NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Sport

NFL star Aaron Hernandez's alleged prison lover revealed as convicted robber now on suicide watch

By James Law
Daily Mail·
24 Apr, 2017 08:23 PM8 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Kyle Kennedy was the last person to see the former New England Patriot alive and is now on suicide watch inside maximum security Souza-Baranowski Corrections Center. Photo / Facebook

Kyle Kennedy was the last person to see the former New England Patriot alive and is now on suicide watch inside maximum security Souza-Baranowski Corrections Center. Photo / Facebook

The mystery prisoner who Aaron Hernandez wrote to before his shocking suicide is a 22-year-old man jailed for a knife point robbery at a gas station near his home, DailyMail.com has reported.

Kyle Kennedy was the last person to see the former New England Patriot alive and is now on suicide watch inside the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Corrections Center, sources say.

He is the man to whom Hernandez gave a $50,000 watch and other property shortly before he took his life.

Aaron Hernandez celebrates a 12 yard touchdown in happier times. Photo / Getty
Aaron Hernandez celebrates a 12 yard touchdown in happier times. Photo / Getty

DailyMail.com exclusively reported last week that Hernandez, 27, who was found dead hanging from a bed sheet in his cell early on Wednesday morning last week, left three suicide notes.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

One was addressed to his fiancée Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, the second to their four-year-old daughter Avielle and the third to a prisoner, who high level prison sources described as his prison lover.

That man is Kennedy, the son of a businessman from Uxbridge, Massachusetts, close to the Rhode Island state line, the sources reveal.

When approached at his home at the end of a leafy cul-de-sac, Kennedy's stepmother Deborah, refused to comment and drove in through the automatic gates.

Within minutes his father Matthew, 42, ran out of the home, which is set on more than four acres of land, and furiously berated a DailyMail.com team sitting on a public road outside his house, yelling: 'Get the f**k away and don't f**king come back.'

Court documents show that Kennedy's own father accused him of using heroin. Daily Mail.com has also leaned the 22-year-old In 2012 was sentenced to nine months for trafficking heroin in 2012 and a year for heroin possession in 2013.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Attempts to reach Kennedy's mother, Cindy Curving Kennedy, were unsuccessful.
CBS's Boston affiliate reported that Hernandez had given his jailhouse lover's family a $50,000 watch before his suicide. The station did not say which member of the family received the watch.

Kyle Kennedy was arrested in January 2015 for an early morning robbery at a Cumberland Farms gas station in Northbridge, Massachusetts. He was wearing a black mask and carrying 'a long butcher-style knife,' according to a report in the local Milford Daily News. He got away with just $189.

He then led police on a high speed chase and after being arrested ran out of the police station in an attempted escape, according to reports at the time.

After being stopped by police officer Peter Bates, Kennedy drove his red sedan off at speeds of up to 110 mph on Route 146 near his home town, court documents show.
'The sedan drove down the off ramp of the exit, Bates said, striking several signs and scraping the side of the guardrail,' the newspaper reported.

Discover more

Sport

It didn't take long for NFL star Aaron Rodgers to move on

03 May 03:20 AM

'According to Bates, the sedan attempted to circle back onto Rte. 146 by going up the ramp, but could not make the maneuver and stopped.'

While being held at Northbridge Police Station over the Martin Luther King Day weekend, Kennedy asked to make a phone call and while the officer was dialing he made a dash for freedom out of the door.

'Police pursued Kennedy through three residential yards until he eventually gave up on Edgemere Avenue,' the newspaper reported.

The final entry on Kyle Kennedy's Facebook page was posted minutes before his arrest at 12.58 am on Sunday January 18, 2016. It said simply: 'Pray 4 Me.'

A post 35 minutes earlier said: 'Who got wheels and wanna make $.'

Other posts show him holding huge wads of cash.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But three months earlier, in October 2014, he had written: 'today is the start of my new life...getting all my s**t prioritized for my long week ahead of me. im about to make a lot of changes in my life so please don't take anything personal if I stop answering you. Thanks.'

Papers show that Matthew Kennedy bailed his son out, paying $12,500 of his $125,000 surety. But in September 2015 he had a change of mind.

In a letter to the Worcester Superior Court Matthew Kennedy wrote: 'I am requesting the court to revoke Kyle's bail.

'Kyle had begged me to bail him out of the house of corrections with the understanding Kyle would attend and complete a program that I had lined up in Boston,' added the older Kennedy.

'I also hired an independent counselor to bring him to the program and keep an eye on him so he would complete and hopefully live a normal life.

'This person brought him to Boston the day after he was bailed and checked him in. Kyle stayed one day and left the program! To the best of my knowledge he is living in Worcester with no job and back using heroin.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

'I believe Kyle is a threat to himself and anyone around him. Also, given his history, he is a flight risk.'

Kennedy was charged with armed and masked robbery but in a deal he agreed to plead guilty to the lower charge of armed robbery. He was sentenced to 3-5 years in state prison in December 2015.

He was originally sent to the Cedar Junction maximum security facility in Walpole, Massachusetts.

In an online profile on the website Write A Prisoner, Kennedy described his sexual orientation as 'straight.'

'Hello, my name is Kyle,' he wrote on the site in May last year. 'I signed up on this website so I can correspond and possibly build friendships with people from around the world.

'I stand at 5' 10', I weigh 175 pounds, I have brown hair and brown eyes. I am also heavily tattooed. I work out, read books and write to help me pass the time while incarcerated,' he added.
'I stand at 5' 10', I weigh 175 pounds, I have brown hair and brown eyes. I am also heavily tattooed. I work out, read books and write to help me pass the time while incarcerated,' he added.

'I stand at 5' 10', I weigh 175 pounds, I have brown hair and brown eyes. I am also heavily tattooed. I work out, read books and write to help me pass the time while incarcerated,' he added.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

'My hobbies on the street include racing motocross, building and customizing cars and motorcycles and doing anything that includes the outdoors. I am currently working to attain my Barbering license.'

He ended his profile with the words: 'If you want to get to know me, I'm just a stamp away! Thank you, Kyle.'

Kennedy - prisoner number W107335 - revealed on the site that he is serving time for armed robbery and said his earliest date for release is March 1 next year.

Lawrence Army, the Kennedy family attorney, told DailyMail.com he had no comment. He said he was visiting Kyle in prison on Monday 'to see what's going on.'

Calls to Massachusetts Department of Corrections spokesman Christopher Fallon were not immediately returned.

Hernandez, a Super Bowl-winning tight end with the Patriots, killed himself last week. His family has donated his brain to a team from the University of Boston to see whether he was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition caused by repeated hits to the head.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He had been serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for the murder of his close friend Odin Lloyd, but just five days earlier had been acquitted of a separate double murder.

One theory for Lloyd's murder is that he knew about Hernandez's bisexuality and might tell Shenea Jenkins - Hernandez's fiancée's sister - who Lloyd was dating.

According to Newsweek, Hernandez had a long-term gay lover before he was imprisoned who was due to give evidence at his murder trial. But shortly before the case he transferred a large sum of money into the man's bank account.

As exclusively revealed by DailyMail.com, Hernandez - prisoner number W106228 - had carefully planned his death. He had soaped the floor in his cell, so he would not be able to stand if he changed his mind after attempting to take his own life.

He had also given away his property to fellow inmates and left the three notes next to a Bible opened to John 3:16, the number scrawled that on his forehead in red marker.

John 3:16, often described as 'the gospel in a nutshell' reads: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.'

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He jammed the door to the cell - number G2-57 - with cardboard and piled furniture against the door to slow down anyone trying to enter. He also covered the interior window with a curtain to cover up his nakedness, according to Boston's CBS affiliate.

A corrections officer has been placed on paid leave for allegedly failing to inspect the cell at 2 am on Wednesday. Hernandez's naked body was found hanging shortly after 3.
His body was taken to UMASS Leominster and he was officially pronounced dead at 4.07 am.

Hernandez's funeral is due to take place in his home town of Bristol, Connecticut on Monday.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Sport

Premium
All Blacks

New All Blacks squad: The four rookies who could get call up

21 Jun 11:01 PM
Premium
Opinion

Super Rugby final player ratings: One All Black picked the worst time to disappoint

21 Jun 09:00 PM
Warriors

'We beat ourselves': Webster rues Warriors defeat to depleted Panthers

21 Jun 08:00 PM

Jono and Ben brew up a tea-fuelled adventure in Sri Lanka

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Sport

Premium
New All Blacks squad: The four rookies who could get call up

New All Blacks squad: The four rookies who could get call up

21 Jun 11:01 PM

As many as four rookies could force their way into Scott Robertson's All Blacks squad.

Premium
Super Rugby final player ratings: One All Black picked the worst time to disappoint

Super Rugby final player ratings: One All Black picked the worst time to disappoint

21 Jun 09:00 PM
'We beat ourselves': Webster rues Warriors defeat to depleted Panthers

'We beat ourselves': Webster rues Warriors defeat to depleted Panthers

21 Jun 08:00 PM
Premium
Liam Napier: Super Rugby final redemption and agony in equal measures

Liam Napier: Super Rugby final redemption and agony in equal measures

21 Jun 09:56 AM
Help for those helping hardest-hit
sponsored

Help for those helping hardest-hit

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP