Report: Hernandez Died With Bible Verse on Forehead

He may have smoked synthetic marijuana before death
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 20, 2017 2:46 AM CDT
Updated Apr 20, 2017 6:18 AM CDT
Report: Hernandez Had Bible Verse on Forehead
Aaron Hernandez cries as he turns to defense attorney Ronald Sullivan, reacting to his double murder acquittal at Suffolk Superior Court on Friday in Boston.   (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, Pool)

Aaron Hernandez had a Bible verse scrawled on his forehead when he was found hanged in his prison cell early Wednesday, sources tell WBZ. The sources say the former NFL star had the words "John 3:16" on his forehead, along with red marks on his hands and feet. The Bible verse, one of the best known in the New Testament, reads: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Law enforcement sources also say Hernandez may have smoked "K2" synthetic marijuana the night that he died. In other coverage:

  • ABC News looks at Hernandez's life in two Massachusetts prisons, where staff were told to treat him like any other inmate. He reportedly got into gang-related fights in the Bristol County House of Correction and the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, where he was sent after being convicted of murder in 2015.

  • Kevin Cullen at the Boston Globe recaps what he calls the "squandered life" of the 27-year-old. Despite his success at the highest level of his sport, "Hernandez enthusiastically embraced the ethos of gang life, the guns, the posse, the tattoos. All except one: doing time," he writes. "Real gangsters accept prison as a price to pay for the life. In the end, Hernandez couldn't or wouldn't."
  • The Orlando Sentinel looks at early signs of trouble in the three years Hernandez spent playing college football with the Florida Gators.
  • Robert Monroe, one of the jurors who found Hernandez not guilty of a double murder last week, tells the Boston Herald that he's confused by the timing of the apparent suicide. "I thought he was really happy at the verdict. If he hung himself not too long after ... clearly, I must have been wrong," he says.
  • The AP reports that Hernandez isn't believed to have left a suicide note—apart from the Bible verse—and his death is a mystery to people in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, where he grew up. "I just think it got to him—the guilt," says a local resident. "Each man has to live with himself. You can put on an act like nothing happened, but you've got a soul. You've got a heart."
(More Aaron Hernandez stories.)

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