I was driving to work this morning in the slow freeway caravn when the news moment at the top of the hour started by the lead-in music, and I paid attention to try and hear the usual stuff- game scores, trade notifications, injured lists, draft opinions- when the lead story grabbed me and made my heart sink.

Former New England Patriot tight end Aaron Hernandez was dead.

Aaron Hernandez had been found hanging in his prison cell from a rope and noose made of his bed sheet early this morning.

Now, I am not sure why I reacted like that this morning.

It is not like I am an Aaron Hernandez fan.

I don’t think I knew he played for New England before his murder indictment splashed across the news in 2013. And there is that, really, that is deeply troubling. He had a dark history follow him into his NFL years.

When I did learn about him from the news, though, it was clear he was a big man- 6′ 2″ tall, 245 pounds, barrel-chested and thick-armed. He was someone to not be trifled with, clearly.

And I guess he was decent with the Patriots, and before his pro days, he played at the University of Florida, where he was one of Tim Tebow’s favorite targets and led the team in receptions in 2009, a year in which he also received the John Mackey Award for being the nation’s best tight end. And, oh yeah, Florida won the national championship that year as well.

Hernandez was a bona fide star. But a star with violence issues, clearly.

In 2007, Hernandez punched a restaurant employee in the head and ruptured his eardrum because he was kicked out of the establishment.

Later in 2007, Hernandez was tied to a shooting in Gainesville in which two men were hurt. Hernandez wouldn’t talk about the incident, and the charges were eventually dropped.

In 2012, two other men were shot and killed when bullets were fired into their car in Boston. Ballistics tied the gun to Hernandez, but the case stalled.

And in 2013, Hernandez finally faced charges that stuck.

In June, a friend of his filed a lawsuit that said Hernandez had shot him twice one night in February, after an altercation outside a strip club in Miami. The friend lost an eye, but at the time of the incident would not tell the police who shot him, for some reason.

Five days after that lawsuit was filed, police searched Hernandez’s house because another friend of his, Odin Lloyd, was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds about a mile from Hernandez’s home on June 17, 2013.

Hernandez not only immediately lost his NFL career, but also his freedom. In August 2013, Hernandez was found guilty of Lloyd’s murder, sentenced to life in prison.

The Boston double homicide case against Aaron reemerged this year, and after a month of deliberation, he was actually acquitted of that crime just 5 days ago. In video from news sites, he is seen happy and blowing kisses to his daughter after the verdict was announced.

But then something else got to him yesterday.

I know I was not sad this morning because he was clearly a violent man. He was found guilty of taking another human being’s life. And he had a predilection to pulling a trigger when he was not happy while pointing the gun towards people.

I think part of it for me was seeing a life of tremendous potential collapse and end like it did.

Some speculate, and say he was too alive to take his own life- he would never do that.

But it looks like he did- in which case, here was a giant beast of a man crushed by the darkness that filled his own heart and mind.

I think that is where the sadness washed over me.

And I always want to hope and believe that people can change, and become good despite their situations in life. I am also sad that that did not come to fruition in Aaron.

He was clearly troubled.

And maybe that itself is also a source of some of my sadness.

Death by despondence.