UPDATE: Aaron Hernandez's Brain Donated to Boston University

Originally published April 20, 2017

The family of Aaron Hernandez will be able to donate the former football player's brain to Boston University for scientific study after claims from defense attorney Jose Baez that the state was illegally withholding the brain.

Speaking to reporters outside the state medical examiner's office in Boston Thursday afternoon, Baez said the Hernandez family does not know if the former Patriots tight end suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy - or CTE - but the family wants to know if he did.

The body of Hernandez has been released by the medical examiner and was transported to a Watertown funeral home. The body will be sent to another location that has not been announced.

The state medical examiner's office did not respond to the accusations from Baez. The Massachusetts State Police said the release of Hernandez's brain was withheld until the cause and manner of death was determined. With the announcement that Hernandez died by suicide, the brain will be released to Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center, state police said.

Hernandez was found early Wednesday morning hanging from a bedsheet in his cell Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, prison officials said. He was serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd. Last week, he was acquitted of a double murder in 2012. Baez was his lead attorney in that trial.

Photo by Josh Reynolds/The Boston Globe via AP