Inmate No. 174594, formerly No. 81

He just turned 25, an age at which most of us are just getting a career underway, but Aaron Hernandez has already had a career as a tight end in professional football and is now well into a second career as a jailbird.

Coming out of the University of Florida, All-American Aaron did very well for three years with the New England Patriots, until being held without bail following his indictment on three murder charges.

Hernandez was indicted in August, 2013, for the murder of Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player, in July of that year.  Additional charges were brought in May of this year for a double homicide in 2012, which took the lives of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.

To the surprise of no one, Hernandez has maintained his innocence.  Against all logic, the charges indicate that his swollen ego gave him to believe that he could eliminate people he no longer had a use for, if he is indeed guilty.  But if he isn't, he surely was foolish to destroy his cell phone and his home security videos, and spend money having his new house surgically cleaned, as the police closed in.

Lloyd had been a friend of Hernandez, and the reasons for the murder are unclear.  This article in Rolling Stone paints an interesting picture of a man who could run past, or over, most any defender on the football field, but seems unable to have outrun the demons from his crime-and-drug riddled past, accounting for his current residence in a jail cell, awaiting trial to begin in January.

From a 7,100 square foot home to a
7 foot by 10 foot cell

It fascinates me that the judge in the trial to come has laid down 28 rules for those in attendance, and even limiting who may attend or not. Even though Patriots jerseys are considered fine attire for males and females alike in wintertime in Boston, they are banned from the courtroom, as are any sort of NFL hat, shirt, jacket, pin and (probably) tattoo.  The judge doesn't want to turn the murder trial of a star athlete into a sports-media circus.

Like it won't.