Actor Mark Salling dies weeks after child porn guilty plea
LOS ANGELES — Mark Salling, who played bad-boy Noah “Puck” Puckerman in the hit musicalcomedy “Glee,” died of an apparent suicide, weeks after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. He was 35.
Salling pleaded guilty in December after authorities said a search of his computer and a thumb drive found more than 50,000 images of child porn. He was scheduled to be sentenced March 7, and prosecutors planned to ask a judge to send him to prison for four to seven years.
A law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly said Salling was found hanging in a riverbed area in the Tujunga neighbourhood of Los Angeles on Tuesday. Ed Winter, assistant chief investigator for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, said the death is being investigated as a suicide. Winter said Salling was pronounced dead at 9 a.m. Tuesday, six hours after police received a report he was missing.
“Mark was a gentle and loving person, a person of great creativity, who was doing his best to atone for some serious mistakes and errors of judgment,” Salling’s attorney, Michael J. Proctor, said. He didn’t discuss the cause of death, but said the actor’s family appreciated the support it is receiving and asked that a request for privacy be respected.
“Glee,” the popular Fox TV series about students in a high school glee club, aired from 200915.
Wayne Salling was born Aug. 17, 1982, in Dallas, the youngest child of John Salling, an accountant, and his wife, Condy, a school secretary. He is survived by his parents and brother.