Psychologist looks at where NFL star Aaron Hernandezs demise may have started
It’s been over seven years since former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez committed suicide after being convicted of murder in Massachusetts.As a new series refocuses attention on the case, a forensic psychologist believes his traumatic childhood and significant brain injuries may have been factors leading to his fall from sports stardom.“I think people look at this, and they’re like, ‘This man had everything to live for.
He was in the NFL.… How could he do this?’ But what people don’t understand is, psychologically, when people go through an encounter early in life, it can really impact the way that they feel about themselves and the way that they express anger, emotion and even their impulse control,” forensic psychologist Helen Smith told Fox News Digital.In 2015, Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder, along with five gun charges in the death of Odin Lloyd, 27.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hernandez was also accused in another double-murder case in 2014, but he was acquitted in 2017.He was accused of murdering Daniel de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Furtado, 28, in a drive-by shooting outside a Boston nightclub in July 2012.Days after the acquittal, Hernandez was found dead, hanging in his prison cell, and his death was ruled a suicide.The downfall of the former NFL superstar is reexamined in the latest Hulu FX series “American Sports Story.” The show “explores the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and their legacy in sports and American culture,” according to the streaming service’s description.After his death, Hernandez was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE.Ann McKee, a professor of neurology and pathology who studied Hernandez’s brain at the time, said he had the most severe case of CTE she had seen in someone his age.
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