An investigative series by the Boston Globe reveals that former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who killed himself in prison last year, was sexually molested as a young boy.
The previously undisclosed information came from the Globe’s “Spotlight Team” from interviews, thousands of court and government records, and text messages, e-mails, and images that Hernandez sent and received while in a Massachusetts prison, where he was serving a life sentence without parole for the 2013 slaying of onetime friend Odin Lloyd.
The newspaper’s six-part series, the first installment of which was published Saturday, included details about Hernandez’s childhood, sexuality and drug use. Among them:
*Hernandez and his brother, Jonathan, were often beaten by their father, Dennis, while growing up in Bristol, Connecticut. The beatings were sometimes related to Dennis Hernandez’s drinking.
*Aaron Hernandez started smoking marijuana in high school with a teammate before school, before practice and after games.
*The teammate, Dennis SanSoucie, told the Globe he had a sexual relationship with Hernandez in junior high and high school and that the two tried to hide it.
*Jonathan Hernandez told the Globe that Aaron disclosed later in his adult life that he had been sexually molested as a young boy. One of Hernandez’s lawyers in his criminal case also said Hernandez had spoken to him of sexual abuse as a child. Neither was willing to identify the perpetrator to the Globe.
*Hernandez was close to a cousin, Tanya Singleton, and he was crushed when he learned that his mother, Terri, was in a serious romantic relationship with Tanya’s husband, Jeff Cummings.
The report Saturday included information gleaned from recordings of nearly 300 phone calls Hernandez made from jail over a six-month period.
Hernandez was found hanging from a bedsheet in his cell on April 19, 2017, just days after he was found not guilty of two counts of murder in the killing of two men in a drive-by shooting outside a Boston nightclub five years earlier.