Aaron Hernandez: What's Next for Ex-Patriots Star After Being Sentenced to Life in Prison
The former NFL star has a double murder charge to face.
— -- Former football star Aaron Hernandez will spend the rest of his life in prison, but one trip out from behind bars that he'll be forced to make will be to face further murder charges.
The ex-Patriots tight end was found guilty Wednesday to the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, the boyfriend of his fiancee's sister. He was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.
One factor that was noticeably absent throughout the more than two month trial, however, was the motive behind the crime -- and the reason for that comes from other charges he is facing.
After investigators started looking into Lloyd's murder, the probe into a then-unsolved shooting that left two men dead as they were leaving a Boston nightclub, according to police reports.
Hernandez was indicted for the double murder in May 2014, ESPN reported.
At the time, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said that after the men, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, left the nightclub, Hernandez followed in an SUV and pulled up beside their car before allegedly firing shots into the passenger's side window.
ABC News sources confirmed that prosecutors believe Lloyd was killed over his knowledge of the 2012 double-murder, but prosecutors were barred by the judge from telling the jury their theory for the motive because it was deemed speculation.
Before the double murder case heads to trial, however, the automatic appeal that comes with a first degree murder conviction in Massachusetts will move forward. No date has been set for either the appeal or the double murder trial.
Beyond that, the Associated Press reports that the former New England Patriots star is also facing civil lawsuits from the families of the men he is accused of killing as well as another man who says that Hernandez shot him in Florida in 2013.
One person involved in the Lloyd case who will not go to trial is Hernandez's fiancee, Shayana Jenkins, who accepted an immunity deal so that she would testify at Hernandez's trial. As a result, she did not face charges based on any self-incriminating testimony that she gave.
Jenkins told the jury that she got rid of a bag of garbage shortly after the murder at the request of Hernandez, though she never asked what was inside and could not remember where she brought it. Jenkins had also faced earlier charges relating to lying to a grand jury about her involvement, but those were erased as part of the deal.
For now, he is being held at MCI Cedar Junction, a prison about a mile away from the stadium where he once played for the Patriots. The Associated Press reported that he will eventually be transferred to Souza-Baranowski prison, which is about an hour's drive from his former home in North Attleborough.
Hernandez will now earn 50 cents an hour making license plates as part of a work program at Cedar Junction, according to The Boston Globe.
As for the payout from the $40 million NFL contract that Hernandez once had? He was cut from the team as soon as he was arrested in connection to the Lloyd murder and $5 million in his assets are now frozen.
ABC News' Aaron Katersky and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
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