Family wants study of Hernandez’s brain

BOSTON—Aaron Hernandez’s family wants to donate his brain to science, but Massachusetts officials are refusing to release it despite turning over the rest of his body to a funeral home, the former NFL star’s lawyer said Thursday.

Hernandez, who was serving a life sentence for murder, apparently killed himself in his prison cell on Wednesday.

Hernandez attorney Jose Baez said the family had arranged for Boston University researchers looking at brain trauma in athletes to take possession of Hernandez’s brain following the autopsy.

The medical examiner released Hernandez’s body Thursday, but Baez says the office has not yet given them back the brain, as promised.

“There’s no reason to withhold the brain,” he said in front of the state medical examiner’s office in Boston. “It is literally a destruction of evidence.”

A top state official responded that brain will be released by the medical examiner as soon as the investigation into his death is complete.

“No one is going to stand in the way of the family’s wishes,” said Secretary of Public Safety and Security Dan Bennett, whose office oversees the medical examiner.

Baez said the family retained Dr. Michael Baden, a former chief medical examiner for New York City, to perform an independent autopsy. Baden, who didn’t immediately comment, has performed autopsies in numerous high-profile cases, including the death of Michael Brown, the black 18-year-old who was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.

Baez declined to say whether he or the family believed brain damage from Hernandez’s playing days led the 27-year-old former New England Patriots player to kill himself.