Aaron Hernandez Jailhouse Phone Calls Released
BOSTON (CBS) - Hundreds and hundreds of phone calls placed by Aaron Hernandez behind jailhouse walls are providing a glimpse of the emotion and optimism he felt following his June 2013 arrest for the murder of Odin Lloyd.
Among the calls, there were tearful conversations with his fiancée Shayanna Jenkins who vowed to stay by his side. "It's so unreal to me. Me too. Just like I feel so empty I don't know. Me too."
There were difficult conversations with his mother Terri Hernandez who initially told him it was too difficult to visit Hernandez at the Bristol County House of Correction.
"How did we get into this?" she asks.
"I don't know but I'm innocent so I'm going to get out eventually. I don't know how long until trial, could be a whole year could be two years," said Hernandez.
"I don't want to come visit. I love you but I can't see you like that," said Terri Hernandez.
Hernandez said reading and letter writing was the one thing that kept him occupied, while complaining he was in an "insane asylum" the first few days when he was put on suicide watch as a precaution.
Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who talked frequently with Hernandez, said he lived in his own reality. "He had an ability in his mind to be able to take whatever realities were there and put them in a metal trap of a mind and lock everything out," Hodgson said.
That also meant staying positive for himself and everyone else. "Are you still trying to keep a positive outlook?" asks a friend. "Yeah definitely," says Hernandez. "I'm in jail and I should be out."
Hernandez was convicted of the murder of Lloyd and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He was later acquitted of charges that he killed two other men in Boston. Five days later Hernandez committed suicide.