Geno McDermott ’04 Brings Killer Inside to Netflix

Netflix’s new documentary series Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez debuted after much anticipation on Wednesday, January 15, 2020. The three-episode series, produced and directed by Geno McDermott ’04, explores the former NFL player’s involvement in the 2015 murder of his future brother-in-law, his prison suicide, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head injuries, discovered after his death.

The new series is an extension of Geno’s 2018 documentary My Perfect World: The Aaron Hernandez Story. Killer Inside helps viewers understand who Aaron was beyond the headlines and features trial footage, interviews with close family members and former teammates, and recordings of phone calls that Aaron made from prison.

“We put them [the phone calls] in afterwards because they almost enhanced the support of what the story is, and where the story’s going,” Geno told Esquire Magazine. “I think they’re the only opportunity to have Aaron’s voice in this series, which is why we did it—we need to hear from him and we need to know what his personality was like to have that perspective.”

The series begins with Aaron’s 2013 arrest, but then digs into his childhood which included physical and emotional abuse, the premature death of his father in 2006, and explores Aaron’s sexuality. “Once Aaron’s sexuality became substantiated, we wanted to explore that, and we wanted to hear perspectives of people like Ryan [O’Callaghan] who were closeted in the NFL, and what that was like,” said Geno in the Esquire interview.

Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez is streaming now on Netflix.