By scoring a touchdown in 2012’s Super Bowl XLVI, New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez achieved a childhood dream. One year later, he was arrested for murder. What followed was one of the most highly publicized and puzzling crimes of the past decade, which Ryan Murphy will dramatize in the FX limited series, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.
Though the athlete never spoke about his motivations for the murder of his friend—former football player Odin Lloyd—reporting from The Boston Globe and Netflix’s three-part documentary, Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, painted Hernandez as a figure plagued by unimaginable troubles. Throughout his life, Hernandez faced a history of childhood abuse, drug problems, the fear of the world learning about his sexuality, and a posthumous diagnosis of what doctors called one of the worst cases of CTE in an athlete as young as 27 years old.
Since Hernandez’s conviction and shocking suicide, his story has been pulled in every direction. He was called a “monster” (and worse) by the press. His story penetrated the world of homophobic locker room culture, the lack of support from his team’s staff, and even the dangers of football on the brain. In the new Murphy-created series, Executive producer Stu Zicherman told the Los Angeles Times that he viewed Hernandez’s story as “a Shakespearean tragedy.” Instead of trying to solve why Hernandez killed his friend, the series sought to follow the American Crime Story formula by “taking a crime or event and making it about something much bigger in the fabric of America.”
Naturally, that involves dramatized depictions of Hernandez’s life growing up in abusive household, his struggles within professional athletic programs, and the murder of his friend. To separate fact from fiction in the upcoming FX series—which premieres its first two episodes on Tuesday, September 17—follow along for the true story below.
Aaron Hernandez on the field for Super Bowl XLVI.
Who Was Aaron Hernandez?
Aaron Hernandez was born in Bristol, Connecticut on November 6, 1989. His father, Dennis Hernandez, was a former star high school football player for Bristol Central. Dennis often got into physical fights with their mother, Terri Valentine-Hernandez, a public school administration assistant who allegedly ran a bookkeeping operation on the side. Both of his parents were arrested several times during his childhood, among countless separations and recouplings. His father was also abusive toward Aaron and his older brother, D.J, as well as reportedly homophobic.
But Aaron still sought the approval of his father, taking after him by playing football at Bristol Central High School. He was named Gatorade’s Football Player of the Year in his home state, and began dating his future fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins. Hernandez then went to the University of Florida, after head coach Urban Meyer convinced his high school principal to allow the star football player to graduate a semester early.
“He had graduated high school more than a semester early—not because he was a great student but because he was a great football player,” The Boston Globe reported after Hernandez’s death. “The athletic gifts were obvious, but behind them was an angry teenager struggling with an abusive upbringing, a growing dependence on drugs, and questions about his own sexual identity.”
Josh Andrés Rivera as Aaron Hernandez in American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez.
The prognosis was largely correct. Chronic drug use and partying nearly got Hernandez kicked off the team, with the athlete later telling the Globe that he was high “every time I was on the field.” If he wasn’t drafted into the NFL, his days on Florida’s football team were over. Then, the New England Patriots selected Hernandez in the fourth round of the 2010 NFL Draft, right behind tight end Rob Gronkowski.
American Sports Story depicts Hernandez’s relationship with Patriots head coach Bill Belichick as tenuous, with the six-time Super Bowl champion threatening to cut their losses if Hernandez proved to be too difficult. But Hernandez developed into a reliable offensive player alongside Gronkowski and star quarterback Tom Brady. The Patriots reached the Super Bowl in 2012, where they lost to the underdog New York Giants. Hernandez even scored a touchdown. He was arguably the most effective player on the field that day besides Brady, earning himself a five-year, $40 million dollar contract extension. Then, the troubles began.
Who Did Aaron Hernandez Murder?
On June 18, 2013, authorities found the body of Hernandez’s friend, Odin Lloyd, a mile from the Patriots star’s home with multiple gunshot wounds. Lloyd was a good friend of Hernandez’s, who was dating his fiancée’s sister at the time. All signs pointed to Hernandez as the first suspect. Police later found shell casings in a car that Hernandez rented before the murder, as well as security footage that showed him dismantling his cell phone in his lawyer’s car the day after the murder. Hernandez pled not guilty and was sentenced to life in prison in 2015.
Before the murder of Lloyd, Hernandez already had a confusing collection of violent encounters to his name. In 2007, he drunkenly refused to pay a bar tab in Gainesville, Florida, and hit the manager so hard on the side of his head that it ruptured his eardrum. Then, in 2013, he allegedly shot Alexander Bradley, his marijuana supplier, through the eye. Though Bradley lived, he refused to name Hernandez as the shooter until 2016. They later settled a civil suit out of court. According to the Globe, Hernandez also had a second apartment—where he stored drugs and illegal weapons—that he hid from his fiancée.
Hernandez in court on August 22, 2013, just two months after the murder of Odin Lloyd.
Why Did Aaron Hernandez Kill Odin Lloyd?
At the time, police reported that it may have been possible that the athlete acted out after Lloyd discovered his sexuality. Hernandez’s motivation may have stemmed from a previous double-homicide in Boston, but this theory has never been proven either. Just a year prior to Lloyd’s murder, Hernandez was investigated for the death of two men named Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Teixeira Furtado. They were killed in a drive-by shooting that hadn’t reached a breakthrough until after Lloyd’s death.
While searching Hernandez’s cousin’s home, police found a vehicle that was wanted in connection to the double homicide. Furthermore, testimony from another one of Hernandez’s victims, Alexander Bradley, placed Hernandez in direct confrontation with the two men at a nightclub that same day. The pro athlete was tried for the two murders in 2017, but he was acquitted after accusing Bradley of the shooting. Then, Hernandez hung himself in his jail cell just five days later.
American Sports Story will likely attempt to make some sense out of the madness. If early reviews are any indication, the series dramatizes the paranoia of Hernandez’s sexuality becoming public, coupled with his trauma and the pressures of performing as a professional athlete. In reality, Hernandez’s motivations were never proven.
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