Jose Baez - Unnecessary Roughness: Inside the Trial and Final Days of Aaron Hernandez

When I signed the papers giving Aarons brain to the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center it was a decision I made as his fiance, along with Aarons defense team. If I could potentially help someone else, why not do it? Also, I wanted answers. I wanted to know why my fianc died just when there was hope he might someday come home. Theres still a ton of answers I want. But this is a start.

This may sound weird to say about someone you love, but I feel like CTE researchers hit the jackpot when they got Aarons brain. Of course the news that he had Stage 3 CTE, how severe it was, and that he had the brain of someone so much older was devastating for us to hear. But if examining the condition of his brain can help others, especially football players, Aaron would be pleased. Its like hes back on a team again.

I have loved Aaron Hernandez since we were in high school. I will love him until the day I die. I miss his smile every day and I miss seeing him being a father to our daughter. My prayer is that he is finally at peace. Free of chains, bars, courtrooms, and judgment. I cried when Jose Baez and his law partner Ron Sullivan told me the news that Aaron had suffered such a severe case of CTE. After all we had been throughhis arrest, his trials, and his deathit was still devastating news. I cried because I realized I had tried to help him for so long, but there was nothing I could have done. I cried because there was a battle going on within his brain and he didnt even know it. None of us did.

We met in grade school, became friends in middle school, and were sweethearts at Bristol Central High School. I ran track. He was a football player. He was very popular, and I was just trying to get through school and get good grades. He had girls vying for his attention, and I had a strict mom at home, who was a single parent. But even though we were raised differently, we got along. We talked; we became close.

When he left for the University of Florida, I went to community college and let him do his own thing. He was a baby. I wanted him to grow up and experience all he needed to experience. Our relationship was on and off until he showed up at my work one day, not long after he was drafted by the Patriots.

I was working three jobs, but soon moved into his apartment in Plainview, Massachusetts. Then I became pregnant with Avielle. He proposed at my baby shower in front of almost fifty people, and in what seems like a blink, Avielle was born on Aarons birth date. We moved into our dream home and everything was going the way it was supposed to. Life wasnt perfect by any means, but it was close.

Then on June 26, 2013, he was arrested and charged with shooting Odin Lloyd, and our lives were never the same. My sympathies go out to all the victims. Murder can never be condoned. But Aaron never got a fair trialin the media or in court. He listened to people he thought would give him the best legal advice and although they tried, I dont think they tried hard enough, which makes me extremely upset. We could have avoided so much, and maybe he would still be alive. When I heard the guilty verdict, it kicked in that he wasnt coming home. I was going to have to raise our child all by myself and lose the love of my life, all in one fell swoop.