BOSTON (Reuters) - The funeral of former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez will take place on Monday, five days after he was found hanged by a bed sheet in a Massachusetts prison in what state officials have ruled a suicide.
Hernandez had been a rising star in the National Football League with a $41 million contract when he was arrested in June 2013 and charged with murdering an acquaintance in an industrial park not far from the Patriots' stadium.
He was serving a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole after being found guilty of that murder when he hanged himself in a prison cell, according to state officials.