National Football League

From defendant to Inmate No. W106228: How Hernandez's life will change

Published Apr. 16, 2015 4:48 p.m. ET

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FALL RIVER, Mass.

With seven words — “guilty of murder in the first degree” — Aaron Hernandez’s life irrevocably changed this week.

Within a minute after he was convicted, a court security officer stepped behind Hernandez and quietly told him to sit down. Then the officer cuffed the former NFL star’s wrists and shackled his ankles.

He long ago ceased being Aaron Hernandez, star tight end for the New England Patriots.

Now he ceased being Aaron Hernandez, accused defendant. And he ceased being Aaron Hernandez, prisoner at the local county lockup.

At that moment, he was Aaron Hernandez, convicted killer — sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life in prison for the June 17, 2013 slaying of Odin Lloyd. Within a few hours, he was Massachusetts Department of Correction Inmate No. W106228, housed at MCI Cedar Junction, a maximum-security intake prison about a mile and a half from Gillette Stadium, where not so long ago he wowed the faithful with big catches.

There, Hernandez will be treated like every other incoming inmate, said Chris Fallon, director of communications for the Department of Correction, who made it clear he could not discuss the former NFL star specifically.

But as a new inmate, Hernandez faces a medical and mental health assessment, after which prison officials will make some determination about what programs might be appropriate for him and what treatments might benefit him.

Someone convicted of first-degree murder could stay at MCI Cedar Junction for as few as two days and as many as 30 days. Then, at some point, Hernandez will be headed for the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Shirley, Mass. It was named for corrections officer James Souza and industrial instructor Alfred Baranowski, who were killed in 1972 during an attempted escape.

It’s expected that Hernandez will spend up to the first two years of his sentence there, adjusting to prison life.

In the maximum-security prison, he’ll share a cell with another inmate, paired in an effort to avoid problems.

“You don’t want to put somebody who would be normally victimized with a victimizer,” Fallon said.

Everything will be regimented: when he exercises, what programs he participates in, where and when he eats.

Depending on his behavior, he could be forced to visit loved ones through a glass partition, or he could be allowed “contact” visits with family members. But even then he would have no privacy.

“Everybody sits in chairs, side by side, and they’re monitored,” Fallon said.

The hope would be that in a relatively short time Hernandez could “adjust down” to a medium-security prison.

But don’t be fooled. Someone driving by the outside might not recognize the difference.

“The look of it won’t really change,” Fallon said. “Some of our medium-security facilities have solid walls. It’s the amount of freedom you have during the day” that's the difference.

Hernandez would have more freedom to move about in a medium security prison, assuming he stays out of trouble.

And what about when he goes on trial, perhaps later this year, to face charges in a 2012 South Boston double murder?

He’ll remain an inmate in a state prison, transferred each day to court. His days in county lockup, in other words, are over.

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