title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Belichick named Hernandez the secondary starting tight end to start the regular season, alongside primary tight end Gronkowski. Belichick continued to increase the use of the Patriots "12 personnel" and began using Hernandez as an H-back lined up in the slot to dictate pass coverages. He started in the Patriots' 2011 season-opener at the Dolphins and caught seven passes for 103-yards and scored on a one-yard touchdown pass by Brady during the third quarter of a 38–24 victory. The following week, Hernandez made seven receptions for 62-yards and a touchdown before exiting in the third quarter of the Patriots' 35–21 win against the San Diego Chargers due to a knee injury. He was diagnosed with a sprained MCL and was inactive for he next two games (Weeks 3–4). On December 19, 2011, Hernandez caught a season-high nine passes for 129 receiving yards and scored one touchdown during a 41–23 victory at the Denver Broncos in Week 15. On December 28, 2011, it was announced he was voted to the 2012 Pro Bowl as an alternate. Hernandez was perceived as a snub for the Pro Bowl by many analysts who argued he was more deserving than San Diego Chargers' tight end Antonio Gates. He finished the season with a career-high 79 receptions for 910 receiving yards and seven touchdown receptions in 14 games and 12 starts. Hernandez ranked 15th among all players in receptions in 2011 and fifth among tight ends. New England Patriots' wide receiver Wes Welker finished first in the league with 122 receptions and Gronkowski finished fifth among all players with 90 total receptions in 2011. Hernandez also finished 31st in the league with 910 receiving yards and tied for 21st with seven touchdown receptions.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: According to NBC Sports, Hernandez and Gronkowski were the first pair of tight-ends in NFL history to catch at least five touchdowns each in consecutive seasons for the same team. In 2011, they also set NFL records for yardage, receptions, and touchdowns by tight ends on one team, combining for 169 receptions, 2,237 yards, and 24 touchdowns. The previous records for receptions and yards by multiple tight ends on a single team were set in 1984 by the San Diego Chargers, who used four tight ends to combine for 163 receptions and 1,927 yards; The success of the Hernandez-Gronkowski tandem revolutionized the tight end position. Multiple teams attempted to recreate the success of the Patriots' "12 Personnel" that used two-tight end sets. Hernandez was considered to be the top H-Back in the league in 2011 and the tandem of Hernandez and Gronkowski widely regarded as one of the top offensive tandems in the league. The combination of Hernandez and Gronkowski tied for the most touchdown receptions in 2011 with the Green Bay Packers' wide receiver tandem of Jordy Nelson and Greg Jennings. They also had the most receptions of any offensive tandem in 2011 and finished fourth in receiving yards among all offensive tandems. Hernandez and Gronkowski were by far the top tight end combination in 2011. Their 2,237 receiving yards finished first among all tight end tandems in 2011 with the Carolina Panthers' tight end combination of Jeremy Shockey and Greg Olsen coming in second with 995 combined receiving yards.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The Patriots finished first in the AFC East with a 13–3 record and earned a first round bye. On January 14, 2012, Hernandez made four receptions for 55-yards and one touchdown in the Patriots' 45–10 win against the Broncos in the AFC Divisional Round. Hernandez also had a 42-yard carry against the Broncos on the Patriots' first offensive drive of the game. The following week, the Patriots defeated the Baltimore Ravens 23–20 in the AFC Championship Game. Hernandez caught seven passes for 66 receiving yards during the game. On February 5, 2012, Hernandez started in Super Bowl XLVI and caught eight passes for 67-yards and made a 12-yard touchdown reception as the Patriots lost 21–17 to the New York Giants.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On August 27, 2012, the Patriots signed Hernandez to a five-year, $39.58 million contract extension that included $15.95 million guaranteed and a signing bonus of $12.50 million. The $12.5 million signing bonus was the largest signing bonus ever received by an NFL tight end. His $40 million total was the second-largest contract extension ever given to a tight end, after teammate Gronkowski's $53 million. Hernandez gave $50,000 of that bonus to a charity named for the late wife of the Patriots owner.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez was sidelined during the Patriots' Week 2 game against the Arizona Cardinals with a high ankle sprain and missed several weeks. On December 10, during the "Monday Night Football" game against the Houston Texans, Hernandez recorded eight receptions for 58 yards and two touchdowns.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez's last NFL appearance was the 2012 AFC Championship game on January 20, 2013, against the Baltimore Ravens, where he had nine catches for 83 yards and a touchdown in the 28–13 loss.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez was not popular with his teammates, and had few friends in the locker room. According to one of his teammates, he seemed to enjoy being an outcast on the team. Brady was overheard after a game telling Tim Tebow, Hernandez's quarterback in college, that he was trying to steer Hernandez in the right direction but called him "a lot to handle." Tebow had previously tried to help Hernandez and enlisted Brady for the same purpose. Hernandez was, however, known as one of the hardest working members of the team.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Other Patriots said that Hernandez was often seeking attention and at times seemed "unhinged." Belichick was running out of patience with Hernandez by June 2013, and intended to notify the front office to have Hernandez released from the team. After his arrest for the murder of Odin Lloyd, Belichick prohibited Hernandez's name from being spoken in the locker room. Gronkowski repeatedly declined to answer any questions about Hernandez in interviews and nearly walked out during a CBS interview in 2013 until the reporter agreed to change the subject away from his former teammate.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: In one of his letters sent from his time in prison, Hernandez disparaged Kraft as "fake-ass non-loyal" but expressed admiration for several of his teammates. He was the closest with Brady, he said, and also friendly with Julian Edelman and Deion Branch. He also called Gronkowski "the BEST TE ever to walk on a football field."


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez had a number of run-ins with the law throughout his life, beginning just a few months after he arrived in Florida as a pre-freshman. By his own admission, Hernandez became jumpy in nightclubs, and had a history of taking offense at minor slights. He also said that he believed people were trying to physically challenge him and were looking to fight him.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Acquaintances described Hernandez as a follower who put himself in jeopardy by hanging out with a dangerous crowd. As a Patriot, Hernandez hired two of his friends from Bristol, both of whom had criminal records, as assistants. One of them, Alexander S. Bradley, was his drug dealer. As Hernandez's assistant, Bradley's other duties including calming Hernandez down during fits of rage and paranoia, and obtaining weapons for him. After his death, his high school teammate and lover said that being drafted by the Patriots "was the worst thing the NFL could have done" because it put him back into close proximity to the criminal friends he had in Connecticut.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez had a second apartment that was kept a secret from his fiancée Shayanna Jenkins. It was used to store drugs and weapons. He would often go there to chain smoke marijuana. In 2012, Hernandez told his agent that he got his respect through weapons. Boston Police detectives once questioned Hernandez outside of a local bar, but the circumstances around the interview are unclear.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On April 28, 2007, according to a police report in Gainesville, Florida, a 17-year-old Hernandez consumed two alcoholic drinks in a restaurant with Tim Tebow, refused to pay the bill, and was escorted out by a restaurant employee. As the manager walked away, Hernandez "sucker punched" him on the side of the head, rupturing his eardrum.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The police responded at 1:17 a.m. Hernandez called Coach Urban Meyer, and Meyer called Huntley Johnson, the team's unofficial defense lawyer. The victim later told police that he had been contacted by lawyers and the team and that a settlement was being worked out, something the team denied. The police department recommended charging Hernandez with felony battery, but the incident was settled out of court with a deferred prosecution agreement.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On September 30, 2007, someone approached a car containing Randall Carson, Justin Glass, and Corey Smith on foot and fired five shots while they were waiting at a Gainesville traffic light after having left a nightclub. Smith was shot in the back of the head, and Glass was shot in the arm. Both men survived. Carson, a back-seat passenger, was unharmed, and told police that the shooter was a "Hawaiian" or "Hispanic" male with a large build weighing about and having many tattoos. He picked a photo of Hernandez out of a police lineup.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The police told Meyer's personal assistant that they wanted to see Hernandez and two teammates immediately. Detectives "kept pushing coaches" to bring the players to the station, but they did not arrive for four hours. In the interim, the players spoke with Johnson, the attorney who often represented players. The other players cooperated with police, but Hernandez invoked his right to counsel and refused to talk to police. When police walked into the room to speak to Hernandez, the last of the players to be interviewed, they found him with his head down on the table and sleeping, a posture they said was unusual for someone in the middle of a shooting investigation.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: No charges were filed at the time but, due to his 2013 arrest and subsequent conviction for the murder of Odin Lloyd, Massachusetts authorities contacted police in Florida to try to determine whether Hernandez was suspected to have a role in the 2007 shooting.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Detective Tom Mullins, who was assigned to reinvestigate the shooting, concluded that Hernandez was not the triggerman. Although Carson initially identified Hernandez as such, other witnesses that night described the shooter as looking like a black male, possibly with cornrows. When Mullins re-interviewed Carson, Carson rescinded his statement of the shooter matching Hernandez and said he never saw Hernandez at the scene, but assumed he was the shooter because "they had words earlier at the club."


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: At 3:45 a.m. on April 30, 2011, police responded to a fight in front of Hernandez's rented townhouse in Plainville, Massachusetts. A high school friend had been pulled over earlier in the evening after driving Hernandez home from a Boston bar. The driver was weaving in and out of lanes and traveling at 120 miles per hour in a work zone and on a highway with a speed limit of 55 miles per hour. The Massachusetts State Trooper who pulled the car over did not arrest the driver because he recognized Hernandez in the passenger seat. The Plainville police also recognized Hernandez, and told the two to go indoors.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez was investigated in connection with a double homicide that took place on July 16, 2012, near the Cure Lounge in Boston's South End. Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Teixeira Furtado, 28, both immigrants from Cape Verde and living in Dorchester, were killed by gunshots fired into their vehicle. Witnesses testified that Hernandez's silver SUV pulled up next to the victims and someone from his car yelled racial epithets towards the victims." Someone from the car then fired five shots, killing the two immigrants. Police immediately identified Hernandez, who was then playing for the Patriots, in the club's security camera footage, but thought it was a coincidence that Hernandez happened to be at the club that evening.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On May 15, 2014, Hernandez was indicted on murder charges for the killings of de Abreu and Furtado, with additional charges of armed assault and attempted murder associated with shots fired at the surviving occupants in the vehicle. The trial began March 1, 2017. The prosecution case was strongly based on testimony by Bradley, a known drug dealer who had been feuding with Hernandez since he allegedly shot him in the face and left him to die. Hernandez and Bradley each claimed that the other person pulled the trigger.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Jose Baez, Hernandez's attorney, argued that the proposed motive was implausible, and Hernandez was a suspect of convenience too close to two unsolved murders. Bradley alleged that Hernandez was infuriated after the victims spilled a drink on him at a nightclub several hours before the shooting and killed them in retaliation. Security camera footage confirmed that Hernandez was in the club for less than ten minutes. Around that time, he calmly posed for a photo with a fan, and left by himself – contradicting Bradley's testimony that he departed with Hernandez. Furthermore, Baez characterized the police investigation as extraordinarily sloppy (e.g., the victims' bodies were kept in their bullet-riddled vehicle as it was towed away from the shooting scene, a major protocol violation) with no physical evidence tying Hernandez to the murders.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: According to "The Boston Globe", there was "powerful evidence that [Hernandez] was at the scene and played a role in their deaths." On April 14, 2017, Hernandez was acquitted of the murders and most of the other charges but found guilty of illegal possession of a handgun.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: In January 2013, Hernandez and Bradley partied at Cure again. At 2:20 a.m., Bradley was pulled over on the Southeast Expressway after his vehicle speeded at 105 miles per hour. According to the State Police he was "wobbly drunk." Hernandez tried to get his friend out of trouble by saying, "Trooper, I am Aaron Hernandez. It's okay." However, Bradley was still arrested for drunk driving.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: In February 2013, Hernandez, Bradley, and several others visited a Florida strip club where they rang up a $10,000 bill. Hernandez began to worry about two men sitting across from them, thinking they were plainclothes Boston police officers. Bradley later recalled telling Hernandez that they were probably tracking the pair as part of their investigation into the double murder outside the Cure.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez and Bradley had a troubled relationship at this point. Bradley claimed that on February 13, 2013, during the same trip, he woke up in a car with Hernandez pointing a gun at his face. The next morning, police found Bradley lying in a parking lot and bleeding from a bullet hole between his eyes. Bradley survived, but lost his right eye. He did not cooperate with police, but instead sought revenge.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The pair would trade more than 500 text messages in the next three months, which included death threats and attempts at extortion. Bradley told Hernandez that he had "semiautomatic weapons, bulletproof vests, and a crew that ran six deep." Hernandez's agent tried, unsuccessfully, to settle the matter quietly. Bradley demanded $5 million to keep his silence, and Hernandez countered with $1.5 million. Bradley then asked for $2.5 million. Hernandez did not respond, but instead went to see his lawyer.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On June 13, 2013, Bradley filed a civil lawsuit for damages against Hernandez in a Florida federal court. He withdrew the suit four days later, giving the two a chance to work out a settlement without the media knowing about it. On September 3, 2013, Hernandez's lawyers filed a postponement request in federal court until his murder charges were resolved. In February 2016, Hernandez reached a settlement with Bradley over the lawsuit. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On May 11, 2015, Hernandez was indicted for witness intimidation in relation to the Bradley shooting, since Bradley was reportedly a witness to the 2012 Boston double homicide. The intimidation charge for Hernandez carried a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. This charge was included in Hernandez's trial for the double homicide, which began on March 1, 2017. During the trial, it was revealed Bradley texted his lawyer about the shooting in a deleted text message, which read:


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: "Now u sure once I withdraw this lawsuit I wont be held on perjury after I tell the truth about me not recalling anything about who shot me."


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez was later acquitted of the charge of witness intimidation by a jury on April 14, 2017. They also acquitted Hernandez of all other charges in the murders of de Abreu and Furtado, except for finding him guilty on one count of illegal possession of firearms.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez traveled to California with Jenkins and their young daughter in 2013 to have shoulder surgery. While there, Jenkins called the police twice in less than a week, claiming that Hernandez was drunk and violent. In the first incident, Hernandez put his hand through a window. Hernandez's brother and friends later said that there were drugs and guns in the rented apartment, but police determined that Jenkins and the child were not in danger and never searched the premises. D.J. Hernandez found his brother alone on the roof of the building one night, looking defeated and rubbing the barrel of a gun against his face.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On June 18, 2013, police searched Hernandez's home in connection with an investigation into the shooting death of a friend, Odin Lloyd, whose body was found, with multiple gunshot wounds to the back and chest, in an industrial park about a mile from Hernandez's house.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The following day, Hernandez assured Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft that he had nothing to do with the shooting. Despite this, Hernandez was "barred" from Gillette Stadium lest it become "the site of a media stakeout." The team also decided, a week before his eventual arrest, to sever all ties with Hernandez if he was arrested on any charge related to the case.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On June 26, 2013, Hernandez was charged with first-degree murder, in addition to five gun-related charges. The Patriots released Hernandez from the team about ninety minutes later, before being officially informed of the charges against him. Two other men were also arrested in connection with Lloyd's death.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On August 22, 2013, Hernandez was indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Lloyd; he pled not guilty on September 6, 2013. On April 15, 2015, he was found guilty of murder in the first degree, a charge that in Massachusetts automatically carries a sentence of life in prison without any possibility of parole; he also was found guilty of five firearm charges. A motive for the murder was never definitively established. Police investigated the possibility that Lloyd may have learned of Hernandez's bisexuality and that Hernandez was worried that Lloyd might out him to others.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez's arrest and subsequent termination by the Patriots resulted in financial and other consequences. He automatically forfeited his 2015–18 salaries, totaling $19.3 million, which were not guaranteed. The Patriots voided all remaining guarantees, including his 2013 and 2014 salaries, on the terms that those guarantees were for skill, injury, or salary cap room, and did not include being cut for "conduct detrimental to the best interests of professional football." The team planned to withhold $3.25 million of Hernandez's 2012 signing bonus that was due to be paid in 2014, and to recoup the signing bonus already paid. The NFL salary cap allows teams to pro-rate signing bonuses over the life of a contract or a five-year period, whichever is shorter. By releasing Hernandez, the Patriots accelerated all of Hernandez's remaining guaranteed money into the 2013 and 2014 salary caps: the team took a $2.55 million hit in 2013, and another $7.5 million in 2014.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Since Hernandez had not completed his fourth season in the league, the Patriots were required to place him on waivers after releasing him. He went unclaimed. After Hernandez cleared waivers on June 28, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced that, while charges against Hernandez were pending, the NFL would not approve any contract signed by Hernandez until Goodell held a hearing to determine whether or not Hernandez should face suspension or other action under the league's Personal Conduct Policy. In prison phone calls, Hernandez expressed distress at his treatment by Belichick and the Patriots.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Within hours of Hernandez's arrest, employees at the team's official pro shop at Patriot Place were instructed to remove all his memorabilia and merchandise, and to remove these items from its website as well. The Patriots ProShop exchanged about 2,500 previously sold Hernandez jerseys for other jerseys, destroying and recycling the Hernandez jerseys for a loss of about $250,000.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: CytoSport and Puma terminated their endorsement deals with Hernandez. EA Sports announced that Hernandez's likeness would be dropped from its "NCAA Football 14" and "Madden NFL 25" video games. After visitor complaints, a prize-winning photo of Hernandez from his rookie season, depicting him triumphantly high-stepping into the end zone in front of Green Bay Packers cornerback Sam Shields, was removed from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Panini America, a sports memorabilia and trading-card company, removed stickers of Hernandez from approximately 500,000 sticker books that had not yet been sent to collectors. The company replaced the stickers, as well as trading cards, with cards depicting Tim Tebow.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The University of Florida removed Hernandez's name and likeness from various locations at its football facilities, including a stone that had his name and "All American" inscribed upon it. Bristol Central High School also removed all his awards and gave them to his family. Pop Warner removed his name from a list of award recipients.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez gave power of attorney to his agent, and instructed him to provide his fiancée with $3,000 a month and to help her find more affordable housing. He also set aside $500,000 for his fiancée and their daughter, and $120,000 for a close friend. After his arrest, his vacant house fell into "extreme disrepair", including suffering burst pipes and mold.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: After Hernandez' death, on April 25, 2017, his lawyers filed a motion at Massachusetts Superior Court in Fall River to vacate his murder conviction. The request was granted May 9, 2017; therefore Hernandez technically died an innocent man, due to the legal principle of abatement "ab initio". Under Massachusetts law, this principle asserts that when a criminal defendant dies but has not exhausted all legal appeals, the case reverts to its status "at the beginning"—the conviction is vacated and the defendant is rendered "innocent." At the time of his death, Hernandez was in the process of filing an appeal for his 2015 conviction in the murder of Odin Lloyd.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: , the date of the judge's ruling to vacate, the Bristol County district attorneys stated they planned to appeal the ruling, to the Massachusetts Supreme Court if necessary. The Lloyd family was disappointed with the ruling, but their attorney did not believe it would affect the wrongful death civil suit which the family had filed.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The appeal was heard by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in November 2018, a year after Hernandez' death, by six justices. The attorney representing the Lloyd family, Thomas M. Quinn, III, argued that Hernandez was rightfully convicted of Lloyd's murder and that the conviction was unfairly wiped out. Quinn also argued that Hernandez killed himself knowing of the technicality that would get his conviction thrown out, and that, "He should not be able to accomplish in death, what he never would have been able to do in life."


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On March 13, 2019, the Supreme Judicial Court reinstated Hernandez's conviction, but stated that the trial record would note that his conviction was "neither affirmed nor reversed"; the appeal was rendered moot because Hernandez died while the case was on appeal. The Court, in their ruling, also officially ended the practice of abatement "ab initio", ruling that it was outdated, never made sense, and that it was "no longer consonant with the circumstances of contemporary life, if, in fact, it ever was." After the ruling, Hernandez' estate vowed to appeal the ruling further.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: "The Boston Globe" described Hernandez as being "strangely content" while in jail, an attitude that confounded his fiancée Shayanna Jenkins. He told his mother that, "I've been the most relaxed and less stressed in jail than I have out of jail." He was, however, punished on multiple occasions for breaking prison rules, including screaming and banging on his cell door. Over the course of his four years behind bars, he increasingly turned to the Bible and became more religious.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The "Globe" said that prison officials "seemed to turn a blind eye to Hernandez's drug use [and] neglected to safeguard their famous inmate." A fellow inmate reports multiple instances of Hernandez needing medical attention after smoking too much K2, which was rife at the prison at the time.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez could speak to Jenkins on the phone, and often did twice a day, but she was facing perjury charges related to his arrest. He only saw his daughter when Jenkins' mother brought her to visit. While in prison, he reconciled with his own mother, from whom he had been estranged for many years.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: While being held at the Bristol County Jail, Hernandez was kept in a segregated unit, an "especially grim section" that normally housed the mentally ill and violent. He asked to move out of segregation, but Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson would not allow it. Hernandez believed that Hodgson exploited his incarceration for publicity.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: After his conviction for the murder of Lloyd, Hernandez was transferred to cell 57 of the G-2 block at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum security prison where inmates typically spend twenty hours a day in their cells. In the two years he spent in the prison, Hernandez was disciplined dozens of times. His lawyer claimed that he was taunted relentlessly by guards. According to Keiko Thomas, who was serving 17–19 years with Hernandez on a manslaughter charge, the former NFL star "was seen as a fraud by many and a god by some." While in prison, Hernandez continued to work out and anticipated returning to the NFL.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: When the news of his acquittal on the charges of murdering de Abreu and Furtado were read on the news, the inmates gathered around the television in the prison cheered. They kicked their cell doors and cheered when Hernandez returned to the prison that night. In the nine days between his acquittal and his death, Hernandez gave his food and books, and even a television, to his fellow prisoners but gave no indication that he intended to take his own life. Gifts such as these were rare in prison, but not unusual for Hernandez, according to a fellow inmate.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Two days before his death, reporter Michele McPhee appeared on the "Kirk and Callahan" sports radio show, during which she and the two hosts used innuendo to imply that Hernandez was gay. It has been suggested that this outing may have played a role in Hernandez's suicide.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: On April 19, 2017, at 3:05 am EDT, five days after Hernandez was acquitted of the 2012 Boston double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, correction officers found Hernandez hanging with bed sheets from the window in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Massachusetts. He was transported to UMass Memorial Hospital-Leominster, where he was pronounced dead at 4:07 am. He had been smoking K2, a drug associated with psychosis, within thirty hours of his death. A fellow inmate told investigators that he had spent much of the previous two days smoking the synthetic cannabinoid.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: State Department of Correction spokesman Christopher Fallon first said that no suicide note was found in the initial search of the two-person cell, which Hernandez occupied alone. On April 20, 2017, investigators reported that three handwritten notes were next to a Bible opened to and that "John 3:16" was written on his forehead in red ink.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Shampoo was found covering the floor, cardboard was wedged under the cell door to make it difficult for someone to enter, and there were drawings in blood on the walls showing an unfinished pyramid and the all-seeing eye of God, with the word "Illuminati" written in capital letters underneath. The drawings were references to the Nation of Gods and Earths, a Black supremacist movement. Hernandez learned about the Nation of Gods and Earths, a movement influenced by Islam, through hip hop culture while in prison. He also expressed an interest in Christianity, telling fellow prisoners that "we all have Jesus Christ inside of us."


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Jose Baez, Hernandez's attorney, reprinted the contents of the notes in his 2018 book "Unnecessary Roughness". One short letter was addressed to Baez, thanking him for securing the acquittal in the double homicide and anticipating an appeal in the Odin Lloyd case. In addition, he asked Baez to pass along thanks to specific musicians whose songs Hernandez found inspiring. The other two notes were addressed to Hernandez's fiancée and daughter. He told Jenkins "You're rich," which prosecutors in the Lloyd case believed was a reference to "abatement ab initio", the legal doctrine that vacates convictions if a defendant dies before his appeals are exhausted.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: In contrast to the straightforward letter to Baez, the lawyer described the other notes as written in a disjointed and markedly "ominous" tone. The letter to his daughter was described by "The Boston Globe" as "strange, rambling, mystical, and tender". In these notes, Hernandez described entering a "timeless realm" and announced he would see his family in heaven.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Prison officials had not observed any signs that Hernandez was at risk for suicide, so he had not been put on around-the-clock watch. Upon completion of the autopsy by the medical examiner, the death was officially ruled a suicide by hanging. At the request of his family, Hernandez's brain was released to Boston University to be studied for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head, including football players who have concussions. Baez quickly disputed any claim of suicide and stated that he would initiate his own investigation of the death. However, in 2018, Baez wrote that he was initially suspicious of the suicide finding, given Hernandez's optimistic demeanor after the acquittal in the double homicide. But he later came to believe Hernandez had taken his own life, with CTE being a major contributing factor. After his brain was removed, Hernandez's body was cremated and the ashes were given to his family.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: In 2007, Hernandez began dating Shayanna Jenkins, a girl he had known since elementary school. Their daughter Avielle was born in 2012, the same month that the couple became engaged and that Hernandez purchased a $1.3 million, , four-story home with an in-ground pool in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, where the family lived together. Jenkins moved in with Hernandez in 2011, during his second season with the Patriots.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: After she discovered him cheating on her, Jenkins moved out but returned in the summer of 2012. During Hernandez's trial for the murder of Odin Lloyd, it was claimed that Hernandez had flirted with and kissed the nanny who took care of his daughter. Jenkins testified in court that she wanted to make their relationship work, and that it required her to compromise on some of his behavior. She told police that she cooked and cleaned and she knew her role. Hernandez and Jenkins never married.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Following Hernandez's death, a high school teammate, Dennis SanSoucie, described a secret homosexual relationship between the two between the 7th and 11th grades. The teammate stated that Hernandez had many sexual partners during this time. Hernandez's brother D.J., mother Terri, and attorney George Leontire report that Hernandez came out as gay to his mother and ex-girlfriend while in prison. Leontire, who is also gay, said his client "clearly was gay" and described the "immense pain that it caused him" and the self-hatred that came from growing up in a culture that was anti-gay. According to Leontire, Hernandez believed that the sexual abuse he experienced as a boy caused him to become gay. A college girlfriend said that "he never dealt with [the sexual abuse]. It led to issues in his sexuality." SanSoucie stated that Hernandez was terrified that his father would find out about his homosexuality.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: After listening to more than 300 recorded phone calls, "The Boston Globe" reported that Hernandez was "prone to going on homophobic rants" and that, in one phone call, he admitted he was attracted to men and said it made him "angry all the time." Patriots receiver Brandon Lloyd said that he had been warned by teammate Wes Welker that Hernandez would expose his genitalia and talk about gay sex.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Prosecutors intended to raise the issue of his sexuality during the 2012 double homicide trial, a prospect that frightened Hernandez. He wished to keep his sexuality a secret. After his death, his fiancée Jenkins stated that she saw no indication that he was gay. She said, "I wish I had known how he felt, just so we could have talked about it. I wouldn't have disowned him. I would have been supportive.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: I can't fault him if he was feeling that way. When you love someone so much you just want to be there to support them. The fact that he felt he couldn't come out to me or he couldn't tell me these things hurts, because we had that bond. I've accepted that he may have been the way he was said to be, or that it may not be true. Regardless, I won't know."


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: D.J. described Hernandez as growing increasingly paranoid as an adult, believing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others were out to get him. D.J. said that Hernandez slept with a large knife by his bed and collected a large number of weapons for his protection. After the 2013 shooting of Alexander Bradley, Hernandez hired a friend from Bristol to serve as his bodyguard 24 hours a day. He also installed a sophisticated surveillance system in his home. Shortly thereafter, Hernandez approached Coach Bill Belichick "in a state of deepening paranoia," saying he feared for his family's safety. Hernandez's agent testified that Hernandez requested the meeting because he was in fear for his life. Hernandez requested a trade to a team on the other side of the country, but the request was denied.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: In April 2013, Hernandez purchased a used car with two handguns and two rifles inside. He also purchased a Chevrolet Suburban that had been outfitted as an armored car. He had secret compartments installed in vehicles to store firearms. When being driven, he refused to travel in cars without tinted windows for fear that one of his enemies might see him. Teammates said that Hernandez was prone to wild mood swings and became more agitated as time went on. He was said to go from being hyper-masculine to talking about cuddling with his mother. As a Patriot, he smoked large quantities of marijuana and used other drugs, including cocaine.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: After his death, researchers at Boston University studied Hernandez's brain and diagnosed him with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), stage 3 of 4, and described Hernandez's brain as a classic case of the pathology. CTE is caused by repeated head trauma. Hernandez had two confirmed concussions since he began playing football at eight years old, but the "Boston Globe" believed "he undoubtedly took other punishing hits to the head that were never recorded." CTE is associated with cumulative injuries. In a phone conversation recorded in prison, Hernandez said "I'm like a grandpa. All my bones are so sore."


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: The researchers suggested that the CTE, which results in poor judgment, lack of impulse control, or aggression, anger, paranoia, emotional volatility, and rage behaviors, may have explained some of Hernandez's criminal acts and other behavior. Sam Gandy of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York said, "It's impossible for me to look at the severity of CTE and Mr. Hernandez's brain and not think that that had a profound effect on his behavior." Hernandez experienced migraines in prison, and had trouble with memory. Jose Baez wrote that he saw symptoms consistent with CTE from his earliest meetings with Hernandez: Hernandez sometimes showed keen insight and observational skills, while other times he had gaps in memory that were highly unusual for a young person.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: After release of the Boston University statement, Hernandez's fiancée and daughter sued the Patriots and the NFL for causing Hernandez's death and depriving his daughter of her father's companionship, arguing that Hernandez's NFL career had caused what researchers described as "the most severe case of [CTE] medically seen" in a person at his age. The suit was dismissed in February 2019 because the deadline to opt out of a class action suit against the league had been missed.


title: Aaron Hernandez

text: Hernandez's arrest, conviction, and death attracted a great deal of media attention, especially because of increasing concerns about CTE in athletes. His life was the focus of a 2018 "Boston Globe" Spotlight Team investigation and a podcast called "Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez & Football, Inc."


title: Boeing

text: The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support services. Boeing is among the largest global aerospace manufacturers; it is the third-largest defense contractor in the world based on 2020 revenue, and is the largest exporter in the United States by dollar value. Boeing stock is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Boeing is incorporated in Delaware.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing was founded by William Boeing in Seattle, Washington, on July 15, 1916. The present corporation is the result of the merger of Boeing with McDonnell Douglas on August 1, 1997. Then chairman and CEO of Boeing, Philip M. Condit, assumed those roles in the combined company, while Harry Stonecipher, former CEO of McDonnell Douglas, became president and COO.


title: Boeing

text: The Boeing Company's corporate headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois as of 2022. The company plans to move its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia in the near future. Boeing is organized into four primary divisions: Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA); Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS); Boeing Global Services; and Boeing Capital. In 2021, Boeing recorded 62.3billion in sales. Boeing is ranked 54th on the "Fortune" magazine "Fortune 500" list (2020), and ranked 121st on the "Fortune Global 500" list (2020).


title: Boeing

text: In 2019, Boeing's global reputation, commercial business, and financial rating suffered after the 737 MAX fleet was grounded worldwide following two fatal crashes in late 2018 and early 2019. In September 2022, Boeing was ordered to pay $200m over charges of misleading investors about safety issues related to these crashes.


title: Boeing

text: The Boeing Company was started in 1916, when American lumber industrialist William E. Boeing founded Aero Products Company in Seattle, Washington. Shortly before doing so, he and Conrad Westervelt created the "B&W" seaplane. In 1917, the organization was renamed Boeing Airplane Company, with William Boeing forming Boeing Airplane & Transport Corporation in 1928. In 1929, the company was renamed United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, followed by the acquisition of several aircraft makers such as Avion, Chance Vought, Sikorsky Aviation, Stearman Aircraft, Pratt & Whitney, and Hamilton Metalplane.


title: Boeing

text: In 1931, the group merged its four smaller airlines into United Airlines. In 1934, aircraft manufacturing was required to be separate from air transportation. Therefore, Boeing Airplane Company became one of three major groups to arise from dissolution of United Aircraft and Transport; the other two entities were United Aircraft (later United Technologies) and United Airlines.


title: Boeing

text: In 1960, the company bought Vertol Aircraft Corporation, which at the time, was the biggest independent manufacturer of helicopters. During the 1960s and 1970s, the company diversified into industries such as outer space travel, marine craft, agriculture, energy production and transit systems.


title: Boeing

text: In 1995, Boeing partnered with Russian, Ukrainian and Anglo-Norwegian organizations to create Sea Launch, a company providing commercial launch services sending satellites to geostationary orbit from floating platforms. In 2000, Boeing acquired the satellite segment of Hughes Electronics.


title: Boeing

text: In December 1996, Boeing announced its intention to merge with McDonnell Douglas and, following regulatory approval, this was completed on August 4, 1997. This had been delayed by objections from the European Commission, which ultimately placed three conditions on the merger: termination of exclusivity agreements with three US airlines, separate accounts would be maintained for the McDonnell-Douglas civil aircraft business, and some defense patents were to be made available to competitors. In 2020, "Quartz" reported that after the merger there was a "clash of corporate cultures, where Boeing's engineers and McDonnell Douglas's bean-counters went head-to-head", which the latter won, and that this may have contributed to the events leading up to the 737 Max crash crisis.


title: Boeing

text: The corporate headquarters were moved from Seattle to Chicago in 2001. In 2018, Boeing opened its first factory in Europe at Sheffield, UK, reinforced by a research partnership with The University of Sheffield.


title: Boeing

text: In May 2020, the company cut over 12,000 jobs due to the drop in air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic with plans for a total 10% cut of its workforce or approximately 16,000 positions. In July 2020, Boeing reported a loss of $2.4 billion as a result of the pandemic and the grounding of its 737 MAX aircraft, and that it was in response planning to make more job and production cuts. On August 18, 2020, CEO Dave Calhoun announced further job cuts; on October 28, 2020, nearly 30,000 employees were laid off, as the airplane manufacturer was increasingly losing money due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Boeing

text: The Boeing 777X, the largest capacity twinjet, made its maiden flight on January 25, 2020. Following an incident during flight testing, estimated first delivery of the aircraft was delayed until 2024.


title: Boeing

text: After two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX narrow-body passenger airplanes in 2018 and 2019, aviation regulators and airlines around the world grounded all 737 MAX airliners. A total of 387 aircraft were grounded. Boeing's reputation, business, and financial rating has suffered after these groundings, questioning Boeing's strategy, governance, and focus on profits and cost efficiency.


title: Boeing

text: In May 2022, Boeing announced plans to move its global headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The company said that this decision was made in part due to the region's "proximity to our customers and stakeholders, and its access to world-class engineering and technical talent."


title: Boeing

text: The corporation's four main divisions are Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS), Boeing Global Services, and Boeing Capital.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) builds commercial aircraft including the 737, 747, 767, 777, 787, along with freighter and business jet variants of most. The division employs nearly 35,000 people, many working at the company's manufacturing facilities in Everett and Renton, Washington (outside of Seattle), and South Carolina.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) builds military aircraft, satellites, spacecraft, and space launch vehicles.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing Global Services provides aftermarket support, such as maintenance and upgrades, to customers who purchase equipment from BCA, BDS, or from other manufacturers.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing Capital provides customers financing for the products and services from the company's other divisions.


title: Boeing

text: In 2006, the UCLA Center for Environmental Risk Reduction released a study showing that Boeing's Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a site that was a former Rocketdyne test and development site in the Simi Hills of eastern Ventura County in Southern California, had been contaminated by Rocketdyne with toxic and radioactive waste. Boeing agreed to a cleanup agreement with the EPA in 2017. Clean up studies and lawsuits are in progress.


title: Boeing

text: On July 19, 2022, Boeing announced a renewed partnership with Mitsubishi to innovate carbon-neutral and sustainable solutions.


title: Boeing

text: The airline industry is responsible for about 11% of greenhouse gases emitted by the U.S. transportation sector. Aviation's share of the greenhouse gas emissions was poised to grow, as air travel increases and ground vehicles use more alternative fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. Boeing estimates that biofuels could reduce flight-related greenhouse-gas emissions by 60 to 80%. The solution blends algae fuels with existing jet fuel.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing executives said the company was collaborating with Brazilian biofuels maker Tecbio, Aquaflow Bionomic of New Zealand, and other fuel developers around the world. As of 2007, Boeing had tested six fuels from these companies, and expected to test 20 fuels "by the time we're done evaluating them". Boeing also joined other aviation-related members in the Algal Biomass Organization (ABO) in June 2008.


title: Boeing

text: Air New Zealand and Boeing are researching the jatropha plant to see if it is a sustainable alternative to conventional fuel. A two-hour test flight using a 50–50 mixture of the new biofuel with Jet A-1 in a Rolls Royce RB-211 engine of a 747-400 was completed on December 30, 2008. The engine was then removed to be studied to identify any differences between the Jatropha blend and regular Jet A1. No effects on performances were found.


title: Boeing

text: On August 31, 2010, Boeing worked with the U.S. Air Force to test the Boeing C-17 running on 50% JP-8, 25% Hydro-treated Renewable Jet fuel and 25% of a Fischer–Tropsch fuel with successful results.


title: Boeing

text: For NASA's N+3 future airliner program, Boeing has determined that hybrid electric engine technology is by far the best choice for its subsonic design. Hybrid electric propulsion has the potential to shorten takeoff distance and reduce noise. Boeing created a team to study electric propulsion in future generation of subsonic commercial aircraft. SUGAR for Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research includes, BR&T, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, General Electric, and Georgia Tech. There are five main concepts the team is reviewing. SUGAR Free and Refined SUGAR, are two concepts based on conventional aircraft similar to the 737. SUGAR High and SUGAR Volt, are both high span, strut-based wing concepts. The final concept is SUGAR Ray, which is a wing body hybrid. The SUGAR Volt concept has resulted in a drop in fuel burn of more than 70 percent and a reduction of total energy use by 55 percent. This reduction is the result of adding an electric battery gas turbine hybrid propulsion system.


title: Boeing

text: In 2008 and 2009, Boeing was second on the list of Top 100 US Federal Contractors, with contracts totaling 22 billion and 23 billion respectively. Between 1995 and early 2021, the company has agreed to pay 4.3 billion to settle 84 instances of misconduct, including 615 million in 2006 in relation to illegal hiring of government officials and improper use of proprietary information.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing's spent 16.9 million on lobbying expenditures in 2009. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama "was by far the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from Boeing employees and executives, hauling in 197,000 – five times as much as John McCain, and more than the top eight Republicans combined".


title: Boeing

text: Boeing has a corporate citizenship program centered on charitable contributions in five areas: education, health, human services, environment, the arts, culture, and civic engagement. In 2011, Boeing spent 147.3 million in these areas through charitable grants and business sponsorships. In February 2012, Boeing Global Corporate Citizenship partnered with the Insight Labs to develop a new model for foundations to more effectively lead the sectors they serve.


title: Boeing

text: The company is a member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a Washington D.C.-based coalition of more than 400 major companies and NGOs that advocate a larger International Affairs Budget, which funds American diplomatic and development efforts abroad. A series of U.S. diplomatic cables show how U.S. diplomats and senior politicians intervene on behalf of Boeing to help boost the company's sales.


title: Boeing

text: In 2007 and 2008, the company benefited from over 10 billion of long-term loan guarantees, helping finance the purchase of their commercial aircraft in countries including Brazil, Canada, Ireland, and the United Arab Emirates, from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, some 65% of the total loan guarantees the bank made in the period.


title: Boeing

text: In December 2011, the non-partisan organization Public Campaign criticized Boeing for spending 52.29 million on lobbying and not paying taxes during 2008–2010, instead getting 178 million in tax rebates, despite making a profit of 9.7 billion, laying off 14,862 workers since 2008, and increasing executive pay by 31% to 41.9 million in 2010 for its top five executives.


title: Boeing

text: The firm has also been criticized for supplying and profiting from wars, including the war in Yemen where its missiles were found to be used for indiscriminate attacks, killing many civilians.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing has been accused of unethical practices (in violation of the Procurement Integrity Act) while attempting to submit a revised bid to NASA for their lunar landing project.


title: Boeing

text: For the fiscal year 2017, Boeing reported earnings of 8.191billion, with an annual revenue of 93.392billion, a 1.25% decline over the previous fiscal cycle. Boeing's shares traded at over $209 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over 206.6billion.


title: Boeing

text: Between 2010 and 2018, Boeing increased its operating cash flow from $3 to $15.3billion, sustaining its share price, by negotiating advance payments from customers and delaying payments to its suppliers. This strategy is sustainable only as long as orders are good and delivery rates are increasing.


title: Boeing

text: From 2013 to 2019, Boeing spent over $60 billion on dividends and stock buybacks, twice as much as the development costs of the 787.


title: Boeing

text: In 2020, Boeing's revenue was $11.8 billion as a result of the pandemic slump. Due to higher sales in other divisions and an influx in deliveries of commercial jetliners in 2021, revenue increased 44%, reaching nearly $17 billion.


title: Boeing

text: Approximately 1.5% of Boeing employees are in the Technical Fellowship program, a program through which Boeing's top engineers and scientists set technical direction for the company. The average salary at Boeing is $76,784, reported by former employees.


title: Boeing

text: In 2022, Rory Kennedy made a documentary film, "", streamed by Netflix. She said about the 21st-century history of Boeing "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all."


title: Boeing

text: On May 5, 2022, Boeing announced that it would be moving its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Additionally, it plans to add a research and technology center in Northern Virginia.


title: Boeing

text: Boeing is headed by a President who also serves as the chief executive officer. The roles of chairman of the board and CEO were separated in October 2019.


title: Cane Corso

text: The Cane Corso is an Italian breed of mastiff. It is usually kept as a companion dog or guard dog; it may also be used to protect livestock. In the past it was used for hunting large game, and also to herd cattle.


title: Cane Corso

text: According to the breed standard of the Fédération Cynologique Internationale, the Cane Corso was once distributed throughout much of the Italian peninsula, but in the recent past was found only in Puglia, in southern Italy. After the collapse of the "mezzadria" system of share-cropping in the 1960s, the dogs became rare. The modern breed derives from selective breeding from about 1980 of a few surviving animals. A breed society, the Società Amatori Cane Corso, was formed in 1983. The breed was recognised by the Ente Nazionale della Cinofilia Italiana in 1994; it was provisionally accepted by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale in 1996, and received full acceptance in 2007. It was recognised by the American Kennel Club of the United States in 2010.


title: Cane Corso

text: The Cane Corso is a large dog of molossoid type, and is closely related to the Neapolitan Mastiff. It is well muscled and less bulky than most other mastiff breeds. According to the international standard, dogs should stand some at the withers and weigh ; females are about smaller, and weigh some less.


title: Cane Corso

text: The head is large, slightly over one third of the height at the withers in length, with a well-defined stop. The top of the cranium is flat and slightly convergent to the muzzle. The eyes are oval in shape, and set well apart. The iris of the eye should be as dark as possible.


title: Cane Corso

text: The coat is short, dense and lustrous. It may be black, various shades of grey (lead-grey, light grey or slate-grey) or fawn (dark fawn, light fawn, or stag red), or dark wheaten ("); it may be brindled. Minor white markings on the chest, the feet or the nose are tolerated.


title: Cane Corso

text: In 2017 a study of 232 Cane Corso dogs from 25 countries found an average life span of 9.3 years, varying with different coat colours. The longest-lived were black brindle dogs (10.3 years) followed by brindle dogs (10.1 years), grey brindle dogs (9.8 years), fawn dogs (9.0 years), black dogs (9.0 years), grey dogs (9.0 years) and dogs of other colours (8.1 years).


title: Cane Corso

text: The Cane Corso is usually kept as a companion dog or guard dog; it may also be used to protect livestock. In the past it was used for hunting large game, and also to herd cattle.


title: Cane Corso

text: In some registries, it is subject to a working trial: in order to qualify for registration, dogs must show tranquility in the presence of inoffensive strangers, indifference to gunfire, and aggressive defence of the owner against an attacker.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Warren Steed Jeffs (born December 3, 1955) is an American religious leader and convicted child rapist. He is the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church), a polygamous denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement. In 2011, he was convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault, for which he is serving a life sentence plus twenty years.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In 2006, Jeffs was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List for his flight from the charges that he had arranged illegal marriages between his adult male followers and underage girls in Utah. In 2007, Arizona charged him with eight additional counts in two separate cases, including incest and sexual conduct with minors.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In September 2007, Jeffs was convicted of two counts of rape as an accomplice, for which he was sentenced to imprisonment for ten years to life in Utah State Prison. This conviction was overturned by the Utah Supreme Court in 2010 due to flawed jury instructions.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs was extradited to Texas, where he was found guilty of sexual assault of a minor, for raping a 15-year-old he had married; and aggravated sexual assault against a child, for raping a 12-year-old he had married; for which he was sentenced to life in prison, plus twenty years and fined $10,000. Jeffs is incarcerated at the Louis C. Powledge Unit of the TDCJ near Palestine, Texas.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Warren Steed Jeffs was born on December 3, 1955, to Rulon Jeffs (1909–2002) and Merilyn Steed (born circa 1935). Warren was born more than two months prematurely in Sacramento, California.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Rulon Jeffs became the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) in 1986 and had nineteen or twenty wives and approximately 60 children. Former church members claim that Warren himself has 87 wives. Warren grew up outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, and for more than twenty years served as the principal of Alta Academy, an FLDS private school at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Jeffs became principal in 1976, the year he turned 21. He was known for being "a stickler for the rules and for discipline."


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Prior to his father's death in 2002, Jeffs held the position of counselor to the church leader. Jeffs became Rulon's successor with his official title in the FLDS Church becoming "President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator" as well as "President of the Priesthood". The latter concerned being head of the organization of all adult male church members who were deemed worthy to hold the priesthood, a tradition carried on in the Latter Day Saint movement.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Following Rulon's death, Jeffs told the high-ranking FLDS officials, "I won't say much, but I will say thishands off my father's wives." When addressing his father's widows he said, "You women will live as if Father is still alive and in the next room." Within a week he had married all but two of his father's wives; one refused to marry Jeffs and was subsequently prohibited from ever marrying again, while the other, Rebecca Wall, fled the FLDS compound. Naomi Jessop, one of the first of Rulon's former wives to marry Jeffs, subsequently became his favorite wife and confidant. As the sole individual in the FLDS Church with the authority to perform marriages, Jeffs was responsible for assigning wives to husbands. He also had the authority to discipline male church members by "reassigning their wives, children and homes to another man."


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Until courts in Utah intervened, Jeffs controlled almost all of the land in Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, which was part of a church trust called the United Effort Plan (UEP). The land has been estimated to be worth over $100 million. All UEP assets were put in the custody of the Utah court system pending further litigation. As the result of a November 2012 court decision, much of the UEP land is to be sold to those who live on it.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In January 2004, Jeffs expelled a group of twenty men from the Short Creek Community, including the mayor, and reassigned their wives and children to other men in the community. Jeffs, like his predecessors, continued the standard FLDS and Mormon fundamentalist tenet that faithful men must follow what is known as the doctrine of plural marriage in order to attain exaltation in the afterlife. Jeffs specifically taught that a devoted church member is expected to have at least three wives in order to get into heaven, and the more wives a man has, the closer he is to heaven.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Before his 2006 arrest, Jeffs had last been seen on January 1, 2005, near Eldorado, Texas, at the dedication ceremony of the foundation of a large FLDS temple on the YFZ Ranch. The ranch came into the public eye on April 7, 2008, when Texas authorities conducted a raid and took legal custody of 416 children, in response to a March 31 phone call alleging physical and sexual abuse on the ranch. The caller claimed to be a 16-year-old girl married to a 50-year-old man, and stated that she had given birth to his child a year prior. Residents, however, told authorities that there was in fact no such girl, and the calls were ultimately traced to 33-year-old Rozita Swinton, totally unconnected to the FLDS Church, and known for repeated instances of filing false reports. Nevertheless, Texas authorities continued to investigate whether Swinton's claims were a hoax. The women and children who were suspected of being minors were returned after Texas courts established that the state had not presented sufficient evidence of abuse to have removed them.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: On June 10, 2006, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told the "Deseret News" that he had heard from several sources that Jeffs had returned to Arizona, and had performed marriage ceremonies in a mobile home that was being used as a wedding chapel.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: On March 27, 2007, the "Deseret News" reported that Jeffs had renounced his role as prophet of the FLDS Church in a conversation with his brother Nephi. Nephi quoted him as saying he was "the greatest of all sinners" and that God had never called him to be a prophet. Jeffs presented a handwritten note to the judge at the end of trial on March 27, saying that he was not a prophet of the FLDS Church. On November 7, the Washington County, Utah, Attorney's Office released video of jailhouse conversations between Nephi and Jeffs, in which Jeffs renounces his prophethood, claiming that God had told him that if he revealed that he was not the rightful prophet, and was a "wicked man", he would still gain a place in the celestial kingdom. Jeffs also admits to what he calls "immoral actions with a sister and a daughter" when he was 20 years old. Other records show that while incarcerated, Jeffs tried to commit suicide by banging his head against the walls and trying to hang himself.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs formally resigned as President of the FLDS Church effective November 20, 2007. In an email to the "Deseret News", Jeffs' attorneys made the following statements: "Mr. Jeffs has asked that the following statement be released to the media and to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints... Mr. Jeffs resigned as President of the Corporation of the President of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Inc." The statement did not address his ecclesiastical position as prophet of the FLDS Church, and many in the FLDS communities still regard him as the prophet and their current leader. There are also reports that Jeffs admitted his position of prophet in the FLDS Church was a usurpation in a conversation to his brother, and declared that "Brother William E. Jessop has been the prophet since [my] Father's passing", though Jeffs' attorneys have claimed he misspoke. In early 2011, Jeffs retook legal control of the denomination.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In July 2004, Jeffs' nephew, Brent Jeffs, filed a lawsuit alleging that Jeffs had anally raped him in the FLDS Church's Salt Lake Valley compound in the late 1980s. Together with author Maia Szalavitz, Brent wrote the memoir "Lost Boy," which recounts alleged incidents of child sexual abuse inflicted upon him by Jeffs, his brothers, and other family members, committed when Brent was aged 5 or 6. Brent's brother Clayne committed suicide after accusing Jeffs of sexually assaulting him as a child. Two of Jeffs' nephews and two of Jeffs' own children have also publicly claimed to have been sexually abused by him.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In June 2005, Jeffs was charged in Mohave County, Arizona with sexual assault on a minor and with conspiracy to commit sexual misconduct with a minor for allegedly arranging, in April 2001, a marriage between a then-14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old first cousin, Allen. The young girl, Elissa Wall (then known as "Jane Doe IV," and the younger sister of Rebecca Wall), testified that she begged Rulon Jeffs to let her wait until she was older or choose another man for her. The elder Jeffs was apparently "sympathetic," but his son was not, and she was forced to go through with the marriage. Wall alleged that Allen often raped her and that she repeatedly miscarried. She eventually left Allen and the community.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In July 2005, the Arizona Attorney General's office distributed wanted posters offering $10,000 for information leading to Jeffs' arrest and conviction. On October 28, Jeffs' brother Seth was arrested under suspicion of harboring a fugitive. During a routine traffic stop in Pueblo County, Colorado, police found nearly $142,000 in cash, $7,000 worth of prepaid debit cards and personal records. During Seth's court case, FBI Agent Andrew Stearns testified that Seth had told him that he did not know where his older brother was and that he would not reveal his whereabouts if he did. Seth was convicted of harboring a fugitive on May 1, 2006. On July 14, he was sentenced to three years' probation and a $2,500 fine.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: On April 5, 2006, Utah issued an arrest warrant for Jeffs on felony charges of accomplice rape of a teenage girl between 14 and 18 years old. Shortly after, on May 6, the FBI placed Jeffs on its Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, offering a $60,000 reward. He was the 482nd fugitive listed on the list. The reward was soon raised to $100,000, and the public was warned that "Jeffs may travel with a number of loyal and armed bodyguards."


title: Warren Jeffs

text: On June 8, 2006, Jeffs returned to Colorado City to perform more "child-bride marriages." On May 27, 2008, "The Smoking Gun" website released images of Jeffs with two underage wives, one of whom was 12 years old, celebrating first wedding anniversaries in 2005 and 2006.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: On August 28, 2006, around 9 p.m. PDT, Jeffs was pulled over on Interstate 15 in Clark County, Nevada, by highway trooper Eddie Dutchover because the temporary license plates on his red 2007 Cadillac Escalade were not visible. One of Jeffs' wives, Naomi Jessop, and his brother Isaac were with him. Jeffs possessed four computers, sixteen cell phones, disguises (including three wigs and twelve pairs of sunglasses), and more than $55,000 in cash. Jeffs' wife and brother were questioned and released.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In a Nevada court hearing on August 31, Jeffs waived extradition and agreed to return to Utah to face two first-degree felony charges of accomplice rape. Each charge carries an indeterminate penalty of five years to life in prison. Arizona prosecutors were next in line to try Jeffs. He was held in the Washington County jail, pending an April 23, 2007, trial on two counts of rape, as an accomplice for his role in arranging the marriage between Elissa Wall and her first cousin.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs was believed to be leading his group from jail and a Utah state board has expressed dissatisfaction in dealing with Hildale police, believing that many members of the force had ties to Jeffs, so therefore did not cooperate. In May and July 2007, Jeffs was indicted in Arizona on eight counts, including sexual misconduct with a minor and incest.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs' trial began on September 11, 2007, in St. George, Utah, with Judge James L. Shumate presiding. Jeffs was housed in Utah's Purgatory Correctional Facility in solitary confinement for the duration. At the culmination of the trial, on September 25, Jeffs was found guilty of two counts of being an accomplice to rape. He was sentenced to prison for ten years to life and began serving his sentence at the Utah State Prison. On July 27, 2010, the Utah Supreme Court, citing deficient jury instructions, reversed Jeffs' convictions and ordered a new trial. The court found that the trial judge should have told the jury that Jeffs could not be convicted unless he intended for Elissa's husband to engage in nonconsensual sex with her. Elissa subsequently wrote an autobiography on her experiences in the FLDS Church and with Jeffs entitled "Stolen Innocence." The book was co-authored with former "New York Times" journalist Lisa Pulitzer.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs was also scheduled to be tried in Arizona. He had entered a not-guilty plea on February 27, 2008, to sex charges stemming from the arranged marriages of three teenaged girls to older men. He was transported to the Mohave County jail to await trial. On June 9, 2010, a state judge, at the request of Mohave County prosecutor Matt Smith, dismissed all charges with prejudice. Smith said that the Arizona victims no longer wanted to testify and that Jeffs had spent almost two years in jail awaiting more than he would have received had he been convicted. Combined with the pending charges against Jeffs in Texas, Smith concluded that "it would be impractical and unnecessary" to try Jeffs in Arizona. Jeffs was then returned to Utah; at the time, his appeal of the 2007 conviction was still pending.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: On August 9, 2011, Jeffs was convicted in Texas on two counts of sexual assault of a child and sentenced to life in prison. Warren Jeffs, Texas Department of Criminal Justice #01726705, will be eligible for parole on July 22, 2038.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs tried to hang himself in jail in 2007 in Utah. On July 9, 2008, he was taken from the Mohave County, Arizona jail in Kingman, Arizona to a Las Vegas, Nevada hospital for what was described as a serious medical problem. Sheriff Tom Sheahan did not specify Jeffs' medical problem but said it was serious enough to move him about 100 miles from the Kingman Regional Medical Center to the Nevada hospital.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs has engaged in lengthy hunger strikes, which his doctors and attorneys have claimed were for spiritual reasons. In August 2009, Superior Court Judge Steve Conn ordered that Jeffs be force-fed at the Arizona jail.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: On August 29, 2011, Jeffs was taken to East Texas Medical Center, Tyler, Texas, and hospitalized in critical condition under a medically induced coma after excessive fasting. Officials were not sure how long he would remain hospitalized, but expected Jeffs to live. Jeffs is incarcerated at the Louis C. Powledge Unit of the TDCJ near Palestine, Texas.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Jeffs predicted in December 2012 that the world would end before 2013 and called for his followers to prepare for the end.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: The United Effort Plan (UEP) trust that formerly belonged to the FLDS was taken over by Utah in 2005 and controlled by the court for over a decade, before a judge handed it over to a community board mostly composed of former sect members. In 2017, both the trust and Jeffs were sued by a woman alleging she was sexually abused by Jeffs when she was a child. Jeffs allegedly suffered a mental breakdown in the summer of 2019, leaving him unfit to give a deposition in the sex abuse case against him. Attorneys representing the UEP community trust contended that forcing him to testify would be “futile.” The plaintiff's attorney said there is a lack of evidence to support a claim of Jeff's incompetency, accusing the trust of being "understandably very fearful" about Jeffs' testimony since it is liable for his actions as the past president of the FLDS.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: Current FLDS members continue to consider Jeffs to be their leader and prophet who speaks to God and who has been wrongly convicted.


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In the FLDS Priesthood History, Jeffs stated that “today the Lord rules over this people through President Jeffs, yet we’re under the bondage of the gentiles here in America. Soon the Lord will overthrow our nation and the priesthood people will rule over this land because the priesthood people will be the only ones left.”


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In a 2001 sermon, Jeffs stated that "the people grew so evil, the men started to marry the men and the women married the women. This is the worst evil act you can do, next to murder. It is like murder. Whenever people commit that sin, then the Lord destroys them."


title: Warren Jeffs

text: In 2005, Southern Poverty Law Center's "Intelligence Report" published the following statements made by Jeffs:


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw (, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officially estimated at 1.86 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 3.1 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 7th most-populous city in the European Union. The city area measures and comprises 18 districts, while the metropolitan area covers . Warsaw is an Alpha global city, a major cultural, political and economic hub, and the country's seat of government.


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw traces its origins to a small fishing town in Masovia. The city rose to prominence in the late 16th century, when Sigismund III decided to move the Polish capital and his royal court from Kraków. Warsaw served as the de facto capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, and subsequently as the seat of Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. The 19th century and its Industrial Revolution brought a demographic boom which made it one of the largest and most densely-populated cities in Europe. Known then for its elegant architecture and boulevards, Warsaw was bombed and besieged at the start of World War II in 1939. Much of the historic city was destroyed and its diverse population decimated by the Ghetto Uprising in 1943, the general Warsaw Uprising in 1944 and systematic razing.


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw is served by two international airports, the busiest being Warsaw Chopin and the smaller Warsaw Modlin intended for low-cost carriers. Major public transport services operating in the city include the Warsaw Metro, buses, commuter rail service and an extensive tram network. The city is a significant centre of research and development, business process outsourcing, and information technology outsourcing. The Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security, and ODIHR, one of the principal institutions of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, have their headquarters in Warsaw. Jointly with Frankfurt and Paris, Warsaw features one of the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union, while Varso Place is the tallest building in the EU as of 2022.


title: Warsaw

text: The city is home to renowned universities such as the University of Warsaw, the Warsaw University of Technology, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Chopin University of Music and Kozminski University. It also hosts the Polish Academy of Sciences, National Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Museum, Zachęta Art Gallery and the Warsaw Grand Theatre, the largest of its kind in the world. The reconstructed Old Town, which represents examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1980. Other architectural attractions include the Royal Castle, Sigismund's Column, the Wilanów Palace, the Palace on the Isle, St. John's Archcathedral, Main Market Square, and numerous churches and mansions along the Royal Route. The Warsaw Zoo is among the largest and most-visited zoological gardens in the country. The city possesses thriving arts and club scenes, gourmet restaurants and large urban green spaces, with around a quarter of the city's area occupied by parks. In sports, the city is known as the home of the top-tier football club Legia Warsaw, the Warsaw Marathon and Poland's national football stadium Stadion Narodowy.


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw's name in the Polish language is . Other previous spellings of the name may have included , , or . The exact origin of the name is uncertain and has not been fully determined. Originally, Warszawa was the name of a small fishing settlement on the banks of the Vistula river. One theory states that means "belonging to Warsz", being a shortened form of the masculine Old Polish name Warcisław, which etymologically is linked with Wrocław. However the ending -awa is unusual for a large city; the names of Polish cities derived from personal names usually end in -ów/owo/ew/ewo (e.g. Piotrków, Adamów).


title: Warsaw

text: Folk etymology attributes the city name to Wars and Sawa. There are several versions of the legend with their appearance. According to one version, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula with whom fisherman Wars fell in love. The official city name in full is ("The Capital City of Warsaw").


title: Warsaw

text: A native or resident of Warsaw is known as a "Varsovian" – in Polish , (male), (female), , and (plural).


title: Warsaw

text: The first fortified settlements on the site of today's Warsaw were located in Bródno (9th/10th century) and Jazdów (12th/13th century). After Jazdów was raided by nearby clans and dukes, a new fortified settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called "Warszowa". The Prince of Płock, Bolesław II of Masovia, established the modern-day city in about 1300 and the first historical document attesting to the existence of a castellany dates to 1313. With the completion of St John's Cathedral in 1390, Warsaw became one of the seats of the Dukes of Masovia and was officially made capital of the Masovian Duchy in 1413. The economy then predominantly rested on craftsmanship or trade, and the town housed approximately 4,500 people at the time.


title: Warsaw

text: During the 15th century, the population migrated and spread beyond the northern city wall into a newly formed self-governing precinct called New Town. The existing older settlement became eventually known as the Old Town. Both possessed their own town charter and independent councils. The aim of establishing a separate district was to accommodate new incomers or undesirables who were not permitted to settle in Old Town, particularly the Jews. Social and financial disparities between the classes in the two precincts led to a minor revolt in 1525. Following the sudden death of Janusz III and the extinction of the local ducal line, Masovia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland in 1526. Bona Sforza, wife of Sigismund I of Poland, was widely accused of poisoning the duke to uphold Polish rule over Warsaw.


title: Warsaw

text: In 1529, Warsaw for the first time became the seat of a General Sejm and held that privilege permanently from 1569. The city's rising importance encouraged the construction of a new set of defenses, including the landmark Barbican. Renowned Italian architects were brought to Warsaw to reshape the Royal Castle, the streets and the marketplace, resulting in the Old Town's early Italianate appearance. In 1573, the city gave its name to the Warsaw Confederation which formally established religious freedom in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Due to its central location between the Commonwealth's two major cities of Kraków and Vilnius, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and the Polish Crown when Sigismund III Vasa transferred his royal court in 1596. In the subsequent years the town significantly expanded to the south and westwards. Several private independent districts ("jurydyka") were the property of aristocrats and the gentry, which they ruled by their own laws. Between 1655 and 1658 the city was besieged and pillaged by the Swedish, Brandenburgian and Transylvanian forces. The conduct of the Great Northern War (1700–1721) also forced Warsaw to pay heavy tributes to the invading armies.


title: Warsaw

text: The reign of Augustus II and Augustus III was a time of great development for Warsaw, which turned into an early-capitalist city. The Saxon monarchs employed many German architects, sculptors and engineers, who rebuilt the city in a style similar to Dresden. The year 1727 marked the opening of the Saxon Garden in Warsaw, the first publicly accessible park. The Załuski Library, the first Polish public library and the largest at the time, was founded in 1747. Stanisław II Augustus, who remodelled the interior of the Royal Castle, also made Warsaw a centre of culture and the arts. He extended the Royal Baths Park and ordered the construction or refurbishment of numerous palaces, mansions and richly-decorated tenements. This earned Warsaw the nickname "Paris of the North".


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the third and final partition of Poland; it subsequently became the capital of the province of South Prussia. During this time, Louis XVIII of France spent his exile in Warsaw under the pseudonym "Comte de Lille".


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw was made the capital of a newly created French client state, known as the Duchy of Warsaw, after a portion of Poland's territory was liberated from Prussia, Russia and Austria by Napoleon in 1806. Following Napoleon's defeat and exile, the 1815 Congress of Vienna assigned Warsaw to Congress Poland, a constitutional monarchy within the easternmost sector (or partition) under a personal union with Imperial Russia. The Royal University of Warsaw was established in 1816.


title: Warsaw

text: With the violation of the Polish constitution, the 1830 November Uprising broke out against foreign influence. The Polish-Russian war of 1831 ended in the uprising's defeat and in the curtailment of Congress Poland's autonomy. On 27 February 1861, a Warsaw crowd protesting against Russian control over Congress Poland was fired upon by Russian troops. Five people were killed. The Underground Polish National Government resided in Warsaw during the January Uprising in 1863–64.


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw flourished throughout the 19th century under Mayor Sokrates Starynkiewicz (1875–92), who was appointed by Alexander III. Under Starynkiewicz Warsaw saw its first water and sewer systems designed and built by the English engineer William Lindley and his son, William Heerlein Lindley, as well as the expansion and modernisation of trams, street lighting, and gas infrastructure. Between 1850 and 1882, the population grew by 134% to 383,000 as a result of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. Many migrated from surrounding rural Masovian towns and villages to the city for employment opportunities. The western borough of Wola was transformed from an agricultural periphery occupied mostly by small farms and windmills (mills being the namesake of Wola's central neighborhood Młynów) to an industrial and manufacturing centre. Metallurgical, textile and glassware factories were commonplace, with chimneys dominating the westernmost skyline.


title: Warsaw

text: Like London, Warsaw's population was subjected to income segmentation. Gentrification of inner suburbs forced poorer residents to move across the river into Praga or Powiśle and Solec districts, similar to the East End of London and London Docklands. Poorer religious and ethnic minorities such as the Jews settled in the crowded parts of northern Warsaw, in Muranów. The Imperial Census of 1897 recorded 626,000 people living in Warsaw, making it the third-largest city of the Empire after St. Petersburg and Moscow as well as the largest city in the region. Grand architectural complexes and structures were also erected in the city centre, including the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Church of the Holiest Saviour and tenements along Marszałkowska Street.


title: Warsaw

text: During World War I, Warsaw was occupied by Germany from 4 August 1915 until November 1918. The Armistice of 11 November 1918 concluded that defeated Germany is to withdraw from all foreign areas, which included Warsaw. Germany did so, and underground leader Józef Piłsudski returned to Warsaw on the same day which marked the beginning of the Second Polish Republic, the first truly sovereign Polish state after 1795. In the course of the Polish–Soviet War (1919–1921), the 1920 Battle of Warsaw was fought on the eastern outskirts of the city. Poland successfully defended the capital, stopped the brunt of the Bolshevik Red Army and temporarily halted the "export of the communist revolution" to other parts of Europe.


title: Warsaw

text: The interwar period (1918–1939) was a time of major development in the city's infrastructure. New modernist housing estates were built in Mokotów to de-clutter the densely populated inner suburbs. In 1921, Warsaw's total area was estimated at only 124.7 km with 1 million inhabitants–over 8,000 people/km made Warsaw more densely populated than contemporary London. The Średnicowy Bridge was constructed for railway (1921–1931), connecting both parts of the city across the Vistula. Warszawa Główna railway station (1932–1939) was not completed due to the outbreak of the Second World War.


title: Warsaw

text: After the German Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 started the Second World War, Warsaw was defended until 27 September. Central Poland, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the General Government, a German Nazi colonial administration. All higher education institutions were immediately closed and Warsaw's entire Jewish population – several hundred thousand, some 30% of the citywere herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. In July 1942, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto began to be deported en masse to the Aktion Reinhard extermination camps, particularly Treblinka. The city would become the centre of urban resistance to Nazi rule in occupied Europe. When the order came to annihilate the ghetto as part of Hitler's "Final Solution" on 19 April 1943, Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Ghetto held out for almost a month. When the fighting ended, almost all survivors were massacred, with only a few managing to escape or hide.


title: Warsaw

text: By July 1944, the Red Army was deep into Polish territory and pursuing the Nazis toward Warsaw. The Polish government-in-exile in London gave orders to the underground Home Army (AK) to try to seize control of Warsaw before the Red Army arrived. Thus, on 1 August 1944, as the Red Army was nearing the city, the Warsaw uprising began. The armed struggle, planned to last 48 hours, was partially successful, however, it went on for 63 days. Eventually, the Home Army fighters and civilians assisting them were forced to capitulate. They were transported to PoW camps in Germany, while the entire civilian population was expelled. Polish civilian deaths are estimated at between 150,000 and 200,000.


title: Warsaw

text: Hitler, ignoring the agreed terms of the capitulation, ordered the entire city to be razed to the ground and the library and museum collections taken to Germany or burned. Monuments and government buildings were blown up by special German troops known as "Verbrennungs- und Vernichtungskommando" ("Burning and Destruction Detachments"). About 85% of the city was destroyed, including the historic Old Town and the Royal Castle.


title: Warsaw

text: On 17 January 1945 – after the beginning of the Vistula–Oder Offensive of the Red Army – Soviet troops and Polish troops of the First Polish Army entered the ruins of Warsaw, and liberated Warsaw's suburbs from German occupation. The city was swiftly taken by the Soviet Army, which rapidly advanced towards Łódź, as German forces regrouped at a more westward position.


title: Warsaw

text: In 1945, after the bombings, revolts, fighting, and demolition had ended, most of Warsaw lay in ruins. The area of the former Ghetto was razed to the ground, with only a sea of rubble remaining. The immense destruction prompted a temporary transfer of the new government and its officials to Łódź, which became the transitional seat of power. Nevertheless, Warsaw officially resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country's centre of political and economic life.


title: Warsaw

text: After World War II, the "Bricks for Warsaw" campaign was initiated and large prefabricated housing projects were erected in Warsaw to address the major housing shortage. Plattenbau-styled apartment buildings were seen as a solution to avoid Warsaw's former density problem and to create more green spaces. Some of the buildings from the 19th century that have survived in a reasonably reconstructible form were nonetheless demolished in the 1950s and 1960s, like the Kronenberg Palace. The Śródmieście (central) region's urban system was completely reshaped; former cobblestone streets were asphalted and significantly widened for traffic use. Many notable streets such as Gęsia, Nalewki and Wielka disappeared as a result of these changes and some were split in half due to the construction of Plac Defilad (Parade Square), one of the largest of its kind in Europe.


title: Warsaw

text: On 14 April 1966, a millennial military parade was held in Warsaw to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of Poland's statehood. It involved a number of troops in the parade from different eras of Poland's history.


title: Warsaw

text: Much of the central district was also designated for future skyscrapers. The 237-metre Palace of Culture and Science resembling New York's Empire State Building was built as a gift from the Soviet Union. Warsaw's urban landscape is one of modern and contemporary architecture. Despite wartime destruction and post-war remodelling, many of the historic streets, buildings, and churches were restored to their original form.


title: Warsaw

text: John Paul II's visits to his native country in 1979 and 1983 brought support to the budding "Solidarity" movement and encouraged the growing anti-communist fervor there. In 1979, less than a year after becoming pope, John Paul celebrated Mass in Victory Square in Warsaw and ended his sermon with a call to "renew the face" of Poland. These words were meaningful for Varsovians and Poles who understood them as the incentive for liberal-democratic reforms.


title: Warsaw

text: In 1995, the Warsaw Metro opened with a single line. A second line was opened in March 2015. With the entry of Poland into the European Union in 2004, Warsaw is experiencing the largest economic boom of its history. The opening fixture of UEFA Euro 2012 took place in Warsaw and the city also hosted the 2013 United Nations Climate Change Conference and the 2016 NATO Summit.


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw lies in east-central Poland about from the Carpathian Mountains and about from the Baltic Sea, east of Berlin, Germany. The city straddles the Vistula River. It is located in the heartland of the Masovian Plain, and its average elevation is above sea level. The highest point on the left side of the city lies at a height of ("Redutowa" bus depot, district of Wola), on the right side – ("Groszówka" estate, district of Wesoła, by the eastern border). The lowest point lies at a height (at the right bank of the Vistula, by the eastern border of Warsaw). There are some hills (mostly artificial) located within the confines of the city – e.g. Warsaw Uprising Hill () and Szczęśliwice hill ( – the highest point of Warsaw in general).


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw is located on two main geomorphologic formations: the plain moraine plateau and the Vistula Valley with its asymmetrical pattern of different terraces. The Vistula River is the specific axis of Warsaw, which divides the city into two parts, left and right. The left one is situated both on the moraine plateau ( above Vistula level) and on the Vistula terraces (max. above Vistula level). The significant element of the relief, in this part of Warsaw, is the edge of moraine plateau called Warsaw Escarpment. It is high in the Old Town and Central district and about in the north and south of Warsaw. It goes through the city and plays an important role as a landmark.


title: Warsaw

text: The plain moraine plateau has only a few natural and artificial ponds and also groups of clay pits. The pattern of the Vistula terraces is asymmetrical. The left side consists mainly of two levels: the highest one contains former flooded terraces and the lowest one the flood plain terrace. The contemporary flooded terrace still has visible valleys and ground depressions with water systems coming from the old Vistula – riverbed. They consist of still quite natural streams and lakes as well as the pattern of drainage ditches. The right side of Warsaw has a different pattern of geomorphological forms. There are several levels of the Vistula plain terraces (flooded as well as formerly flooded), and only a small part is a not so visible moraine escarpment. Aeolian sand with a number of dunes parted by peat swamps or small ponds cover the highest terrace. These are mainly forested areas (pine forest).


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw experiences an oceanic climate, denoted by "Cfb" by the Köppen climate classification. However, the city has clear humid continental influences (Köppen: "Dfb"), and the city is defined as such with old data, prior to the recent effect of climate change and the city's urban heat island. Meanwhile, by the genetic climate classification of Wincenty Okołowicz, it has a temperate "fusion" climate, with both maritime and continental features.


title: Warsaw

text: The city has cold, sometimes snowy, cloudy winters, and warm, relatively sunny but frequently stormy summers. Spring and autumn can be unpredictable, highly prone to sudden weather changes; however, temperatures are usually mild, especially around May and September. The daily average temperature ranges between in January and in July and the mean year temperature is . Temperatures may reach in the summer, although the effects of hot weather are usually offset by relatively low dew points and large diurnal temperature differences. Warsaw is Europe's sixth driest major city (driest in Central Europe), with yearly rainfall averaging , the wettest month being July.


title: Warsaw

text: Warsaw's long and eclectic history left a noticeable mark on its architecture and urban form. Unlike most Polish cities, Warsaw's cityscape is mostly contemporary – modern glass buildings are towering above older historical edifices which is a common feature of North American metropolises. A concentric zone pattern emerged within the last decades; the majority of Warsaw's residents live outside the commercial city centre and commute by metro, bus or tram. Tenements and apartments in the central neighbourhoods are often reserved for commercial activity or temporary (tourist, student) accommodation. The nearest residential zones are predominantly located on the outskirts of the inner borough, in Ochota, Mokotów and Żoliborz or along the Vistula in Powiśle.


title: Warsaw

text: A seat of Polish monarchs since the end of the 16th century, Warsaw remained a small city with only privately owned palaces, mansions, villas and several streets of townhouses. These displayed a richness of color and architectonic details. The finest German, Italian and Dutch architects were employed, among them Tylman van Gameren, Andreas Schlüter, Jakub Fontana and Enrico Marconi. The buildings situated in the vicinity of the Warsaw Old Town represent nearly every European architectural style and historical period. Warsaw has excellent examples of architecture from the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical periods, all of which are located within walking distance of the centre.


title: Warsaw

text: Gothic architecture is represented in the majestic churches but also at the burgher houses and fortifications. The most significant buildings are St John's Cathedral (1390), a typical example of the so-called Masovian Brick Gothic style; St Mary's Church (1411); the Burbach townhouse (14th century); Gunpowder Tower (after 1379); and Royal Castle's "Curia Maior" (1407–1410). The most notable examples of Renaissance architecture in the city are the house of the Baryczko merchant family (1562), a building called "The Negro" (early 17th century), and Salwator tenement (1632), all situated on the Old Market Place. The most interesting examples of Mannerist architecture are the Royal Castle (1596–1619) and the Jesuit Church (1609–1626). Among the first structures of the early Baroque, the most important are St. Hyacinth's Church (1603–1639) and Sigismund's Column (1644), the first secular monument in the form of a column in modern history.