Best-selling author James Patterson is writing a book about Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL and University of Florida standout who authorities say this month took his own life while serving time in prison for murder.
Patterson made the announcement Wednesday while visiting Congress Middle School in Boynton Beach. He did not say what the title will be or when it will be released.
He described it as a “tough book to write.”
“This is a man who ... signed a $40 million contract. He had a lot of stuff going for him but he never figured out enough about life,” Patterson told the students. “He went the wrong way.”
Authorities said Hernandez moved through a world of crime, strip clubs and eventually murder. He was named All-America at the University of Florida, where he played tight end. In the NFL with the New England Patriots, he earned All-Pro status along with a $40 million contract.
His double life came crashing down when authorities alleged that on July 16, 2012, he put six bullets into Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old landscaper and amateur weekend football player who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee, and left his body at an industrial park near Hernandez’s home south of Boston. Prosecutors suggested Lloyd knew about Hernandez’s role in an earlier double shooting.
Alexander Bradley later said in court documents he was in the front seat.
In February 2013, prosecutors allege, Hernandez and Bradley started the night at a high-end strip club in Miami Gardens, but after Bradley let on that Hernandez had shot and killed the two men in South Boston, the two were driving north through Palm Beach County when Hernandez turned off and into the parking lot of an industrial park just outside Riviera Beach.
Two men working nearby heard a shot and found Bradley, who survived but lost an eye. He would not cooperate with Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies, but in June 2013 filed a federal lawsuit claiming Hernandez shot him over his knowledge of the South Boston double murder.
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