Aaron Hernandez and the death penalty - semi updated OP

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The words are a chilling reminder that in professional sports you never really know the people you cheer for.

You don’t know their hearts or their character or much of anything except that they’ve been blessed with physical gifts which, as we were reminded yesterday by Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley, don’t tell us anything important about who they really are.

“I called (my family) and told them obviously what the contract was, and the basics about it,” Aaron Hernandez said at the Patriots’ annual charity gala on Aug. 27, 2012, hours after signing a $40 million contract extension that carried with it the highest bonus ever given to an NFL tight end, $12.5 million.

“They were all crying. I was crying right with them. This is probably one of the best days of my life. I’ll remember this day forever. I just hope I keep going, doing the right things, making the right decisions so I can have a good life and be there to live a good life with my family.”

According to an indictment brought by Conley’s office yesterday, Hernandez said those saccharine-sweet words 42 days after allegedly gunning down in cold blood two innocent Cape Verdean-born men after a random encounter at a local nightclub.

They weren’t gangbangers or gunsels or drug lords, Conley emphasized. They cleaned buildings to pay the bills and were out for a night on the town after a long week until, allegedly, a “chance encounter’’ with an Aaron Hernandez few people ever knew cost them their lives.

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