Aaron Hernandez's Family Will Hold a Private Funeral Monday in His Hometown
Family and friends of Aaron Hernandez are expected to say their goodbyes to the disgraced New England Patriots player on Monday afternoon at a private funeral in his Connecticut hometown, PEOPLE confirms.
Services are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. at a funeral home in Bristol, Connecticut. The burial, which will also be private, will be held at an undisclosed date, time and place.
Hernandez’s family reportedly asked for privacy, while also thanking people for their thoughts, in a statement released on Saturday.
Hernandez, 27, was found hanging in his single prison cell last week at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts, according to a statement from the state’s Department of Correction.
He was rushed to UMass Leominster hospital early Wednesday, where he was pronounced dead at 4:07 a.m.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
“[He] hanged himself utilizing a bedsheet that he attached to his cell window,” corrections officials said in a statement. “Mr. Hernandez also attempted to block his door from the inside by jamming the door with various items.”
His death was later ruled a suicide. His brain will be donated to a center which studies traumatic brain injuries and their possible link to football.
Before his suicide, Hernandez had been serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for murdering Odin Lloyd in 2013.
He was convicted of murder in 2015, though experts say that conviction will now be voided under an obscure state legal doctrine, because he died before his appeals were exhausted.
As he awaited trial in the Lloyd case, Hernandez was charged with the 2012 double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado - but a jury acquitted him of those killings on April 14.
In the wake of Hernandez’s death, his attorney, Jose Baez, said he plans to investigate what happened.
RELATED VIDEO: Aaron Hernandez Found Not Guilty of 2012 Double Murder
“The family and legal team is shocked and surprised at the news of Aaron’s death,” Baez said in a statement last week. “There were no conversations or correspondence from Aaron to his family or legal team that would have indicated anything like this was possible.”
Baez secured the not-guilty verdict for Hernandez in his double murder trial and was handling Hernandez’s appeal of his murder conviction.
“Aaron was looking forward to an opportunity for a second chance to prove his innocence,” he said.
Reporting by STEVE HELLING
