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
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.
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.
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.
'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 $.'
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.
'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.
'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.
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.'
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.
