In light of Aaron Hernandez’s death on Wednesday, there have been quite a few conspiracy theories floating around out there regarding the circumstances surrounding it. There are many who don’t believe Hernandez committed suicide as the Massachusetts Department of Corrections revealed a few hours after his death, and there are others who have suggested foul play might be to blame for his death.
There have also been quite a few people—both over the course of the last 24 hours and over the course of the last few years—who have suggested that Hernandez may have been suffering from CTE, the degenerative brain disease that has impacted many former NFL players and caused a series of health issues. A quick search of Hernandez’s name and CTE on Twitter yields results like these:
It seems Hernandez’s family has reason to believe Hernandez may have been suffering from CTE at the time of his death, too. On Thursday afternoon, his lawyer Jose Baez held a press conference and announced that the family has decided to donate Hernandez’s brain to Boston University for CTE analysis:
In the same breath, Baez also accused medical examiners of mishandling Hernandez’s remains:
And he said that Boston University was supposed to be able to pick up Hernandez’s brain this morning before a plan for pickup fell through:
But it sounds like the plan is still for Hernandez’s brain to be donated at some point so that CTE researchers can take a closer look at it.
Elsewhere in the interview, Baez refused to answer any questions about Hernandez’s death. But he did say that the Hernandez family is going to investigate it fully, and they are not going to concede that Hernandez committed suicide until they have all the facts:
As we told you earlier, there’s also a good chance the Hernandez estate will seek to collect money that the NFL and Patriots owed to the former tight end prior to his 2015 murder conviction, if his conviction is voided at some point in the near future as the Boston Globe has reported. So it certainly looks like the family could be in for a series of legal battles in the coming months.
