Ex-Patriot Hernandez’ suicide note to fiancee says she’s ‘rich’
BOSTON – Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez told his fiancée in a suicide letter that his hanging death in prison would make her rich and that she should always think “how much I love you.”
The letter to Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, 25, was released Friday by prosecutors. Two other letters found in his cell with his body April 19 — to his 4-year-old daughter and an unidentified third person — were withheld.
“Shay, You have always been my soul-mate and I want you to live life and know I’m always with you,” Hernandez wrote. “I told you what was coming indirectly! I love you so much and know you are an angel. Tell my story fully but never think anything besides how much I love you.”
The letter went on: “This was the Supreme’s, the Almighty’s plan, not mine! I love you! YOU’RE RICH.”
Hernandez, 27, who was serving life without parole for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd of Boston, asked his fiancée to look after two people who had their names redacted from the letter, writing “those are my boys.”
Hernandez’ naked body was found hanging by a bedsheet from his cell’s window, the bible verse “John 3:16” imprinted in blood on his forehead, according to a report released Thursday by the State Corrections Department.
The report said Hernandez told inmates at the maximum security prison he had learned a convicted person’s criminal record is vacated if he dies while an appeal is pending.
That information led to speculation the Patriots could owe his beneficiaries at least some of the $6 million in bonus and salary withheld from Hernandez after his arrest for the Lloyd murder.
Five days before he took his own life, Hernandez was acquitted by a jury of two other unrelated murders in Boston in 2012.
The Patriots have said they do not owe Hernandez any money because he violated the conduct clause of his 2012 contract, worth $40 million over five years, with $16 million guaranteed. He had collected $10 million of it before his arrest.
Hernandez played three years for the Patriots, making him eligible for an NFL pension. It has not been determined if his heirs would be entitled to the proceeds from the pension as he is the first NFL vested player to die in prison while his murder conviction was under appeal.
Hernandez was living with his fiancée and their baby daughter in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, at the time of his arrest for murder.