D.J. Hernandez once tried to understand how his younger brother Aaron went down such a dark path — then, he found himself in trouble of his own.
Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe/Getty ImagesD.J. Hernandez spent much of his adult life trying to understand what had happened to his brother Aaron.
At first, Aaron Hernandez captivated America because of his astounding feats on the football field. Then, it was the accusation that he’d murdered his acquaintance Odin Lloyd. And finally, it was Hernandez’s death by suicide in prison. Through it all, the same question was asked again and again: What happened? Few could answer definitively. But Hernandez’s older brother, D.J. Hernandez, gave it his best shot after Aaron’s 2017 death.
In his book, The Truth About Aaron: My Journey to Understand My Brother, D.J. — who also goes by Jonathan — revealed many dark truths about their upbringing. He also examined Aaron’s deteriorating mental state in his final years, and one large secret that Aaron kept up until his imprisonment.
Neither brother, however, seemed to escape the traumas of their childhood. Years after his brother’s murder conviction and suicide, D.J. Hernandez also ran into serious trouble with the law. And recently, he was arrested for threatening to kill his estranged wife and plotting school shootings.
A Troubled Childhood In Connecticut
Hernandez FamilyYoung Aaron Hernandez (right) with his brother D.J. Hernandez and their father Dennis.
Dennis John “D.J.” Hernandez was born on May 18, 1986, in Bristol, Connecticut, to Dennis and Terri Hernandez. D.J.’s younger brother, Aaron, was born in 1989. But even though the town of Bristol seemed like a nice place to grow up, D.J. and Aaron’s home life was anything but idyllic.
As D.J. wrote in his book, The Truth About Aaron: My Journey to Understand My Brother (2018), their father Dennis, a former Bristol Central High football star, could be violently abusive toward his sons and his wife.
“We saw our dad slamming our mom’s head against the white sink, over and over until she slumped to the ground,” D.J. recalled in his book.
Dennis also beat D.J. and Aaron for anything from poor grades, to bad behavior, to seemingly no reason at all. When D.J. once threatened to call the authorities, his father mocked him. D.J. remembered:
“He handed me the phone before saying, ‘Call them. As soon as you hang up the phone, I will beat you boys harder than you’ve ever been beat before. They will have to pull me off of you after they break down the door.'”
According to D.J., Aaron was also deeply scarred by a separate traumatic childhood experience. When D.J. was nine and Aaron was six, D.J. claims that Aaron was molested by an older boy during a game of hide-and-seek. D.J. was the first to publicly describe his brother’s abuse, but Aaron spoke about the tragic incident privately with one of his attorneys.
Hernandez FamilyAaron Hernandez as a boy. He suffered physical and sexual abuse at a young age.
When D.J. was 20 and Aaron was 16, their father died during a routine hernia surgery. His story ended there, but Aaron Hernandez’s story — as a football star, as a convicted murderer, and as a tragedy — was just beginning.
Aaron Hernandez’s Rise To Fame — And His Shocking Downfall
University of FloridaAaron Hernandez at the University of Florida.
After D.J. Hernandez graduated from high school, he attended the University of Connecticut, where he’d spend five seasons playing football. Aaron Hernandez initially planned to follow in his brother’s footsteps, but he ultimately decided to go to the University of Florida instead.
Aaron got in trouble while living in Florida — he ruptured the eardrum of a bartender during a fight over a bar tab and became a person of interest in a double shooting in 2007 — but his skills as a football player also drew the attention of the NFL. Despite concerns about his behavior and drug use, the New England Patriots drafted Aaron in the fourth round of the 2010 draft.
Ultimately, Aaron Hernandez performed so well on the football field that the Patriots signed him to a $41 million contract in 2012.
Jeffrey Beall/Wikimedia CommonsAaron Hernandez played well for the Patriots, but his bright future in football came to a shocking end in 2013.
But behind the scenes, Aaron was acting increasingly erratic. In his book, D.J. Hernandez recalled a scary moment after the Patriots won a playoff game in January 2012. Aaron was driving with D.J. and several others when a police officer made a signal at the car to stop. Instead, Aaron stomped on the gas. D.J. told him to stop the car, but Aaron kept speeding away.
“Aaron ignored my words; it was as if he were alone in the vehicle,” D.J. wrote. The incident made him wonder: “What is going on with my brother?”
D.J. also noticed that Aaron was becoming more paranoid. During a visit to Aaron’s house, D.J. asked about a large knife on his nightstand.
“I sleep with it because people are after me,” Aaron told D.J. “I’ve got it for protection.” But who was after him? “Everyone. The FBI, everyone.”
Then, on June 26, 2013, Aaron was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd. Aaron was previously friendly with Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Aaron’s fiancée. But Aaron was also the last person seen with Lloyd before Lloyd was shot — and Lloyd’s body was found less than a mile from Aaron’s home.
Though Aaron Hernandez pleaded not guilty, he was ultimately convicted of murder on April 15, 2015 and sentenced to life in prison.
While he was behind bars, Aaron Hernandez purportedly admitted to something that he’d always denied to D.J.: that he was gay. Then, about two years after his murder conviction (and just days after he was acquitted in a different murder case), Aaron Hernandez died by suicide while in his prison cell. The once-promising football star was just 27 years old.
“My younger brother Aaron was far from perfect,” D.J. Hernandez said in a statement after his brother’s death, “but I will always love him.”
D.J. Hernandez’s Own Trouble With The Law
YouTubeD.J. Hernandez speaking to Dr. Oz.
In the years after Aaron Hernandez’s death, D.J. Hernandez — and the rest of the world — have tried to understand what happened to Aaron. One theory is that Aaron began to spiral after the death of his father.
“That’s the million-dollar question, how my father — if he was still alive, how everything would have changed,” D.J. told Sports Illustrated in 2017. “I think it would have been completely different. But I don’t know. That’s a fairy tale.”
D.J., who started going by Jonathan after his brother’s conviction, also later acknowledged that his brother had a severe case of CTE, a brain condition frequently found in football players, especially those who have been hit in the head multiple times. But Aaron didn’t just sustain injuries on the football field. D.J. remembered that Aaron injured his head a number of times during his childhood, even when he was just playing with friends.
“Many years later, I’m left to wonder,” D.J. Hernandez wrote, “was this the first hit of many that affected my brother’s brain?”
Meanwhile, D.J. has also found himself in serious trouble of his own. He was coaching football at the collegiate level until Aaron’s conviction, after which he started a roofing company. But in 2023, he started appearing in the news again for a different, more concerning reason. That March, he was arrested twice for leading police on a “wild” car chase in Connecticut.
Just weeks later, he was arrested again for throwing a brick onto ESPN property in Bristol with this note: “To all media outlets, It’s about time you all realeyes the affect media has on all family members. Since you’re a world wide leader maybe you could lead how media and messages are delivered brick by brick. Clean it up! Yours truly, Dennis J. Hernandez.”
Later that year, D.J. Hernandez allegedly threatened to kill his estranged wife and her divorce lawyer. In July, he was arrested for that and also for allegedly planning school shootings. His ex-girlfriend told police that he’d even driven to the UConn and Brown campuses to “map the schools out” for the shootings; D.J. also purportedly claimed to have “a bullet for everyone.”
Cheshire Police DepartmentD.J. Hernandez’s mugshot. He ran into serious trouble with the law multiple times in 2023.
Police later said that D.J., who had been trying to stay out of the spotlight, had experienced a severe mental health crisis after being recognized as Aaron Hernandez’s brother, and during his most recent arrest, he was caught on body cam footage begging the police to shoot him.
In November 2023, D.J. Hernandez pleaded not guilty to making death threats and causing a disturbance at ESPN. Only time will tell if he’ll be convicted of the criminal charges against him.
He once wished he had the answers for what happened to his brother; sadly, it seems that D.J. Hernandez has his own problems to figure out as well.
After reading about D.J. Hernandez, the troubled brother of Aaron Hernandez, go inside the tragic demise of football star and American soldier Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Or, learn the true story of Rudy Ruettiger, the real-life football legend who inspired the movie “Rudy.”
