Aaron Hernandez's Suicide Message on Forehead: John 3:16
While Massachusetts Department of Corrections officials said former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez left behind no suicide note after he was found hanging in his prison cell Monday, sources say he did leave a message — one of the most quoted Scriptures of the Bible, John 3:16.
Bob Ward of FOX 25 reported that when Hernandez was found he had the Scripture written in blood on his forehead and an open Bible was in his cell.
The popular Scripture says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
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According to WBZ, Hernandez who was 27 at the time of his death, also appeared to have red marks on his hands and feet. Law enforcement also told WBZ that investigators are looking into the possibility that the former New England Patriot may have smoked synthetic marijuana called K2 Tuesday night.
One of the last people alleged to have seen Hernandez is a close friend who is now in isolation on what is called "eyeball suicide watch."
Prison officials say Hernandez was found hanging in his cell by corrections officers at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley around 3:05 a.m. Wednesday. Officers reportedly immediately began trying to save his life before he was eventually taken to UMass Leominster where he was pronounced dead at 4:07 a.m.
The troubled star, who is a convicted murderer and was recently acquitted of a 2012 double murder, was found hanging from a bed sheet that he attached to the window of his single cell. Officials explained that he had also tried blocking his cell door from the inside by jamming it with several items to prevent it from being opened.
While not much is known about Hernandez's commitment to Christianity prior to his death, Business Insider notes that when he was at the University of Florida, Christian sports icon Tim Tebow was Hernandez's "life instructor."
Hernandez had lost his father prior to attending the University of Florida and he had become very angry, according to his mother, Terri.
She explained in 2009 that then head coach Urban Meyer "became his father more or less." They were so close that the pair would read the Bible together every morning at 7:30 in Meyer's office.
That intervention, however, did not do much to crimp Hernandez's trajectory of violence.
While Hernandez was at the University of Florida, Tebow once tried to break up a fight between Hernandez and a bouncer. The bouncer reportedly suffered a ruptured eardrum during the fight.
He went on among other things to be convicted of the 2013 murder of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd in North Attleborough, Massachusetts. He was also acquitted last week of the double murder of two Boston men, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, on July 16, 2012.
They were reportedly ambushed as they sat in a car at a stop light in Boston's South End after a "chance encounter" at a Boston nightclub called Cure.
"Mr. de Abreu and Mr. Furtado were ambushed and executed as they drove home along Shawmut Avenue in Boston's South End in the early morning hours of July 16, 2012," Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said at the time.
He charged that Hernandez followed the men in an SUV after the nightclub encounter then pulled up alongside their car and pumped bullets multiple times from a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver from the driver's side into the passenger's side of the target vehicle.
