Killer Thriller: Did Aaron Hernandez Have All 9 Serial Killer Traits?

Summary

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Killer Thriller: Did Aaron Hernandez Have All 9 Serial Killer Traits?

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes Present (iHeartPodcasts) | May 14, 2026
Host: Lisa Donovan | Guest: Dr. Rachel Toles (Forensic Psychologist)

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Episode Overview

In this “Killer Thriller” episode, host Lisa Donovan is joined by forensic psychologist Dr. Rachel Toles to dig into the troubled life and criminal path of NFL star Aaron Hernandez. The conversation, inspired by FX’s “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez,” explores the complex mix of fame, trauma, football culture, brain injury, and behavioral warning signs that surrounded Hernandez’s rise and eventual collapse. A central question: Did Hernandez exhibit all nine classic serial killer traits—and what does it mean to label someone as such? Dr. Toles brings her expertise on extreme violence to unpack how individual history, environment, and neurological damage can come together in tragic, violent outcomes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Escalation Behind the Headlines

(04:08–05:58)

• Chain of Escalation: Dr. Rachel Toles explains that violent acts, including murder, are rarely spontaneous. There’s almost always a background of escalating behaviors and circumstances.
  • “It was an absolute chain of escalation…they don't just [snap].” — Dr. Toles [04:51]
• Explanation vs. Excuse: Dr. Toles stresses the importance of understanding the roots of violent behavior for prevention, clarifying that explanation does not equal justification.
  • “People conflate explanation with excuse all the time, and it's like, don't ever conflate them. There is no excuse for violence. But if we can't explain it, then how do we stand a chance of preventing it?” — Dr. Toles [05:33]

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Labeling and Humanization

(05:58–07:24)

• Dangers of Labeling: Labels like “psychopath” or “narcissist” can stop society from investigating root causes, and instead, we need a compassionate, curious approach.
  • “When we label somebody… it gets us to stop looking. And again, if we stop looking, then how are we going to ever prevent these things?” — Dr. Toles [06:39]
• Call for Curiosity: More curiosity and less judgment can help society prevent violence and foster connection.

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Compartmentalization & Living Double Lives

(07:24–12:09)

• Meaning of Compartmentalization: Nearly all humans can compartmentalize, but trauma and socialization often push some to dangerous extremes.

  • Dr. Toles uses analogies, such as cruelty to animals vs. eating meat, or social disregard for certain victims (sex workers, people of color), to illustrate how society compartmentalizes. [07:24–10:09]
  • Historical examples: Nazi Germany’s “ordinary men”—ordinary people who committed atrocities, justified by social conditioning.

• Serial Killer Comparison: While not labeling Hernandez a serial killer, Dr. Toles believes he had all nine behavioral factors commonly found in serial killers and might have continued escalating had he not been caught.

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Trauma, Football Culture, and Gender Norms

(14:35–18:26)

• Childhood Trauma: The series and Dr. Toles highlight Hernandez’s upbringing under a violent, misogynistic, and controlling father. His childhood environment was characterized by screaming, disrespect, and physical/emotional abuse.
• Misogyny in Football: Football culture as portrayed in the series (and in reality) amplifies misogyny, teaches boys to suppress vulnerability, and places excessive value on aggression.
  • “That’s a part of it… just feeling like you’re above something, that you can’t cry.” — Dr. Toles [15:26]
• Differences in Gender Response to Trauma:
  • Girls tend to internalize trauma (self-harm, eating disorders), while boys tend to externalize, increasing the likelihood of violence.
  • “90% of homicides are committed by men… 93% of serial killers are men and 7% are female, and of the 7% female serial killers, almost one half have a male accomplice.” — Dr. Toles [16:17]

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Childhood Red Flags & The McDonald Triad

(18:26–20:14)

• Indicators of Future Violence:

  • Trauma responses such as bed-wetting, fire-setting, and animal cruelty (the McDonald Triad) may indicate deep emotional turmoil.
  • Hernandez was reportedly sexually abused and wet the bed as a child—common somatic responses to intense trauma.
  • “If a child wets the bed, lights fires and is cruel to animals… basically means they’re going to be a psychopath… Or, boys are more likely to externalize their traumas.” — Dr. Toles [18:54]

• Violence as Power:

  • Children hurting animals are often repeating patterns of domination learned from their own victimization, not born psychopaths.

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Loss, Identity, and Being Treated as a Commodity

(20:23–25:59)

• Impact of Losing a Dominant Parent:

  • The loss of his father led to destabilization; Hernandez idolized and feared his father, making him emotionally vulnerable and lost when that figure was gone.
  • “When you’ve got someone who’s so dominant and abusive… you also have such adoration for that person, you know, that’s exactly what can happen.” — Dr. Toles [20:56]
  • Compared to Ed Gein’s dependency on his mother, demonstrating how a child’s identity blurs with a parent’s overwhelming presence.

• Dehumanization & Commodification:

  • From a young age, Hernandez was treated more like a football commodity and less like a developing person, which stunted healthy identity formation.
  • “All he knew was that the only time he was acceptable was when he was killing it… on the football field.” — Dr. Toles [23:58]
  • Family systems of public/private splits often seed secret destructive impulses.

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The Interplay of Vulnerability and Danger

(25:59–27:31)

• Gentleness vs. Dangers:
  • Many who become violent were once seen as vulnerable or sweet; deep wounding does not preclude future danger.
  • “Everyone that I’ve ever studied in my life had… they needed connection. Things went awry, and then they became dangerous. But there’s always a starting point.” — Dr. Toles [26:31]
• The Myth of Born Psychopaths:
  • There’s scant scientific evidence that people are born “psychopaths”; it is a process, not a predestined outcome.

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Football’s Normalized Aggression & Dissociation

(30:14–31:58)

• Aggressiveness in Sports Translates Off-Field:

  • Football culture trains young men to “kill it” at any cost, further blurring the line between on-field aggression and real-life violence.
  • “You have to win at all costs. And that's just—it doesn't matter what the cost is. And so that will bleed into your normal life.” — Dr. Toles [30:28]

• Trauma and Dissociation:

  • Severe trauma, repeated concussions, and aggressive training can cause dissociation (out-of-body states, tunnel vision), sometimes making violence feel dreamlike or justified.

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Chronic Drug Use & Neurological Damage

(31:58–34:47)

• Compound Impact:
  • Chronic use of marijuana (sometimes laced with PCP), alcohol, and CTE/brain damage all impair impulse control, fuel paranoia, and exaggerate trauma responses.
  • The two affected brain areas: the amygdala (emotional center) and prefrontal cortex (impulse control, judgment) are both highly compromised by trauma and substance abuse.
  • “You’re adding so much more damage to the areas that are already damaged, then you will—it will put you in a dream state… reality has left the building.” — Dr. Toles [33:40]

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Phone Calls, Misogyny, and Split Selves

(34:47–36:51)

• Switching Modes:
  • Hernandez was recorded on prison phone calls rapidly switching from doting father to misogynist to bravado-laden “tough guy.”
  • Dr. Toles identifies this as the product of internalized, contradictory roles modeled in his own upbringing: tenderness with children, misogyny as twisted “intimacy,” bravado to mask fear.
  • “He’s going through all the parts of himself… the parts of himself that he learned to be in his own childhood.” — Dr. Toles [36:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On explanation vs. excuse:
  “Don’t ever conflate them. There is no excuse for violence. But if we can’t explain it, then how do we stand a chance of preventing it?”
  — Dr. Rachel Toles [05:33]

• On compartmentalization:
  “All human beings can compartmentalize...society tells us some animals don’t really count or some people don’t really count.”
  — Dr. Rachel Toles [07:24]

• On the public/private split in violent individuals:
  “There is always a split, a public versus private split, where who they are… [in] public is very different than what’s going on behind closed doors.”
  — Dr. Rachel Toles [24:39]

• On football aggression:
  “You go for blood...there’s an animalistic part of you that comes out because you have to win at all costs.”
  — Dr. Rachel Toles [30:28]

• On neurological damage’s role:
  “If you have compromised parts of the brain already because of your own trauma...then you add alcohol, and so you're going to be...adding so much more damage.”
  — Dr. Rachel Toles [33:30]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Aaron Hernandez’s background & escalation: [04:08–05:58]
• Compartmentalization explained: [07:24–10:09]
• Football culture and toxic masculinity: [14:35–18:26]
• Childhood trauma and the McDonald Triad: [18:26–20:14]
• Parental loss and identity destabilization: [20:23–23:39]
• Gentle personalities turning dangerous: [26:23–27:31]
• Connection between football aggression and real-life violence: [30:14–31:58]
• Drug use, brain injury, and paranoia: [31:58–34:47]
• Recorded phone calls and Hernandez’s duality: [34:47–36:51]

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Tone and Style

The episode blends forensic expertise with compassion, challenging knee-jerk labels and easy answers around criminal behavior. Both Donovan and Dr. Toles probe beneath the headlines and sensationalism, instead spotlighting the chain of human experience—childhood trauma, cultural pressures, substance abuse, mental health, and the failures of institutions—behind the making of a killer.

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Conclusion

This episode powerfully humanizes Aaron Hernandez without seeking to excuse his actions, offering a nuanced, evidence-informed discussion on what causes violence. For those interested in true crime, forensic psychology, or sports culture, it provides rich, digestible insights and sets the stage for the second part of the interview, which promises to go even deeper.

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End of Summary – Part One

Transcript

[Lisa Donovan]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Guaranteed Human.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

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[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Anyways, get a'@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news, Body bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening.

[Jordan Sillers]

Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

I seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a pool of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something.

[Jordan Sillers]

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Amy Robach and T.J. holmes present killer

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

Thriller with your host, Alisa Donovan.

[Lisa Donovan]

Hey, everyone, Elisa Donovan here. And this is Killer Thriller. He was one of the biggest young stars in the NFL. A New England patriots Tight end with a massive contract, a Super bowl appearance, and what looked like an unstoppable future. Then, seemingly overnight, Aaron Hernandez went from football phenom to convicted murderer. But what makes this story so haunting isn't just the crimes. It's all the questions surrounding them. The violence, the secrecy, the paranoia, the trauma, the pressure of football culture, the possibility of severe brain damage, and the unsettling reality that so many people around him saw warning signs long before everything finally exploded in public. The FX series American Sports Story, Aaron Hernandez revisits the rise and fall of Hernandez and explores the complicated mix of identity, fame, violence, and CTE that surrounded his life and death. It is a very compelling series, incredibly well made. And today we are joined by forensic psychologist Dr. Rachel Toles, whose work focuses on extreme violence, behavioral warning signs, and the pathways that can lead people towards dangerous behavior. Dr. Rachel welcome to Killer Thriller. Thank you so much for being here today.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Thank you so much for having me, Lisa. This is great. So excited. Your show is amazing.

[Lisa Donovan]

Oh, I, I am so excited. There are some guests where I'm like, when are we doing it? When are we doing it? When are we doing it? And this is one of those occasions because I am just so fascinated by the work that you do and how detailed and your expertise and so let's just jump right into this. So for the people that only know the headlines, this really. Aaron Hernandez was. He was at the absolute top of the sports world. Patriots star, super bowl player, one of the most dangerous tight ends, football. And then seemingly suddenly, it all collapses. But what's really unsettling is that it, it. It didn't just sort of happen overnight, did it? There were many signs along the way.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

That's right. I mean, it was an absolute chain of escalation. And when you start kind of digging in and learning about murders in general, you do see that all of them have a chain of escalation. They don't just. I think that one thing about true crime is a lot of times it can feel like a person just snaps and they don't give a lot of background story. But fortunate in the Aaron Hernandez case is we actually do get quite a bit of background story which kind of shows how it all started, the roots, even going back to Dennis, his father's roots, and, like, how it started even there. And. And a lot of times when people talk about the case, they talk about how Aaron had an abusive father, but it's like. But this doesn't just come out of a vacuum. Like, how did he get abusive? Why Was he snapping, like, again? And. And I think that one thing when I talk about these cases people get nervous about is they think that me explaining how somebody gets there means that I'm exc. The behaviors. And it's never an excuse. I. People conflate explanation with excuse all the time, and it's like, don't ever conflate them. There is no excuse for violence. But if we can't explain it, then how do we stand a chance of preventing it? And that's what I always say this is.

[Lisa Donovan]

I love that you're saying this straight away, because one of the reasons that I'm so fascinated by all of these things and why I wanted to do this podcast in the first place is that there is a full story behind everyone. And the fact of the matter is these are all human beings, and they did not, in, I would say, almost every case, they weren't born these murderers. You know, there are many things that contribute to bringing a person to the edge of that. And I'm very. And I even, you know, I even say to, like my daughter on the playground, when girls do things, I'm like, this is why. And it's not an excuse. It's an explanation of where it's coming from. And I think we don't. We don't do that enough in our culture in general.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

We don't. We just. We're very good at labeling people and just kind of then just saying, okay, well, that's what they are. And when we label somebody, anything, psychopath, narcissist, what, it gets us to stop looking. And again, if we stop looking, then how are we going to ever prevent these things? So the. This is, like, why we have to become more curious. And it can also help us develop more compassion and connection to our fellow humans, which I think the world needs for sure.

[Lisa Donovan]

Yeah, there was like a little choir of angels that just went. I really believe that, too. So this series really explores how Aaron Hernandez could seem completely different depending upon who he was around. And is that kind of compartmentalization common in people living double or even triple lives?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Absolutely. I mean, compartmentalization is one of my favorite things to talk about because. Because, first of all, one of the most common questions I get with my work is, how is it. Because of course, I study serial killers and. And Aaron Hernandez, even though he was acquitted for the other murders, in my opinion, his. His makeup, the factors. He had all nine factors that could have meant that he could have continued going on killing had he not been caught because of just the level of trauma and what was going on. So one of the things that I get asked a lot when I talk about serial killers, and again, not saying Aaron Hernandez was one, but he could have become one just given everything that I've learned about his case and is how is it that a person can. Can be married to and love his wife and love his children and go out and just murder people have this. Who double life. So what is going on in this situation? How does a human being do that? And I always say all human beings can compartmentalize. That's women, that's men, all human beings. So one example that I give to kind of help people wrap their heads around how humans do this, because, yes, with Aaron Hernandez, that we. We know that there is a certain level of trauma that got him to split. But I guess my point is I want to point out first how any human can compartmentalize, and then we can obviously get into the weeds of, like, the trauma and how then that the split becomes even that more extreme. But every human being, you know, most of us don't like cruelty to animals. Whenever I talk about cruelty to animals on my shows, people get very upset about it because obviously, you know, if I talk about, you know, John Gacy or it was Ted Bundy's grand. Whipping cats around by their tails, they get way more upset about that than, you know, him throwing his daughter Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping. And it's like, wow, it's interesting that, you know, people get way more upset about animals getting hurt, and yet we're also able to be upset about that and go to a restaurant and order a burger or a steak without really thinking about where that animal, what that animal suffered. You know, we were very good as a society at compartmentalizing. When society tells us some animals don't really count or some people don't really count. I mean, sex workers don't really make the news when they're killed. Hence a lot of serial killers get away with killing them. Black victims don't make the news. So we don't hear a lot about black serial killers because they tend to go for their own race. You know, these are the types of things. So, anyway. Wow, I just went off on a tangent. But in the same way, just another example, people in Nazi Germany, they loved their wives and children, and yet they were able, because of what society was telling them, to load innocent children onto trains and. And, you know, just justify it morally justify it because of what society had been telling them. And plenty of them were not Forced to do it. There's a great book called Ordinary Men talking about this very thing.

[Lisa Donovan]

And so is it a what? So is there some moment where it's like a click in the brain where now I'm going to stop looking at that? Or is it like a. A slow burn?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

It's a slow. It was an escalation of things where they're looping. Even as children, we know that they start looping because of their fears, their paranoias, the things that are going on in their childhood homes, the ways they start to soothe themselves. Like there's a whole thing I can walk you through, like how they wind up somehow getting to a place where they are now in this kind of obsessive, neurotic loop that then in order to quell it, they need to dominate in some way, to feel like they squash it out of existence. And what they're actually squashing out of existence is a part of themselves that they really can't stand and they need to murder over and over again. But in the case of someone who. So Aaron Hernandez is, is. Is unique. So unlike, let's say someone like Dennis Raider, who. Or Rex Heman, Rex Heuerman being a more current case where it's a guy who had a wife and children who he treated very well according to them, and was able to do it. They're able to just say in the same way, like, I love my, my wife, my, my, my child. And sex workers are kind of like, again, those slaughterhouse animals, like, pleasure. They're for my pleasure. And they're just able to just split it like, I love my family. I will protect my family. Touch a hair in my family's head and I'll kill you. And sex workers are for my pleasure because I'm going to go out and get myself a steak tonight. And that's just how they view it. And they justify it in their minds in a way where it's like, well, society says that some people could be executed and put to death just depending on how much authority you have. So why can't I? I mean, and you can kind of go with how they get to that place. But yes, Aaron Hernandez is very different in this way because, yes, in his case, there were so many things that were escalating over and over and over again.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

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[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Lisa Donovan]

Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

What is this, your first date?

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Liberty, Liberty.

[Lisa Donovan]

Liberty, Liberty.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news, Body Bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening.

[Jordan Sillers]

Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

I seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a pool of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something.

[Jordan Sillers]

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

So in this series they do they

[Lisa Donovan]

certainly to a degree, his troubled childhood in terms of the extreme misogynistic and judgmental and violent behaviors of his father. But then he goes directly into and you know, the parents just screaming and cursing at one another like a sort of general blanket disrespect for one another and human kind of communication. But then also they really cover, which was particularly disturbing to me, the extreme misogyny in the football culture in general. And they really highlight that. And have you found that to be a big part of the cause of some of these behaviors for Aaron and others?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Absolutely. So I don't know if you were. If you ever saw the documentary, the murders in Bristol. That's. Yeah, so I was.

[Lisa Donovan]

I've seen them all. You're in that one.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yes, I'm in that one. And I'm talking about the fact that, you know, there's a yearbook photo where Alex Ring, Aaron Hernandez, Nicholas Bretcher are standing shoulder to shoulder.

[Lisa Donovan]

Yes, I. I did not know that before this documentary. I did not know that.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yes. And these three men who are all in the same football team wound up going on these kind of murderous, you know, rampages, if you. If you will. I mean, obviously, Alex Ring situation was where he was. He killed, murder, suicide. His. His wife. And. And. And that was something. And it's interesting because many family annihilators are not publicly explosive personalities. Beforehan swats is another good example. Like, if you actually start looking at, like, family annihilators, even this guy, this current story, the Travelers, that the guy they own the restaurant chain that just killed, allegedly killed his. His wife, his two children, and himself. From everyone saying. Well, a lot of people said he was reserved and quiet, maybe a little bit testy, but not outwardly. Most are the opposite. Whereas, like, the other guy, Nicholas Butcher, he was way more externalizing, kind of more of a bully. And so there was, you know, they both had very different personalities, but of course, they both then wound up snapping in their own ways. But going back to the concept of misogyny and, like, what's going on there? I mean, that's a part of it, but that's just one part of it. But yes, that's a part. I mean, just feeling like you're above something, that you can't cry. Like, this is the thing about our society. Like, we're really good at saying, well, boys, they're allowed to get angry and they're allowed to snap, but if they cry, they can't cry. Yeah, they can't cry. We still call them sissies. Girls, they're allowed to cry, but if they. If they get angry, they're crazy. Right? So we have this weird double standard, and we're just. We're just taught that that's just the way it is. So boys, when they. Okay, so here's a little something, people. You know, 90 over 90% of homicides are committed by men. And of course, 93% of serial killers are men, and 7% are female. But of the 7% female serial killers, almost one half have a male accomplice. So it's even that much smaller. Yeah. So it's like, so what is it? Why are men so much more likely, you know, to. To do these things? And one of the things that we know about boys and girls is the differences in the way they deal with trauma. So girls, if they experience traumas, they are way more likely to turn it in on themselves. So they'll be more like cut themselves, develop eating disorders, get involved with dangerous sex work, involved with violent abusing relationships. You know, that kind of boys, in comparison with girls, are way more likely to externalize the trauma. And so that's why one of the things, like with Aaron Hernandez, like we, he. He dealt. I mean, you probably read his brother's book.

[Lisa Donovan]

I have not read his brother's book, but I, I want to now. Yeah.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Excellent. I highly recommend it because there's so much in that book. It's called the Truth About Aaron My Journey to Understand My Brother. I think he wrote it in 2018. He talks about how Aaron was sexually abused. That was a big part. So again, one of the many factors, chain of escalation. And Aaron allegedly wet the bed as a child a lot. And we know that that's the somatic response. So in a lot of cases, not all cases, you know, not all cases of people who at the bed, were they sexually abused, but in many cases, and there's this old theory called the McDonald Triad, and I don't know if you've heard of that, but the McDonald triad basically, basically states that if typically they're talking about boys, but they can be talking about girls. But if a child wets the bed, lights, fires and is cruel to animals, that those three things, that triad basically, like this was an older theory, basically means they're going to be a psychopath or they're going to maybe get you start killing people. And it's like. Or again, boys are more likely to externalize their traumas. If they are lighting fires, they're probably pretty angry about something, so they're being destructive. If they're wetting the bed, something is going on where their body is not feeling safe, where their body can't, when it starts to relax while it's sleeping, starts to release because it doesn't. The, you know, know the system is not it. There's a whole science behind what's actually going on. When you live either in a violent environment as a child or if you're being sexually abused, how you can't relax. And then of Course, when a child is cruel to animals, which we, you know, so many people just assume, well, that just means you're a psychopath. It's like. Or it's a kid who's targeting a smaller life form. Smaller because they are getting targeted by a bigger life form. And that is just like this come out of a vacuum. So I just think it's so important to talk about this stuff.

[Lisa Donovan]

Right, right, right. Again, like putting these buckets in these so titles on things and moving on. It stops the investigation.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Exactly.

[Lisa Donovan]

I mean they certainly. The show gets into a lot of the darkness in his childhood and his father was such a huge presence in his life. And they really do in the show, in my opinion, they try to make the full picture where you see that he created some structure for him, but that he really looked up to him, but he feared him, he was controlling. And so when somebody loses is a figure like that so young, can it completely destabilize them?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yes. I mean, again, when you've got someone who's so dominant and abusive and you also have such adoration for that person, you know, that's exactly what can happen. I mean, we know that. Here's an extreme example. And again, I'm not saying that Aaron Hernandez was a serial killer, but the case of Ed Gein, the. The guy who. A famous serial killer who movie Psycho was based on the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And then of course Buffalo Bill. One of. One of. One of the people he was based on was Ed Gein, Ed Gein's mother. Not the father, but the mother figure was so incredibly dominant that basically the child internalizes that part. And when the parent dies suddenly, which is what happened, I mean, the mother dies and he didn't know what to do at all. And so he completely unraveled and that's when he started grave digging and. And then eventually started killing women. But like. Yes, so Aaron Hernandez is a less extreme example of that. But it's just to kind of show you that the. This is something that gets documented when you have a parental figure who's incredibly dominant and you internalize them to that degree where there's such a part of you that when they pass away, it's like you don't even know where you start and where you end. Because your father had the say in who you were and what you did. So in a sim. So that's why I compare the cases because Ed Gein had no idea who he was outside of mother. Hence he started creating women skin suits to become mother again.

[Lisa Donovan]

Right.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

And so in a weird, like. So they kind of start, like, they just don't know what to do with themselves. Right, so.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

That's right.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah. So I would say. Yeah. So he was 16, I think, when his father died of.

[Lisa Donovan]

Yes.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

A routine hernia operation. You know, it just went in and it's like, boom. And. And that is when a lot of things really started going downhill.

[Lisa Donovan]

Yeah, they certainly make that connection in the series, I think, pretty well. And that. That then he decides to. He was going to go to UConn because that's what his dad said, and that's where his brother went. And then he completely flipped and decided to go to Florida, and everything certainly did start to, like, unravel. So when he. One of the things that is also really kind of disturbing in hindsight, two things, the way that they. They sort of stopped treating him like a young person. He was so young when he went to Florida and, like, left high school. And all these people just started treating like a commodity and like a piece of meat. And he had no real. His brain most certainly was not even fully formed at that point. So what kind of impact does that sort of thing have on someone's identity?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

So what you're talking about, just the fact that people are treating you like a product or the fact that people are treating you like you're like an adult when you're still kind of a kid figuring it out?

[Lisa Donovan]

Yes, both. More so the prior, but both. Yeah.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah.

[Lisa Donovan]

He didn't really get to psychologically develop, and no one seemed to care about that. That.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah. I mean, all he knew was that the only time he was acceptable was when he was killing it like a man on the football field. And that is what he learned. Anything else? I mean, in. In, you know, in the book that his brother wrote, he talks about how his father would call him on a regular basis. I hate to say the word, but the. And, like, why are you standing, like, going back to this misogynistic and this machismo culture, and it's like, you know, there are no. In the. Hernandez. He would say things like that. Horrible, horrible things. But when Aaron killed it like a man on the high school football field, his father cried like a baby, even though his father beat the crap out of them if they ever cried. But somehow crying on the football field with tears of pride streaming down your face isn't considered a weakness. So there's this double standard. But getting back to your standard, it's a total double standard. Right. But then, you know, so confusing. It's Very confusing. But. And so he's living this double life. He is living a double life where he has to basically hide who he is underneath and. And play the role, the product. I mean, he learned that he was rewarded by behaving in a certain way. And again, these family systems where you see people who become violent and kill sometimes multiple times, there is always a split, a public versus private split, where who they are, the product that they are in public, is very different than what's going on behind closed doors. And the other thing that gets, you know, so. So because of, I think just feeling like I'm a product, I've got to present a certain way, whatever. My truth is that that can just go away because I need to present in order to. To make everybody happy. It's like, dance, Mikey, dance. Like, it's just. But like that. They feel like that, and then, of course, then they go. And that's another reason why, I mean, something we haven't brought up yet, but just the. The escalation of the drugs and alcohol, which is a huge fuel into all of this.

[Lisa Donovan]

Right, so that. Yeah, we're definitely going to get into that too, because that seems to be part of things. But, you know, one of the things touching upon kind of what you were just saying that that is so heartbreaking is that in hindsight that many people described him as very vulnerable and. Or even, you know, really kind of congenial and sweet and.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah, gentle.

[Lisa Donovan]

And very gentle.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

Yeah.

[Lisa Donovan]

So someone can be deeply emotionally wounded and still become dangerous.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

This, I would say everyone that I've ever studied in my life had at some point, they were deeply, you know, they had emotional, they needed connection. Things went awry, and then they became dangerous. But there's always a starting point. There's no child that's born. You know, first of all, you see these. These MRI scans or these PET scans. And by the way, and we'll obviously talk about Aaron's brain, but the areas of the brain that are impacted by trauma, like, certainly with. With Aaron's brain, we know that there were lesions found on his amygd, his prefrontal. Prefrontal cortex, which are exactly the areas that, you know, when people look at these supposed psychopath scans, they're like, oh, look, they're gonna. It's like. But we've never strapped a newborn baby into a. An MRI machine and said, well, that one's going to be psychopathic. It's like, no, they don't start out this way, because if they did, we'd see the studies but we don't.

[Lisa Donovan]

Right.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

And so it's very convenient to say, well, that person's just a psychopath, as if they were born that way. And I have yet to see it. I have yet to see the. The proof.

[Lisa Donovan]

Right. Right.

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

And, Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

What is this, your first day?

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news, body Bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening.

[Jordan Sillers]

Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

I seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed, and there was a pool of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something.

[Jordan Sillers]

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

You can have opinions, you can have, like, a strong stance, and then there's

[Lisa Donovan]

your body having its own program.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans. A show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

Listen to A Slight Change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Lisa Donovan]

So another thing the show really explores is how normalized aggression can become in football culture. So can people start carrying that kind of mindset into their everyday life?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Absolutely. I mean, yeah. Again, you're you're killing it on the field. I mean, just even think about what that means. Like, you're killing it. And so it's like. And so the idea that you can't get violent enough in some way, like you're. I mean, when you talked. I'm sure, you know, some people who at least are, you know, have been football players and ex. But they'll tell you during the training thing. I mean, you go for blood. You go for blood when you're piling up and you're grabbing at people's testicles and I mean, it's. It's out of control like that. There's an animalistic part of you that comes out because you have to win at all costs. You have to win at all costs. And that's just. It doesn't matter what the cost is. And so that will bleed into your normal life because especially if you get triggered, then your brain might. So trauma can cause you to dissociate. And depending on how severe the trauma is, you will basically completely go in inward. And it's like you've left the building on the outside. But that's when you'll hear about people whose pupils will get really big, so their eyes will turn completely black. And it's like they've now switched into this other survival mode. But, you know, that's often when they go into killing mode because it's like now I have to be the dominant one because it's killer be killed. And that's the. And that's where their brain go. It really is like this primitive. They switch into this place of I've got to kill or be killed. Even though, like, there may not even be a threat and typically there isn't one in.

[Lisa Donovan]

Right.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Everyday life. But they are still seeing it suddenly through that lens because something has triggered them. Yeah.

[Lisa Donovan]

So they cover that in the series as well, particularly when he's in the nightclub and is paranoid and thinks that people are coming after him or that they're police or that they're laughing at him and, and, but then. So how much. And he was obviously reportedly smoking marijuana in the, in the show, they say laced with PCP often. So if you're doing that from a very young age. And how much can chronic drug use affect your judgment and paranoia over time?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

This is such a great question. It's so important because, again, so many serial offenders, I mean, most of the ones I've studied, they're on something like they're. They're usually drunk or they're on something like, it's not like, you know, so again, so as Aaron's success in football grows, so does his alcohol and drug use, which does escalate the paranoia, because again, going back to the two areas of the brain that I just mentioned, where they found lesions on his brain, the amygdala. So the amygdala is a part of the limbic system, which is the emotional center of the brain. So if you experience fear or trauma, that thing kind of lights up like a Christmas tree. And so it's kind of like the alarm system in the brain. And then you've got. Got the frontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in things like executive functioning. So math problems, impulse control, decision making, that kind of stuff, judgment. So that. That's like the brake system, and that's the. So those are the two areas that we know when you've dealt with a lot of trauma, that they can be really impacted. And when you drink alcohol or when you take substances, those areas are also the areas of the brain that get impacted. Which basically means that if you have comprom parts of the brain already because of your own trauma, both in your environment as a child, being beaten and physically intimidated all the time, and then of course, the sexual abuse and all these other things, then you're getting your head knocked, which we knew at starting age 7, he was dealing with major concussions. Tackle football, got hit in the head with a hammer. I mean, I can go on the thing. So like, so by, you know, high school, those areas are getting jostled around and really messed up. So then you add alcohol, and so you're going to be. You're adding so much more damage to the areas that are already damaged than you will. It will put you in a dream state. So reality suddenly won't be the way that it is for most people, even if they are a little bit tipsy, because you already have compromised areas of your brain. And those are the areas that get. That get messed with when you drink alcohol or take drugs. So this is just like. So now you're adding more and more and more on top of. So he's then in a dream state where reality has left the building. And therefore whatever his thoughts are in that moment that people are out to get him, that he's got to protect himself at all costs. Kill or be kill. It all just comes rushing in and boom, it's now he's like he's in a video game.

[Lisa Donovan]

And so that I was going to come back to, I'm going to do it right now. So I don't forget that very thing I was struck by. They cover this in the series as well. But also the documentaries that I've watched and listened to where you hear, especially when you hear him talking on the telephone from prison, he can sound very. At once, like, cooing to his daughter and then the next minute saying these, like, deeply misogynistic and horrible things and then almost laughing about his own situation and saying, you know, that he doesn't. He's not. He's not afraid to be there. So is this all like, is it. Is the brain. Is somebody like that conscious that they're switching back and forth like.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

Like that?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

No, but. So just so I get clarity on this. So you're talking about a phone call between him and his partner, right? His. His wife. Fiance, I should say.

[Lisa Donovan]

Yes.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

So. So cooing with his daughter, being misogynistic with his fiance, and then saying. And I'm not scared. So what's interesting about that is you've got everything that he grew up with because he, again, witnessed models who. I mean, he witnessed his father being completely misogynistic towards his mother. I mean, this is something like he grew up like. So guess what? That's also his love language, because that's the love language he saw. And that's a part of, believe it or not, what some people interpret as love. Right. So the cooing to the daughter is like how you treat a little kid, and then the talking down to his. His fiance in that way. It's a way that intimacy is something that he's learned, that that's how intimacy works. That that's, in a strange way, a way you talk to somebody you care about. You talked, you know, even the. Though, you know, and then, of course, having to be the man, manly man, like, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. So he's going through all the parts of himselves that he's basically created and also the parts of himself that he learned to be in his own childhood.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

Right?

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah.

[Lisa Donovan]

That's it for part one of our conversation with forensic psychologist Dr. Rachel Toles. Next time, we'll go even deeper into the Aaron Hernandez story. Story, including how much of who he really was became visible long before the murders ever happened.

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

And, Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

What is this, your first date?

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Oh, no, we help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Together, we're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Doug (Liberty Mutual spokesperson)]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Liberty, Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Joseph Scott Morgan]

If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news, body bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening.

[Jordan Sillers]

Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unfortunate, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

I seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag and there was a pool of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something.

[Jordan Sillers]

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast podcast A Slight Change of Plans. A show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions, you can have, like, a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own personal program.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

Listen to A Slight Change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lisa Donovan]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Dr. Rachel Toles]

Guaranteed Human.