Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez

Wow. Watched this documentary gripped and dumbfounded as it all unfolded. Ended up constantly pausing to discuss and debate all the different aspects and conclusions. Just an extremely sad, interesting and bizarre case, one that leaves you unable to put it out of your mind for a long time. I found the documentary on a level to Making a Murderer and The Ted Bundy Tapes, Netflix knows how to get you hooked.

This doco series is a stand out. Brilliantly delivered and produced. It hit a nerve with me however, and I can't help but feel deeply emotional and upset. Same way I felt after watching the Paradise Lost trilogy.......the US judicial system is defective and sometimes, downright idiotic. This poor kid took the wrong turn in life but I can't help but feel empathetic towards him. A tragic story but an excellent documentary.

The story of Aaron Hernandez is quite captivating, a star football player with seemingly everything ahead of him, murders someone and ruins his whole life. Why? Unfortunately the series relies too much on people expressing their opinions and not on actual facts. The focus is on the wrong places and seems to cheapen the main purpose. It makes it more he said she said than a documentary.

An interesting approach to a murderer who is a complete boggle-- if ever there was a person who simply did not need to do what he did, it is Hernandez. The lack of direct input from everyone most directly involved leads to a mosaic approach to the narrative, much of it carried by inference or the build-up of circumstantial opinions.

There are no answers, and none are given, but the parade of people trying to protect themselves from proof of knowledge or shared culpability becomes a source of fascination in its own right.

As a psychologist myself, I feel I need to question the angle this documentary takes. It tells of an NFL player who commits a murder and the director attempts to find some explanations for his actions. There were also questions about his sexuality and it was spoken of a few times, but this still doesn't lead to an explanation for his motives. Then they talk about his sporting head injuries and propose this as an explanation. The documentary is a bit scattered and sometimes deviates from the central mystery of motive. But never the less, it's a compelling Netflix documentary and a lesson that we shouldn't assume that our sporting icons can't have a dark side.