Hodgson Explains Why He Thinks Aaron Hernandez Killed Himself

DARTMOUTH - With an acquittal in a double murder trial just last week, and an appeal on a murder conviction likely on the way, many are wondering why Aaron Hernandez would kill himself now.

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson got to know Hernandez a little during the former New England Patriot's incarceration at the Bristol County House of Corrections in 2013.

Hodgson says Hernandez was a master of manipulation and was very in control of his emotions during and after his first murder trial. "He had this unique way of creating in his own mind this sort of trap," said Hodgson. "And it would keep in what he wanted. And anything he didn't want to entertain, it just wouldn't be a part of his thought process."

Hodgson says, however, he believes Hernandez came to something of a turning point when a jury returned a not guilty verdict in a 2012 double homicide last week.

"Their decision may have been something that broke through that trap that he wasn't expecting or wasn't really used to having. And so it started churning up some emotions he couldn't control. Who knows."

"Perhaps there was something around this trial. Maybe it was in the twelve people that came down with the (not guilty) verdict, that for once, maybe in a long, long time, sort of sent a message to him that they really at least believed that maybe he didn't do this. That somebody believed in him. That was one emotion he couldn't control," said Hodgson.

Hodgson says after his father died when he was 16 years old, Hernandez fell in with the likes of Carlos Ortiz and Ernest Wallace. The sheriff says even with the fame and fortune provided to him through the New England Patriots, Hernandez was never able to escape his 'real world' he lived when he was a youth.