Aaron Hernandez Diagnosed with 'Severe' Form of CTE

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was diagnosed with a "severe" form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in an evaluation following his death from an apparent suicide in April. 

Per Ken Belson of the New York Times, lawyer Jose Baez announced the results Thursday, stating research concluded Hernandez had "the most severe case they had ever seen in someone of Aaron's age."

The 27-year-old Connecticut native died at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Massachusetts while serving a life sentence for the murder of Odin Lloyd.

Baez said the results from the exam after Hernandez's death—CTE can only currently be confirmed posthumously—led him to file a federal lawsuit against the National Football League and the Patriots organization on behalf of Hernandez's daughter.

Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the CTE Center at Boston University, examined Hernandez's brain and confirmed he had Stage 3 of the degenerative brain disease, per Belson.

In July, the JAMA Network released the latest findings from research into the potential link between playing football and CTE, which is believed to derive from repeated head trauma. The results showed 99 percent (110 of 111) of the former NFL players studied showed signs of the disease.

Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder for Lloyd's death in April 2015. He was sentenced to life in prison.

On April 19 of this year, he was found not guilty for the 2012 double murder of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Miami.

Five days later he was found hanging in his prison cell and pronounced dead at the UMass Memorial-Health Alliance Hospital.

In May, a Massachusetts judge threw out the murder conviction against Hernandez because the appeal review of the verdict wasn't completed before his death.