Former boxing champ Edwin Valero committed suicide in his jail cell yesterday, just hours after he was arrested in his wife’s killing, police said.
The former lightweight champion used his own clothes to hang himself in his cell early yesterday, Venezuelan Federal Police Chief Wilmer Flores told reporters.
“A prisoner nearby heard noises inside the cell and told officials, who immediately went and found the boxer Valero hanging with his own clothes,” Flores told state TV.
PHOTO: AFP
Valero still showed signs of life, but they were unable to save him, Flores said.
The 28-year-old was detained on Sunday suspected of killing his wife, the latest and by far gravest in a string of problems that had threatened to derail his career.
Prosecutors said on Sunday night that they had planned to charge Valero after they found the body of his 24-year-old wife in a hotel in Valencia.
The boxer left the hotel room around dawn on Sunday and allegedly told security he had killed Jennifer Viera, Flores said.
The fighter was a household name in Venezuela and had a huge image of President Hugo Chavez tattooed on his chest, along with the country’s flag.
His all-action style and 27-0 record — all by knockouts — earned him a reputation as a tough, explosive crowd-pleaser.
Venezuelans called him “Inca,” alluding to an Indian warrior, while elsewhere he was called Dinamita or dynamite.
The former WBA super featherweight and WBC lightweight champion had been in trouble with the law before.
Last month, Valero was charged with harassing his wife and threatening medical personnel who treated her at a hospital in the western city of Merida.
Police arrested him following an argument with a doctor and nurse at the hospital, where his wife was being treated for a series of injuries, including a punctured lung and broken ribs.
The Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that Valero was detained on March 25 on suspicion of assaulting his wife, but she told a police officer her injuries had been caused by a fall.
When the boxer arrived moments later, he forbade Viera from speaking to the police officer, and spoke threateningly to the officer, prosecutors said in a statement.
The Attorney General’s Office said a prosecutor had asked a court to order Valero jailed but the judge instead placed him under a restraining order that barred him from going near his wife, a condition he repeatedly violated.
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