. He doesn't know what's going on behind that sheet, but he has a feeling it's not good and needs to get eyes on Hernandez quickly. So Bro reaches through the cell door and tears down the sheet, and what he finds shocks him. Hernandez is hanging by the neck from the bars of his cell window.

Bro immediately calls a code 99 on his walkie-talkie, indicating a medical emergency. Then he reaches down into his belt to grab his ring of cell door keys. But the belt is empty, and Bro realizes he left the keys in the office and starts to panic. Not only is Hernandez's life on the line, but Bro's career. He's broken protocol.

With no time to spare, he yells toward the office, pleading with another officer to bring the keys. And moments later, Bro's colleague arrives with keys in hand. But they find another complication. Cardboard has been shoved into the door's tracks, preventing it from sliding open. Bro and his colleague work furiously to dig it out and open the door. And when Bro finally slides the door open to make it inside the cell, what he finds is both gruesome and bizarre.

The floor is covered in shampoo, making it incredibly slippery. Hernandez is completely naked. His lips are blue. And he's written John 3.16 across his forehead in blood. There's more bloody writing on the walls and an open Bible on his desk.

Soon, other prison guards arrive to help. One of them cuffs Hernandez's wrists just in case Hernandez is faking. Then Bro works with his colleagues to free Hernandez from the noose. The operation takes tremendous effort from multiple men, owing to Hernandez's massive 240-pound frame and the slickness of the shampoo on the floor. Bro and other officers struggle to lift Hernandez, while another finally cuts the noose with a pair of shears.

Then the officers lay Hernandez down on the bed, and Bro begins furiously performing chest compressions. He prays that if he can somehow revive the prisoner, then this snafu with the keys will be forgiven. But after a few minutes, Bro grows fatigued, and another officer steps in to continue. The men take turns working to revive Hernandez, and for the next 30 minutes, they wait for medical help.

But as Bro watches his colleague press on Hernandez's chest, he has no doubt that their celebrity inmate is already dead. When Bro can no longer bear to watch, he turns his gaze back to Hernandez's desk at the open Bible. In it, Hernandez has marked one passage with a splotch of blood. Bro looks closer and recognizes the verse from what Hernandez wrote on his forehead, John 3.16.

The day after Aaron Hernandez is discovered dead in his prison cell, his mother Terry releases his brain to be studied by a brain bank, a special lab run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Boston University, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

The Hernandez family is aware that Aaron is just one of a growing list of former NFL players who sustained brain trauma during their playing days and subsequently committed suicide. Aaron had two documented concussions in his career, one in high school and one with the Patriots. He also received countless other blows to the head during the decade-plus he played the game.

And while Aaron was in prison, the NFL settled a nearly $800 million lawsuit brought by former players who suffered from football-related brain injuries. So his family is eager to know if Aaron, like the other former players who took their lives, was suffering from the same degenerative brain condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

To avoid publicity, Hernandez's brain is brought to the lab through a system of underground tunnels. And soon after, one of the lab's researchers, Dr. Anne McKee, gets to work examining it. McKee is a neuropathologist who specializes in studying the effects of traumatic brain injuries, especially on football players. When Erin's brain arrives, she has already examined the brains of more than 100 deceased NFL players.

McKee considers it a privilege to dissect every brain she receives. It's never lost on her that these brains belong to real human beings and that she's been entrusted by their families to study them. She's also well aware that Hernandez is an especially high-profile case. As an avid NFL fan herself, she followed the trial and heard the speculation that Hernandez's disturbing behavior could be related to head trauma he sustained on the field.

So as the courier arrives to McKee's lab with Hernandez's brain, she is eager to get to work. She ties back her blonde, shoulder-length hair, puts on a white lab coat, and snaps on blue latex gloves. The brain is delivered in a cooler and placed onto the lab's stainless steel table. McKee pops open the latches. Inside, she finds the brain in a sealed plastic bag resting on a pile of wet ice. She lifts the bag from the cooler and places it on the table in front of her.

The first order of business is to weigh the brain, so she gently removes it from the bag and places it onto a digital scale. Next, she moves the brain back to the table and begins photographing it from every angle. Now McKee slices into the brain with a scalpel, taking a closer look inside.

And as she examines the various areas of Hernandez's brain, she's stunned by what she finds. She sees a fellow researcher across the lab and calls him over to look. Hey, hey, am I crazy? Look at this. Tell me what you see. McKee's colleague gives the brain a quick once-over. Extensive frontal lobe damage, atrophy to the fornix, numerous perforations in the septum pellucidum. There's clearly damage consistent with CTE. Looks like an especially bad case, too. Is this one of your retired NFL guys?

Exactly.

This is why I want to make sure we're seeing the same thing. And this could be explosive. I know a murderer playing in the NFL, and now he's confirmed to have severe CTE. We are looking at headlines, weeks of headlines. What are you going to do? McKee takes a deep breath as she thinks about what comes next.

She knows sports media and fans have been speculating for years about a link between Hernandez and CTE. And now, with Hernandez's brain in her hands, she's just confirmed that the damage is even worse than they had imagined. McKee has no choice but to go public with her findings and let the chips fall where they may. She has done her job, and now it's going to be up to the people who profited from Hernandez's talent to deal with the fallout. You can host the best backyard barbecue.

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In the months following the post-mortem examination of Aaron Hernandez's brain, Dr. Anne McKee shares her shocking findings with the world. She hosts a news conference on the campus of Boston University, where she walks the media through what she's discovered, that Hernandez was suffering from a level of CTE more severe than she had ever seen in someone his age.

Her revelations quickly reverberate through the world of football. Hernandez has one more name on a long list of famous players who have been diagnosed with serious brain trauma following their deaths, including Hall of Famers like Ken Stabler, Frank Gifford, and Junior Seau. Seau, like Hernandez, had also recently taken his own life. And now, with more than 100 former NFL players diagnosed with CTE, the link between the game and the brain disease is hard to deny.

But McKee's findings still leave thorny questions for people like Aaron Hernandez's brother, DJ, who struggles to understand why his brother's life had come to such a tragic end. In the eight months since Aaron's death, DJ had been trying to put the pieces of Aaron's life together in a way that makes sense. DJ still remembers Aaron as a sweet, goofy kid, and it feels impossible to square those memories with what Aaron ultimately became, a convicted murderer who hanged himself in prison.

DJ wants to know how much of Aaron's destructive spiral could be explained by the brain trauma he suffered. So in December of 2017, DJ travels to the Boston Medical Center to meet with Dr. McKee. McKee welcomes DJ into her office. The walls are lined with plaques showing her academic credentials and awards, interspersed with framed pieces of modern art.

DJ takes a seat across the desk, and McKee swings her computer monitor around to show DJ some slides taken from Erin's brain. So here is what we would consider stage three CTE, which is quite severe. You can see holes and lesions on various areas of the brain.

The damage is so extensive that, unfortunately, even if your brother had not taken his own life, he was likely to die within the next ten years. So he was doomed no matter what. Well, it's clear he sustained a number of head injuries over his life, probably starting in childhood. Can you remember any incidents where he hit his head? Oh, plenty. I mean, when he was eight?

He was accidentally hit in the head with a hammer. I remember seeing blood dripping out of his ears and nose. I probably should have made mom take him to the hospital, but I was young too. I didn't know any better. Oh, DJ, don't beat yourself up. You were just a kid. And CTE is about repeated head injuries over time, not just one accident. It changes behavior too. Do you remember anything strange about Aaron's personality when he was young? Mostly he was good. I mean, happy, goofy kid.

But every once in a while, he'd get angry, go into a rage. You couldn't talk sense into him. It was like he blacked out and became a different person. Then, a few minutes later, he would come back down and start crying. How did he sleep? Well, he had night terror sometimes. We shared a bedroom and he would wake up screaming. He'd sleepwalk, too. What about football? Did he ever see stars after a hit? Yeah, well, he got concussed pretty bad once in high school. I mean, I remember he was mad they wouldn't let him back in the game. That's common.

But as he grew into adulthood, did you see any big changes in him? He got really paranoid. Remember after his second year with the Patriots, I went to his house and he was sleeping with a knife under his pillow. He was convinced all these people were trying to kill him.

At the time, I just assumed it was all the weed he was smoking. Well, that type of paranoia is a classic symptom of CTE. And you know, we have found CTE in high school players. And it sounds like Aaron was starting to suffer from it even then. Maybe even starting in peewee football. By the time he got to the pros, it was taking over his life. You know, thinking about this, the crazy thing is how actually kind of happy he was to be in jail. I think he was relieved to be in a controlled environment.

like prison was saving him from himself. I mean, I think he knew something was wrong with him. Well, feeling himself deteriorate and lose control must have been torture. And his memory got so bad. The last time I saw him in prison, I was talking about the old times we had, you know? And he just looked at me with a blank face. He couldn't remember any of it. Well, that type of memory loss is remarkable for someone in their mid-20s, but it's also a sign of how severe his CTE was.

I mean, in a sense, he had the brain of an elderly man. And you think that was caused by football? Well, I think we have plenty of evidence that football is dangerous, especially for young people. You see, the brain floats around inside the skull, immersed in fluid. So when someone is hit in the head, the brain actually sloshes back and forth, which can tear the nerves and blood vessels inside, creating those lesions that I showed you.

and the younger you start playing, the more these lesions build up over time. I wish we had known. I mean, maybe the last time he got a concussion, we could have persuaded him to walk away. Yeah, but even when you stop playing, the lesions continue to spread. Even in men who retired 30 years ago, the damage still continues to progress. So you think CTE is why Aaron took his own life? I mean, did football kill my brother? It's impossible to say for sure, but...

The frontal lobe of the brain is responsible for judgment and decision-making, and Aaron's was extremely damaged. It was nearly impossible for him to think clearly or control his impulses at the end, and he was far from the first NFL player with CTE to take his own life, as you know. It's not hard to see the pattern.

DJ sits back in his chair and takes a long, deep breath. He thinks about how much he and Aaron loved football, how it brought them close with each other and with their father. Football made Aaron rich and famous. He literally got to live out his childhood dream by playing for his hometown team, the Patriots. DJ can't imagine Aaron's life without football.

But he also thinks about how tortured Aaron must have been in his final years, unable to escape from his own increasingly damaged brain. He thinks of the fiancée and young daughter Aaron left behind, and of the poor family of Odin Lloyd, the young man Aaron murdered. That's a heavy price to pay for the love of the game.

A year after Aaron Hernandez's death, the Boston Globe reported new details that might help explain why Hernandez took his own life just five days after being acquitted of the murders of Daniel DeAbreu and Zafiro Furtado.

According to a fellow inmate, Hernandez celebrated his acquittal by smoking K2, a synthetic form of marijuana whose side effects can include extreme paranoia, psychosis, and hallucinations. A toxicologist told The Globe, "...we see many, many cases of people using synthetic cannabinoids that become aggressive toward themselves." But whether or not Hernandez was abusing drugs in his final hours, his family and many others still believe that above all else, his death was caused by CTE.

In the years following Hernandez's suicide, pressure has grown on the NFL to take concussions more seriously. The league has instituted several rule changes in an attempt to make the game safer, including stiffer penalties for players who target an opponent's head.

Meanwhile, as the public has learned new information about the dangers of youth football, the number of children who play the game has dropped significantly. Nonetheless, football has continued to be by far America's most popular spectator sport, with the NFL breaking records for viewership and revenue every season. To date, the NFL has paid out over $1 billion to more than 1,000 retired players as a part of a class-action lawsuit stemming from concussion-related injuries.

And shortly after Hernandez's death, his family filed a separate lawsuit in his daughter's name, seeking $20 million in compensation from the league. But a judge ruled that because Hernandez failed to opt out of the class action lawsuit, which was filed years before his death, his family could not file a separate suit. In the end, Hernandez's survivors were not awarded any money for the severe brain damage he sustained by playing the game he loved.

From Wondery, this is Episode 4 of Aaron Hernandez, A Football Tragedy from American Scandal. In our next episode, I talk with journalist Kevin Armstrong, who spent seven years covering this story. We'll discuss the NFL's response to Aaron Hernandez's arrest and conviction, and how the revelation that Hernandez suffered from CTE has affected the way the game is played today.

If you'd like to learn more about Aaron Hernandez, we recommend the books The Truth About Aaron by Jonathan Hernandez and All-American Murder by James Patterson, as well as the Boston Globe series Gladiator, Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details. And while in most cases we can't know exactly what was said, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Scandal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Audio editing by Christian Paraga. Sound design by Molly Baugh. Music editing by Katrina Zemrack. Music by Lindsey Graham. This episode is written by Corey Metcalf. Edited by Emma Cortland. Our senior producers are Gabe Riven and Andy Herman. Executive producers are Stephanie Jens, Jenny Lauer Beckman, and Marsha Louis for Wondery.

It started with a backpack at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. A backpack that contained a bomb. While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect, a serial bomber planned his next attacks. Two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar. But this isn't his story. It's a human story.

One that I've become entangled with. I saw, as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding out. The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces, forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong, life and death. Their once ordinary lives, and mine, changed forever. It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom. And all the while, our country found itself facing down a long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat.

Far-right, homegrown religious terrorism. Listen to Flashpoint on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.