Five recently-released letters are giving us a closer look at Aaron Hernandez’s life in prison.
The letters, obtained by The Boston Globe and authenticated by state officials, show the former New England Patriots tight end pleaded with prison officials to be assigned new cellmates and moved to a different part of the prison.
In a letter dated June 12, 2015, Hernandez requested to a move in with an inmate whom he calls his “heart” and is “like a real brother to me.” He even asked to “celly up,” with the inmate — whose name is redacted — and added that “we both want to.”
“So, please make this happen and I even prefer to move in with (redacted),” Hernandez wrote, via the Globe. “Me and him are very close and have been since the streets and that is FACT.”
Prison officials didn’t honor Hernandez’s request, as he spent the final days of his life in a single cell at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass. He committed suicide there on April 19.
Rumors surfaced after Hernandez’s death that the ex-Patriots star might be gay, with one report suggesting he had a relationship with a fellow inmate named Kyle Kennedy. It’s unclear whether Hernandez was requesting to live with Kennedy in these letters, but he did use one letter to prison officials to address what he called “false gossip.”
“I have been hearing from many or rather few thinking I’m (redacted) but that is false, people are always coming up with things that are incorrect. (redacted),” Hernandez wrote, via the New York Daily News. “But a few have come up to me thinking that so it must have wrongly been circulating through false gossip.”
Thumbnail photo courtesy of The Sun Chronicle/Pool Photo via USA TODAY Sports Images
