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A look back on the talented player’s NFL start and the series of events that ultimately resulted in his death.
USA TODAY Sports

Bristol Superior Court Judge Thomas F. McGuire Jr. ordered on Monday that the district attorney must release any suicide or other notes written by Aaron Hernandez to his fiancee’s counsel, “in time for the Hernandez family to have them at the time of his burial, which is scheduled for this afternoon.”

In the order, the judge gave the district attorney the ability to “exercise discretion” in taking out any information in the notes that would impede the investigation into Hernandez’s death.

He said the DA had to send the information to the fiancee’s counsel by “email or such other means as the parties may agree.”

Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, had asked for all suicide notes before the funeral, according to The Boston Globe.

Writing in court papers that, “They desperately [need] the closure the suicide notes would provide,’’ George Leontire, a New Bedford, Mass., attorney, added that, “The family has the right, during this grieving process, to know their loved one’s final thoughts.”

Leontire added that Jenkins Hernandez had legal standing to the letters because she was appointed Hernandez’s representative in probate court.

Hernandez was found hanged inside his cell at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass., last Wednesday morning and was pronounced dead at the hospital about an hour later.

The Massachusetts chief medical examiner, Dr. Henry N. Nields, concluded the “manner of death was suicide and the cause asphyxia by hanging,” according to a news release.

MORE ON HERNANDEZ:

PHOTOS: Hernandez through the years

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