Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez is a 2020 Netflix series.
10 out of 10 stars. It’s three hours and tells the story of the two men Hernandez shot in Florida when he was 17 years old playing for the University of Florida Gators, the two men he murdered outside of a Boston nightclub in 2012 while playing for the Patriots, the man he shot in the head and attempted to murder in 2013, and the boyfriend of his fiance’s sister who he murdered in 2013. It also showcases the brilliant job of the prosecutors in the case against Hernandez for murdering Odin Lloyd.
My one complaint about this documentary is that it’s not told linearly which makes it really confusing. If they’d just started in the beginning and told the story straight through, without jumping forward and backward and all over the place, without repeating material, it would’ve been much more compelling. It’s still a brilliant documentary series on a man who no impulse control and a lot of rage.
On July 16, 2013, Aaron Hernandez went to a nightclub with his fiance’s sisters’ boyfriend Odin Lloyd. He was seen on camera dancing with a girl then something he saw made him very angry and he quickly crossed the nightclub to Odin Lloyd and they immediately left. It’s unknown what exactly he saw or what made him scared. Rumor around the nightclub was that Hernandez was gay and used the nightclub for homosexual encounters. Hernandez dropped off Lloyd and went home. At 2:30 the following morning, he picked up Lloyd supposedly to talk. Once Lloyd got in the car he realized they were not alone. Two of Hernandez’s criminal friends were in the car too. Lloyd, in fear for his life, texted his sister that he was in the car with Hernandez in case anything happened to him. Hernandez drove Lloyd to a secluded spot less than half a mile from his mansion and murdered Lloyd. He drove home and he and his two accomplices were seen on the internal security system playing with his infant daughter. He was almost immediately arrested for Lloyd’s murder.
When Hernandez was a teenager, his abusive father died. Months later his mother began dating his cousin’s estranged husband. Eventually that man moved in with her and her two sons. Aaron was enraged by this and moved in with the cousin, Tanya Littleton, who had a home filled with drugs and criminals. It was a known hangout for marijuana addicts, gun dealers, drug dealers, and convicted felons. These were the people who now took center stage in Hernandez’s life as he grew away from his brother and mother.
When he turned 14 years old he was recruited to the University of Connecticut and played for their team for two years along with his older brother. When he was 17 years old he flew down to Gainesville, Florida and tried out for the University of Florida Gators. He was proudly accepted and within months was seen at a nightclub punching the owner when he refused to pay his bar tab. (Probably because the owner had illegally served him liquor and would have his liquor license pulled.) A few nights later, two men leaving the nightclub were shot by a man fitting Hernandez’s description and the entire incident was removed from police records at the request of the University of Florida and Hernandez’s football coach, Urban Meyer. Hernandez stayed at the University of Florida for two years before Meyer told him to leave.
Hernandez was expected to be a first round draft pick for the NFL. When he wasn’t picked for the first, second, or third rounds people really wondered why. Rumor had it he was a drug addict (marijuana) and a hothead with a short fuse. In the fourth round, he was the draft pick for the New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick.
Shortly after he started for the New England Patriots, on July 16, 2012, he went to a nightclub with a friend, Alexander Bradley, who was also his drug dealer, his gun dealer, and a close friend of his cousin Tanya’s. While at the nightclub, two young men accidentally spilled drinks on Hernandez. He and Lloyd left, but afterward stalked the two who left the nightclub then followed them in Hernandez’s silver SUV. When the two young men stopped at a red light, Hernandez pulled out his gun and shot them both. The two young men he murdered were Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu and Safiro Teixeira Furtado.
A month later he was given a $40 million five year deal with the New England Patriots.
After that shooting, Hernandez became paranoid of Bradley and finally on February 13, 2013 he shot Bradley in the face in an attempt to kill him. In fact, he thought he was dead. Upon discovering that Bradley survived, he bought a bulletproof vehicle, installed security cameras all around his mansion, and hired two felons as “bodyguards”.
In 2013 after Hernandez killed Odin Lloyd, the police searched his cousin Tanya’s house and found the silver SUV the Boston police had been looking for in the two homicides from 2012. It was covered in cobwebs and obviously had not been driven since the murders. They also came across numerous texts from Bradley threatening Hernandez and trying to extort money from him. This is how they discovered that he had shot Bradley.
The series follows the trial for Odin’s murder and then for the Boston homicides. It also follows Hernandez’s incarceration and his suicide in an attempt to have his record expunged and his $40 million contract fee given to his fiance and surviving daughter. It didn’t work.
10 out of 10 stars. Watch it. I’m very glad they included the CET (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) data at the end.
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