so much. tania koen: she would have done amazing things. and she was so kind and passionate and compassionate. and the world was a better place with reeva in it. more than 11 years after killing reeva steenkamp, oscar pistorius began the next chapter of his life when he was released from prison on parole. the conditions of his parole include restrictions to his movements, mandatory classes on gender-based violence, therapy, and anger management, he is not allowed to drink alcohol or speak to the media while he serves out the rest of his sentence, which will expire in december 2029. responding to oscar's release from prison, reeva steenkamp's mother, june, said, "no amount of time served will bring reeva back. we who remain behind are the ones serving a life sentence."

i'm jesse l. martin. thank you for watching. good night. hernandez: you can't come here and act reckless and do your own stuff. you get changed by the patriot way, and now that i'm a patriot, i have to start living like one and making the right decisions for them. ♪ ♪ welcome to "how it really happened." i'm hill harper. at the beginning of 2013, nfl star aaron hernandez is living the american dream. he has a $40-million contract with the new england patriots, a devoted fiancée, and a brand-new baby girl at home. but his seemingly perfect life is shattered when a brutal murder takes place and hernandez is the prime suspect. could the nfl superstar with everything to lose really be the killer, or was there another explanation?

the answer, as it turns out, was far more complicated and tragic than anyone could have imagined. this is "how it really happened." ♪ ♪ a teenage boy is running through an industrial park in north attleborough. he was training for track. as he's running through the park, he sees a body lying faceup riddled with bullets. man: kid came up knocking on the window saying he saw somebody laying down, not moving. my boss and i went down there, and we saw a guy dead there. man #2: he was not buried. he was just lying there as if he was either dropped there or killed there. it was just a shocking scene.

altimari: the body had been shot five times. the police get called in. cramer: he's wearing a boston red sox cap. he also still has his wallet, so right away they know that this is not a robbery. this is something else. investigators pretty quickly determined who it was, a guy named odin lloyd. ♪ cramer: odin lloyd was a 27-year-old man living a pretty unassuming life with his mother. he had a girlfriend he was very close to. he was very close to his family. he was a semiprofessional football player. ward: i answered the phone, and he says... "are you ursula ward?" and i said, "yes." i said, "is my son okay?" sweet: there's people i know, people i know that this could have happened to, and it would have been, like, i seen it coming.

you know, odin, never seen anything like this happening ever. hold on. ♪ [ sniffles ] he still has his phone, and he also has two sets of keys. they went about trying to figure out who these keys belonged to because there was a body and two sets of keys but no car, and they very quickly were able to track down the keys to a rental car. the car was registered to aaron hernandez, so that was like, "whoa. you know, what's going on here?" aaron hernandez, the football player? tight end for the patriots?

woman: at 23, playing as a tight end, he has a contract reportedly worth $40 million. the guy who played in the super bowl and has his whole career ahead of him? ♪ aaron hernandez was special. montgomery: every once in a while, you get this player, every 10 years, every 20 years, every 25, and aaron was that every-25-year player. the family is well-known in bristol. his dad was a high-school star athlete. willis: when aaron and his brother came along, he basically tried to live his athletic career through them. he pushed them to be good athletes. that was his dream, and they followed along that path. they adored their father. you know, they were the kinds of kids who did whatever he told them to do. ragali: aaron's dad was always at the games, somebody you knew,

and he would, like, you know, put his arm around me and, you know, give me advice and everything. not only did dennis want them to be good athletes, but he wanted them to do well in school, as aaron and d.j. both did. he wanted them to be, you know, well-respected people. and then aaron, as it turned out, probably the best of the hernandez clan. ragali: and the fact that he was so big, yet he could still -- was, like, faster than everybody and just agile was just ridiculous. he didn't spend his time, you know, messing around. he was working hard every day. he was one of the best players that connecticut has ever seen. as a senior, he was the connecticut state player of the year. broke all kinds of state records. he was clearly talented enough to play college football. he was heavily recruited. hernandez: half the family is telling me to go here. half my family is telling me to go to notre dame, michigan, miami.

florida is just, you know, the top-five college football program, and if you want to exceed expectations and reach the nfl, that's the place to go. i just had heard from a friend that he was going to be leaving school early, and he was going to the university of florida. ragali: it was pretty surreal, seeing him on tv, you know, playing with these guys. he won the john mackey award after a dominant junior year at the university of florida, and that award goes to the nation's best collegiate tight end. his future is kind of limitless at this point. woman: a pats fan growing up, hernandez came out of the university of florida a year early to enter the draft. the patriots invested in him, giving him a long-term lucrative contract. it's a lifelong dream and still kind of surreal, but i'll take it in over the next few days, months, years, and just, it's a blessing, and hopefully i make the right decisions with it

and have a good life. news of aaron hernandez even being questioned in connection with this case was obviously huge. woman: detectives were met with a strange reaction from the former star tight end after discovering odin lloyd's body. and that was the "wow" moment.

woman: aaron hernandez is keeping a very low profile.

man: as investigators search for answers to a mysterious murder... ...police sift through the woods for clues, clues that could shed some light on what happened to 27-year-old odin lloyd, a victim of homicide found dead in this industrial park less than a mile away from the 23-year-old star football player's home. wilson: so when police first found odin lloyd's body, they found keys to a car that aaron hernandez had rented in his pocket. cramer: so naturally they go to his house to speak with him... ...and what they find there is a pretty uncooperative person. woman: detectives were met with a strange reaction from the former star tight end after discovering odin lloyd's body. mr. hernandez became argumentative, the documents read, and asked, "what's with all the questions?" police learned that odin lloyd

had the keys to the car that hernandez had rented because hernandez had loaned him the car to let him use it. so one of the first questions in the investigation was, how did these two men know each other? daniel: lloyd was dating the sister of hernandez's fiancée. cramer: so odin lloyd and aaron hernandez met through the sisters. at the very least, they had a casual friendship. woman: according to police, officers told him it was a death investigation, and, "mr. hernandez quote slammed the door." you would think that he might have some questions or might be a higher level of concern. cramer: news of aaron hernandez even being questioned in connection with this case was obviously huge. man: media, neighbors, and tourists flood the streets outside his north attleborough home. you had probably 25 cameras that were stationed in this nice neighborhood, positioned looking right at his house,

just waiting for any type of activity. i think people thought that, "hey, maybe this was just some sort of mistake, and this was just some weird connection." man: this is the first time we're seeing the new england patriots tight end aaron hernandez outside his massachusetts home. wilson: the public didn't know exactly why hernandez was being questioned. they did know that a dead body had been found not far from his house. daniel: the biggest piece of information that we had was from a law-enforcement source who told us that hernandez was driving this nissan altima that he had rented the night that odin lloyd was killed. four guys were in this car, including odin lloyd. that car is out for a couple of hours. when it returns to aaron hernandez's home, only three guys are in that car, and odin lloyd isn't one of them. that piece of information really got everyone thinking,

"okay, what's going on here? what happened in this time frame where odin lloyd was with these guys, then all of a sudden he's not there?" people were very careful, 'cause he was a member of the revered new england patriots, not to start making him a criminal or a suspect. no one was thinking he was the murderer. but then another twist. sometime the next day is when aaron hernandez returns the rental car to this enterprise dealership near his house. wilson: police learned after talking to the employee at enterprise who had cleaned out the car after hernandez returned it that she had found some items in the car that perhaps were cause for concern, items that the woman at enterprise subsequently had thrown in the dumpster. authorities were able to go dumpster diving. altimari: found the bullet casing. the bullet had traces of blue bubblicious gum on it.

the shell casing matched the shell casings that were found at the murder scene near odin lloyd's body. so the police was piecing together what might have happened. wilson: and then it was one wednesday morning that several police cars came up. a lot of officers, all in business attire, knocked on the door, and hernandez opened the door, did not appear to be expecting them, had just rolled out of bed. they went inside the house, cuffed him. daniel: and within 10 minutes, aaron's coming out in that picture, you know, you can't forget, in the white t-shirt and the handcuffs behind his back. that was the wow moment.

altimari: and he was at the top of the world, really. so to, all of a sudden, be a suspect in a murder... [ camera shutters clicking ] ...i think, for a lot of people, it was pretty surprising. within hours of his arrest, the patriots released him. it's really a sad day on so many levels. having someone in your organization that's involved in a murder investigation is a terrible thing. after consultation with ownership, we acted swiftly and decisively. wilson: aaron's fiancée, shayanna jenkins was seen carrying a big, heavy trash bag. man: did he indicate to you what was inside? no.

cooper: the story we're following tonight, aaron hernandez is being held without bail, charged with first-degree murder. it wasn't an accessory charge. they were saying, "no, aaron is the guy that pulled the trigger. he's the murderer." ♪ woman: hernandez remains here in the county jail, locked up in a cell similar to this one. aaron hernandez, when he came into our facility, could interact with anybody to a point where you go, "hey, i want to go out and grab a beer with this guy." and within a matter of a day,

he acclimated and transitioned seamlessly as though it weren't a big deal. police had i.d.'ed the other two guys who were in the car with aaron hernandez that night, and they were also charged with odin lloyd's murder. carlos ortiz and ernest wallace were friends of hernandez. both these guys had criminal records from various charges back in connecticut where they had met hernandez. that was back in his high-school days when then 16-year-old hernandez was hit with this unexpected family tragedy. hernandez was very close to his father. montgomery: as a father, dennis was the best. there was a special closeness they had. his dad was a football player also. altimari: his father had gone into the hospital for a routine surgery. there were complications. he bled to death and shockingly died.

willis: and all of a sudden, he loses his father who had been his guiding light and his mentor and the person he looked up to most. all of a sudden, he was gone. that was the one thing that really impacted his life in a very difficult way. mcmillan: everyone was sad for aaron and d.j and the rest of their family, and it was just heartbreaking. montgomery: it's a pivotal point in your life, 16. in high school, you need dad there for support and guidance, and he lost that. his mother remarried maybe a year later. you might expect when the father passed away, that she would grow closer to aaron, but they actually began to grow apart. wilson: then hernandez started staying at this cousin's house in bristol, and it was there that he met carlos ortiz and ernest wallace. some of his friends were, you know,

not guys you want a potential professional football player hanging around with. there were some that had been arrested on drug charges. right now, as his former nfl team prepares to play in the super bowl, aaron hernandez goes on trial for murder. opening statements are scheduled for today. fee: we are here because the police and the prosecutors targeted aaron from the very beginning. as soon as they found out that aaron hernandez, the celebrity football player, the new england patriot, was a friend of odin lloyd's, aaron never had a chance. in june of 2013, aaron hernandez had the world at his feet. aaron hernandez was planning a future, not a murder. daniel: in this day and age, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, and that was extremely evident in this trial.

woman: investigators say they built their case against hernandez using cellphone tower tracking, text messages, and surveillance tapes at hernandez's home and elsewhere. wilson: the prosecutors' strategy was very painstaking, very thorough. they put each piece of the puzzle together for the jury and thread this timeline to prove that hernandez was the one that killed lloyd. daniel: first, aaron texts his two friends to come to his house in north attleborough. altimari: they were friends from back in the bristol area. it was not unusual for them to come, you know, just spur of the moment. daniel: then he sends odin lloyd a text telling him he's going to come pick him up. altimari: the three of them get into the rental car. it's all on the video from the security cameras at his house. they were leaving to go pick up odin lloyd. on the way to pick up lloyd, hernandez had stopped to get gas at a gas station

not too far from lloyd's house. hernandez is seen filling up the car. he buys the gum, the same kind of bubblicious gum that was found in the dumpster and on a piece of the bullet. there was a camera that caught a car going down the street, picking odin lloyd up. woman: in the wee hours of the morning, investigators say lloyd was last seen leaving his boston home with hernandez in a silver nissan altima. altimari: so they could put lloyd with hernandez within hours of his murder. they also had surveillance from cameras around the industrial park. wilson: footage that showed headlights going into the industrial park where lloyd was found, but you couldn't identify the car itself from the headlights, but that was where other crime-scene evidence came in -- tire tracks that they found in the industrial park

where odin lloyd's body was found. and through the crime-scene analysis, they managed to match those tire tracks to the nissan altima that hernandez was driving that night. altimari: and then there's video of the car leaving about four minutes after it had gone into the industrial park. and then picks up again when aaron returns home. and that's when you see him walk into his house with wallace and ortiz, no odin lloyd. ♪ evidence that aaron was at the scene is not enough to prove. mere presence is not enough. in our system, we cannot be convicted of a crime just because you hang with the wrong people or are in the wrong place at the wrong time. so to prove first-degree murder, prosecutors had to show

that hernandez actually participated in the crime, not solely that he was just there, and so they had to introduce evidence that he probably got out of the car. wilson: there was a marijuana blunt found close to the victim, and hernandez's dna was identified on that blunt. cramer: the police already had very compelling evidence, but what, ironically, ended up helping them the most was the evidence found inside aaron hernandez's home. so through a search warrant, investigators were able to obtain footage from surveillance videos that were located throughout hernandez's home. woman: minutes later, surveillance video from hernandez's home security system shows the former nfl player arriving back at his house with two other people. where he walks into his house, and you can clearly see he's holding something. man: you will see, ladies and gentlemen, the defendant standing outside of the entrance

to his basement holding a gun. the defense tried to say that it might have been an iphone. it might have been a remote control for a tv. iphone or ipad or blackberry or tv remotes or a gun or something else. then, subsequently, aaron's fiancée, shayanna jenkins was seen carrying a big heavy trash bag out of the house. police think that the murder weapon was in the trash bag. because the gun used in the murder has never been found. he told me to go downstairs in our storage room and remove a box from our home. man: and did he indicate to you what was inside the box? no. did you look inside? i did not. what prosecutors said was that that was when she carried the murder weapon out of the house.

willis: we know four guys went into that industrial park and only three guys came out, so somebody pulled the trigger. if he beats the case, america loves a comeback.

♪ ♪ [sfx] water lapping. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [sfx] water splashing. ♪ ♪

[sfx] ambient / laughing. ♪ ♪ welcome back to "how it really happened." [sfx]i'm hill harper.ing. investigators had plenty of circumstantial evidence

suggesting aaron hernandez was with odin lloyd the night he was killed, but did they have enough to prove that he was guilty of murder? so many questions remained. why was hernandez there that night, and why would he want his good friend dead? mccann: well, from a legal standpoint, there were questions about the prosecution's case. one was why? why would aaron hernandez execute someone who defense lawyers argued was a friend of aaron hernandez? woman: here's how the prosecutor described it. he said that aaron hernandez was upset, angry about something that the victim in this case had said when he was at a nightclub just a few nights ago, where they were in boston, and this angered aaron hernandez so much that he told people he couldn't trust the victim anymore. that apparently is the motive, according to prosecutors.

daniel: the defense tried to establish that, "hey, odin lloyd was a part of the family. these guys spent time in the man cave. they were buddies." odin lloyd stayed over aaron's house several times. odin lloyd was aaron's friend. daniel: how could aaron go ahead and kill this guy? it's not possible. aaron hernandez's defense team felt that they had a pretty good case. ♪ hodgson: he showed no signs of real nervousness. seemed pretty confident, just sort of, "okay, i'm in a different place," and saying, "i'm not really in jail. i'm in training camp. i'm going to be back playing with the patriots because they're going to find out i didn't have anything to do with this." if he beats the case, america loves a comeback, and there will be nothing to stop him from doing that.

but then something really unexpected happens, and aaron hernandez's name gets tied to another criminal investigation. daniel: in july of 2012, there's this drive-by shooting in boston's south end where two guys, safiro furtado and daniel de abreu, had been shot in a car. the men had been at a club and with their friends. the only real evidence that the police had was footage of a car that had pulled up alongside the vehicle driven by abreu and furtado, and they knew that that was the car where the bullets had come from. that was really all they had. there were no immediate suspects. cramer: it was just one of those cases that was gonna be very hard, if not impossible, to solve. camerota: so then investigators get this big break. while they're investigating aaron hernandez's connection to the odin lloyd murder, investigators find this car.

it matched the make, model, and color of the getaway car that witnesses say they'd seen fire the shots that killed those two guys in south boston, and it was owned by none other than aaron hernandez. police impounded a silver suv that's registered and owned by aaron hernandez. boston police believe that the car could be linked to an unsolved murder. the boston detectives went and pulled the surveillance video from the club the night that these two were killed. aaron hernandez is seen going into this nightclub. cramer: investigators in the south end murders realize, "oh, my god, aaron hernandez was there that night." camerota: finding out that aaron hernandez was connected to more than one murder was shocking, but as it turns out, if you look at his track record of violent behavior, it goes all the way back to his college days.

woman: there was also a shooting incident of two men in gainesville, florida, in 2007 while hernandez was playing for the university of florida. gainesville police confirm hernandez was questioned for information, but they say it was only briefly, and he was not a suspect and never charged with anything. so while on the field he was clearly a brilliant player, there were signs of issues off the field in florida. when he was in florida, several of his coaches have said that they were wary when he went back home to connecticut 'cause then he would go back home and hang out with these guys who had drug arrests or they had had problems with the cops. they were afraid something bad would happen. jackson: but the jury wasn't allowed to hear about any of his potential crimes because he wasn't convicted of anything yet. it could have swayed their judgment in what he was accused of doing here. man: the judge will block any mention

that hernandez was indicted for two other murders in boston. ♪ wilson: when the verdict came back, people had been waiting for a week. it was a very high-stress moment for all parties involved. man: what say you, madam foreperson? is the defendant not guilty, guilty of murder in the first degree, or guilty of murder in the second degree? woman: guilty of murder in the first degree. wilson: hernandez shook his head and sat down and i think mouthed, "you're wrong," to the jurors. his mother and shayanna jenkins were in the front row and started sobbing. odin lloyd's family was crying, as well. woman: the verdict is in for nfl star aaron hernandez, guilty of cold-blooded murder. the sentence -- life without parole. man: you're committed to the mci-cedar junction for the term of your natural life

without the possibility of parole. woman: it's a shocking ending for a one-time superstar. but then something really unexpected happened that added a whole 'nother dimension to this story. woman: authorities are now investigating whether aaron hernandez might have been involved in an unsolved double murder in boston last summer. that relative quiet would be shattered suddenly by the crackle of gunfire. "what's up now [bleep]" and he started firing shots.

woman: authorities are now investigating whether aaron hernandez might have been involved in an unsolved double murder in boston last summer. man: this is a separate incident, folks, from what he's been charged with already for murder in the shooting death of his friend, odin lloyd. we are following every lead, as we always do in these cases. eventually, the district attorney's office gathered enough evidence to prosecute aaron hernandez with the charges in this double homicide. when this case came about, i was asked to join his counsel. so my first thought was,

"how is aaron going to get a fair trial when virtually everyone in the state has formed an opinion about aaron?" ♪ monday, july 16th, the year 2012. it was a warm summer night in downtown boston, the theater district, and it was relatively quiet that night. that relative quiet would be shattered suddenly by the crackle of gunfire. the night of the south end shootings, aaron hernandez was with a man named alexander bradley. alexander bradley would be the star witness of the case. alexander bradley was always described as hernandez's right-hand guy. cramer: was a lot like many of the other men in aaron hernandez's life. he's a drug dealer, he has a criminal background, and he knew aaron from the old neighborhood, and the two of them liked to party together.

leontire: the basic theory of the case involved alexander bradley testifying that while they were in the bar, one of the deceased bumped into aaron and spilled a drink on aaron, and as a result of that spilled drink, aaron went into a rage. he was agitated. i mean, it just -- it was heightened. we left right away. cramer: that was the motive, that aaron felt insulted and slighted, and he just went off. if somebody, he felt, disrespected him... ...insulted him in some kind of way, when things didn't go his way, he could become angry. man: what happened next? i rolled the window down, reclined the seat, and he leaned across me and extended his body

out the window with the firearm in his hand. he was like, "what's up now [bleep]" and he started firing shots. so bradley takes you inside the car when the shooting happens, and unlike the first trial where you didn't have an eyewitness, you have bradley with every single detail of how these guys were killed. but the defense had another theory, and that theory put the gun in alexander bradley's hands. ladies and gentlemen, this did not happen over a spilled drink. this happened over a drug deal. alexander bradley had issues with daniel de abreu, and that's why we're all sitting here today. alexander bradley is not just a drug dealer. he's a legitimate drug trafficker. dealing drugs is a violent, dangerous business. now, allegedly, you had these two people,

and allegedly one of the two committed the crime. it was hernandez versus bradley. -yes. -and it was one hell of a fight. cramer: jurors had to believe alexander bradley in order to convict aaron hernandez. willis: and it was a very tense moment when he walked into the courtroom. everybody knew if he was found guilty in the boston homicide, his appeal in the odin lloyd case was basically useless. you find the defendant not guilty, guilty of murder in the first degree, or guilty of murder in the second degree? woman: not guilty. he literally broke down and cried. it was emotional for all of us. cramer: maybe in that moment, he forgot that he was already serving a life sentence, and now you had 12 people who believed that you hadn't done something horrible. leontire: and needless to say, he was elated, but i think more he was relieved.

he was thanking us all profusely. once they won the acquittal, all systems were go on the appeal in the odin lloyd case. leontire: and we told him we looked forward to taking on the appeal on his first conviction. he was very hopeful. altimari: so for the first time in quite a while, it would appear that things, on some level, are looking up for hernandez. ♪ willis: the guard is making his rounds. he gets to cell number 57, notices that he can't look in, that there's a curtain blocking the view. leontire: it was surreal. it was so shocking. i just remember thinking, "how could this possibly be?"

♪ ♪ [sfx] water lapping. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [sfx] water splashing. ♪ ♪ [sfx] ambient / laughing. ♪ ♪

ex-nfl star aaron hernandez wiped away tears when a jury acquitted him of two more counts of murder. [sfx] ambient / laughing. he was accused of killing two men in a drive-by shooting in 2012. so after his acquittal in the boston double-murder case, hernandez planned to appeal his conviction in the odin lloyd case. there was a chance that aaron would regain his freedom, so everything was upbeat. ♪ early that morning, a guard is making his rounds. he gets to cell number 57... ...notices that he can't look in, that there's a curtain blocking the view. he knocks on the door, knows it's aaron's cell, gets no response.

tries to open the door, and it's jammed. several correctional people come, finally come and assist him opening the door. they see aaron naked, hanging from a rope... ...that he had wrapped around one of the bars in his window. there's a gurney brought in. they get him into the ambulance, close the door, and he's off to the hospital. and they tried to do everything they could, the medical personnel, to save his life. ♪ -this is cnn breaking news. -all right, the massachusetts department of corrections confirming to cnn that former new england patriots tight end aaron hernandez committed suicide in prison just hours ago. man: hernandez was found in his massachusetts jail cell early wednesday morning, hanging from a bedsheet tied to a window.

it was surreal. it was so shocking. five days after a verdict of not guilty. oh, i just remember thinking, "how could this possibly be?" ♪ aaron's fiancée, shayanna jenkins, told dr. phil that she was probably the last person to speak to hernandez. and the last words he said to you were what? i remember him saying, "babe, i've got to go. they're shutting the doors." and i honestly don't think that we said "i love you" to each other, and that was it. willis: basically he must have decided at some point that life wasn't worth living. he also left a note to shay, expressing his love for shay and how she had always been, you know, his girl.

in the note to his daughter, he talked about that he would always be there for her even though he might not be there physically. we'll never know why he committed suicide. his letters don't explicitly state a motive. leontire: when you have just had a client acquitted of a double murder, and for the first time in several years he had the potential of seeing the possibility of his conviction overturned, it is difficult to rationalize how that could occur. but, obviously, one of the things that people are trying to figure out is why. camerota: one theory is that aaron hernandez killed himself because he had severe brain damage after years of playing football. in football, every play is sort of like a car crash, right? you'll receive in one game of football about 60 blows to your head. these blows to the head can cause cte,

and that is the form of brain damage that was discovered by dr. bennet omalu, and it can radically alter your behavior and your way of thinking. once damage is done, it's permanent. willis: aaron's family made arrangements to donate aaron's brain to boston university to have his brain researched. daniel: the cte center at boston university is recognized as the top in the world. cramer: what they found was what they described as the worst case of cte they'd ever seen in somebody so young. this would be the first case we've ever seen of that kind of damage in such a young individual. cramer: this was a man whose brain was profoundly damaged. with cte, you begin to lose your ability to control yourself. you are more likely to engage in violent behavior.

and more likely to commit suicide. a lot of nfl players, dave duerson, junior seau, andre waters, they all committed suicide, and they all had cte. omalu: if his brain was not exposed to thousands of violent blows of his head, i guarantee you aaron himself would have been alive today. and there was also speculation at the time that aaron hernandez's sexuality could have played some role in his decision to take his own life. cramer: there had been rumors of aaron hernandez's sexuality. it's only recently that that's been confirmed by people close to aaron hernandez. leontire: aaron was gay. he said he was gay. he's told other people that he was gay. ♪

leontire: the bottom line is that he was a gay man who was uncomfortable with his sexuality, but frankly beginning to deal with it. was he secretly gay? the aaron that i know, no. i had no indication or any feeling that he was such. he was very much a man to me. willis: there was going to be publicized reports that he was gay, and that hadn't really been out there before. he might have been terrified about that. maybe he wanted the pressure of not having to hide that. and it does make you wonder about how much that played into what happened inside that jail cell. ♪ i think that one of the things that's happened since a lot of this information has come out,

at least people are beginning to see aaron in a multidimensional way. cramer: he had lost his fortune. he had lost his career. he had lost his freedom. just the realization of the waste that your life had become had to have been profound. ♪ no one will ever know exactly why aaron hernandez ended his life when he did, but those closest to him place some of the blame for his suicide and his erratic behavior on the brain damage he clearly suffered from the game of football, and here's an ironic twist -- in massachusetts, if a convicted felon dies before his appeal has been heard, then his original conviction is thrown out. so in the eyes of the law, aaron hernandez died an innocent man. i'm hill harper. thanks for watching. ♪