DAMN! EDWIN VALERO HANGS HIMSELF IN HIS JAIL CELL!

Edwin Valero, a former WBA super featherweight and WBC lightweight champion, was found dead in his jail cell on Monday hours after he was arrested for stabbing his wife to death, according to police in Venezuela. Valero’s death is being ruled a suicide.
Venezuelan Federal Police Chief Wilmer Flores told reporters that Valero used his own clothes to hang himself from a bar in his cell early Monday morning. Valero was found by another inmate who alerted authorities in the police lockup in north-central Carabobo state in Venezuela, according to The Associated Press. He showed signs of life when he was taken down, but jail personnel were unable to revive him and he died around 1:30 a.m., according to Flores.

It was a tragic end to an already terrible tale that unfolded early Sunday when Valero told security at a hotel in Valencia that he had killed his wife, Jennifer Viera. Valero left the hotel, but was later found and detained after police discovered the body of his 24-year-old wife in the hotel room. Valero hadn’t been officially charged with murdering his wife, but prosecutors said Sunday night that they were planning to charge him in her death.

Valero was arrested for harrassing his wife and threatening a doctor and a nurse who were treating her for a punctured lung and broken ribs at a hospital in Merida last month. Police suspected that he had assaulted his wife, though she told them her injuries came from a fall, and Valero wouldn’t allow her to talk with police. A prosecutor in the case wanted Valero jailed for assault, but a judge instead issued a restraining order, keeping Valero away from his wife. Valero violated the order.

The 28-year-old boxer was a junior lightweight who racked up a 27-0 record ( 27 knockouts), winning all his fights by knockout. He built the impressive record and a name for himself outside of the U.S., fighting primarily in Japan and Central and South America.

In 2003 Valero was placed on a medical suspension by New York State Athletic Commission Chairman Ron Scott Stevens after an abnormality showed up on the boxer's brain scan during a routine prefight exam the week before he was to fight in Manhattan. Valero suffered a cerebral hemorrhage after a motorcycle accident in 2001.

That medical suspension was honored by most U.S. boxing commissions until last year when Valero headlined a card in Austin, Tex. He stopped Antonio Pitalua on a second round TKO to win the vacant WBC lightweight title on April 4.

Valero, who was born in Merida, Venezuela, was a major star in his home country. He had a giant tattoo of President Hugo Chavez on his chest with the Venezuelan flag as a backdrop. The boxer accused the U.S. government of discrimination for denying his application for a U.S. visa because he was good friends with Chavez, a vocal critic of the U.S. government. It may have been the drunken driving arrest in Texas that kept him from getting a visa.