Autopsy: Bad heart killed Michael Hernandez, imprisoned for murdering friend at school

Michael Hernandez, the notorious killer who murdered his best friend inside a bathroom stall at Southwood Middle High in 2004, died of a heart irregularity, according to an autopsy released on Monday.

According to the report released by the Medical Examiner’s Office in Columbia County, Hernandez died of cardiac dysrhythmia, made worse by morbid obesity. The manner of death: natural causes.

The autopsy report answers the mystery about what killed Hernandez, who was only 31 when he suddenly collapsed inside the Columbia Correctional Institution in Lake City in late April. The autopsy did not find any evidence of external trauma, and did not find he had any illegal drugs in his system, which had been a source of speculation about his death.

It was February 2004 when Hernandez, 14, lured his friend, Jaime Gough, also 14, into a bathroom stall at Southwood Middle in Palmetto Bay, a suburban city south of Miami. He stabbed Jaime more than 40 times in a case that shocked South Florida and the nation. Jurors in 2008 convicted Hernandez, rejecting his claim that he was insane at the time of the murder.

Hernandez was originally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But he was granted a new sentencing hearing after the U.S. Supreme Court banned automatic life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles convicted of murder. He was sentenced again to life in prison.

Cardiac dysrhythmia is a disruption to the rhythm of someone’s heartbeat, and can be caused by heart disease and an imbalance of sodium and potassium in the body. The ruling by Associate Medical Examiner Dr. Robert Buchsbaum ruled that the dysrhythmia was “attributed” to his morbid obesity — at 5-foot-10, Hernandez weighed 285 pounds.

This story was originally published August 9, 2021 at 12:11 PM.