Prosecutors on Friday released an excerpt of the letter ex-NFL player Aaron Hernandez wrote to his fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, before he committed suicide last month.
"Shay, you have always been my soul-mate and I want you to live life and know I'm always with you," the letter reads.
"I told you what was coming indirectly! I love you so much and know you are an angel - literally! We split into two to come change the world! Your characteristics [sic] is that of a true angel and the definition of God's love! Tell my story fully but never think anything besides how much I love you. This was the Supreme's, the Almighty's plan, not mine! I love you! Let (redacted) know how much I love her! Look after (redacted) and (redacted) for me - those are my boys. (YOU'RE RICH) I knew I loved you = Savage Garden."
The last line is a reference to the 1999 song "I Knew I Loved You" by the Australian pop duo Savage Garden.
Investigators said that Hernandez left three handwritten notes in his prison cell before he hanged himself. One was reportedly addressed to Jenkins Hernandez and the other to their daughter. A lawyer for an inmate and friend of Hernandez's has said the third note was written to his client.
Hernandez, 27, was serving a life sentence for murder and was acquitted in two other killings just days before he hanged himself with a bed sheet attached to his cell window at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts, in the early morning hours of April 19.
Hernandez blocked access to his cell from the inside by jamming cardboard into the door tracks, investigators said. They also said there were no signs of a struggle and Hernandez was alone at the time of the hanging.
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His Bible was found marked with blood at John 3:16, a verse that describes eternal life for those who believe in God. The verse name was also written in blood on the wall and in pen on his forehead.
The letter to Hernandez's fiancée was released by the Bristol County district attorney's office ahead of a court hearing on Tuesday to determine whether Hernandez's 2015 murder conviction should be thrown out.
Hernandez's lawyers are asking that his first-degree murder conviction for the 2013 killing of Odin Lloyd be dismissed. The district attorney's office, which prosecuted the case, is challenging the request. Under a long-standing Massachusetts legal principle, courts customarily vacate the convictions of defendants who die before their appeals are heard.
The release of Hernandez's suicide note comes just a day after the state Department of Correction released more than 100 pages of documents from its investigation into Hernandez's death.
The court clerk said the other two letters Hernandez wrote before his death have not been filed in court paperwork.
