Netflix Neurology: Inside the Brain of Aaron Hernandez (for a few seconds)

from Dr. Ann McKee / Boston University

A recent addition to the Netflix “making a murderer” franchise is Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez. At the end of any such story, there is no single answer as to what “made” the murderer.

The story of Aaron Fernandez is still in the public eye because of his fame as a professional football player for the New England Patriots (2010-2012). He was so successful that he signed a 5 year, $40 million contract with the team in August 2012. His alleged involvement in a July 2012 double homicide came to light in 2014, after he had been charged with the June 2013 murder of his friend, Odin Lloyd. For the latter crime, he was found guilty and sentenced to life without parole. He was acquitted of the double homicide, but two days later he hanged himself with a bed sheet in his jail cell.

His brain was donated to the Boston University CTE Center. From extensive coverage in the New York Times and elsewhere, we already knew that the autopsy revealed extensive chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

If you hope to gain insight into repetitive head injury, brain pathology, and violent behavior from watching this documentary, you'll be disappointed. The 3-part series spent 5 minutes on CTE and 3 hours 15 minutes on everything else — his childhood, violent father, hurtful mother, immense athletic talent, football career, ex-con friends, girlfriend and daughter, heavy drug use, street life, weapons collection, paranoia, alleged shootings, alleged same-sex relationships, arrests, murder trials, conviction, appeal, recorded jailhouse telephone conversations, outwardly professed homophobia, death by suicide, and numerous interviews with friends and former players.

Much of this material was pruient and unnecessary, especially the speculations about his hidden sexual orientation and how this might have fueled his anger.


Prosecution Considered a “Fear of Outing” Motive

This argument was preposterous and a rarity in the history of violence involving the LGBTQ community: Hernandez supposedly feared that his friend would reveal his secret life as a bisexual man, so he killed Lloyd to preserve his image as a hyper-masculine heterosexual man. This baffling obsession with sexuality is distracting and dangerous, as aptly explained by D. Watkins:

There's no evidence proving that Hernandez's sexuality made him a killer. So why is the newly resurfaced Hernandez conversation centered around his sex life? Probably because sex is juicy, forbidden and learning that Hernandez may have been gay provides the consumers with content for endless hours of gossip about what public figures do in their personal lives.

Fortunately, this argument was not allowed at trial.


The Potential Role of CTE Was an Afterthought

A Rolling Stone interview with director Geno McDermott revealed the project began as a 90 minute documentary initially presented at DOC NYC in 2018. Netflix was interested in expanding the doc into a multi-part series. The gay angle emerged when high school friend/lover Dennis SanSoucie agreed to an on-camera interview. Other additions included newly available recordings of prison phone calls, and a coda about CTE, the neurodegenerative disease that may be associated with repeated concussions in high-impact sports (in concert with other poorly delineated factors).

At the very end of Killer Inside, self-serving celebrity defense attorney Jose Baez spoke about the family's decision to donate Aaron's brain to the CTE Center at Boston University.

Dr. Ann McKee with the brain of Aaron Fernandez

Dr. McKee said Hernandez had very advanced disease for a 27 year old:

...and not only was it advanced microscopically, especially in the frontal lobes which are very important for decision-making, judgment and cognition, this would be the first case we've ever seen of that kind of damage in such a young individual.

I can say this is substantial damage that undoubtedly took years to develop. This is not something that is developed acutely or just in the last several years. I imagine these changes had been evolving over maybe even as long as a decade.

Then we see interviews with non-experts, who make causal connections between Aaron's CTE and his erratic, violent, tragic behavior. Worst of all is sleazy lawyer Jose Baez, who drummed up business for other players to sue the NFL under false pretenses (there is currently no way to accurately diagnose CTE in living persons).

Why didn't Aaron's brother, who grew up with the same abusive father and played football for many years, become a murderer? I'll let former NFL player Jermaine Wiggins have the last word:

My thoughts to people who think that CTE was somehow involved, I think that's an absolute cop out. There are thousands of former NFL players out there that might have dealt with concussions, I've dealt with them. So to use that as a cop out? I'm not... no, no. C'mon, we're smarter than that, people.”

Further Reading

Is CTE Detectable in Living NFL Players?
– this 2013 post is still true today

Brief Guide to the CTE Brains in the News. Part 1: Aaron Hernandez