BREAKING: Former NFL SUPERSTAR hangs himself and is discovered dead.

BREAKING: Former NFL SUPERSTAR found dead 

Former New England Patriots football star Aaron Hernandez hanged himself in the jail cell where he was serving a life sentence for murder, just days after being acquitted of a second murder charge, state prison officials said on Wednesday.

Hernandez, 27, was found by guards in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley just after 3 a.m., Department of Correction spokesman Christopher Fallon said in a statement. 

Hernandez was in a single cell in a general population housing unit in the maximum-security state prison. He hanged himself using a bed sheet that he attached to a cell window, Fallon said. Hernandez also tried to block the cell door from the inside by jamming the door with various items, Fallon said.

The former Patriots’ tight end was pronounced dead at UMass Memorial-HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster about an hour later.

Hernandez was a rising star in the National Football League when he was arrested in June 2013 and accused of murdering an acquaintance near his Massachusetts home. He was convicted of that killing and sentenced to life in prison in 2015, but on Friday he was found not guilty of a 2012 double murder.

Hernandez was moved to tears on Friday after he was acquitted of the 2012 fatal shootings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in Boston. After that trial ended, Hernandez was expected to appeal his sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for Lloyd’s killing.