Prosecutors in Worcester County, Massachusetts, confirmed the death of former NFL player Aaron Hernandez as suicide. Hernandez's family decided to donate his brain to the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center.

The same had been extracted as part of the investigation, to clarify the true cause of his death. "The Forensic Medical Office released Mr. Hernandez's body Wednesday, but retained some tissue including his brain until the cause and mode of death were determined," said District Attorney Joseph D. Early, Jr. in a statement published by The Boston Globe. "Now that the cause and form of death has been determined, the brain will be released to the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center as Mr. Hernandez's family wishes."

The former Patriots player was found hanged in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass., Where he served a life sentence for Odin Lloyd's murder in 2013. Hernandez had written on the forehead the verse of the Bible "John 3:16," confirmed a police officer. "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." cites the verse.

Hernandez family reportedly demanded that the authorities return the brain immediately. Hernández's lawyer, José Báez, said the family wants the player's brain to be studied to determine if he had CTE, a neurodegenerative disease that in some cases causes social instability, memory loss, depression, among others.

According to the officers in the cell also three notes would have been found next to a Bible, the content of the same was not revealed, but if it was confirmed that the former player had talked with his fiancée and mother of his daughter, Shayanna Jenkins- Hernandez, a few hours before he died.