Source: Boston Globe / Getty
Just days after being acquitted of a double murder charge, former NFL star Aaron Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell on Wednesday.
CNN reports that the 27-year-old ex-New England Patriots player hung himself with a bed sheet attached to a window in his cell at the Souza Baranowski prison in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. His body was found just after 3 a.m. and he was pronounced dead at UMass Memorial-Health Alliance Hospital in Leominster about an hour later.
The Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley released a statement, saying, “Lifesaving techniques were attempted on Mr. Hernandez, and he was transported to UMass Leominster, where he was pronounced dead at 4:07 a.m.” Hernandez was in a single cell in a general population housing unit in the maximum security state prison and hanged himself by attempting “to block his door from the inside by jamming the door with various items.”
Although Hernandez was acquitted of a separate murder case earlier this week, he was still serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for his conviction in the 2013 shooting of Odin Lloyd. Massachusetts State Police are still investigating the shocking suicide.
