'Glee' Alum Mark Salling Dead at 35 Due to Apparent Suicide
Mark Salling has been found dead due to an apparent suicide. He was 35.
Best known for his role on the hit television series "Glee," Mark Salling has been confirmed by his attorney to have passed away at the age of 35. The actor had reportedly died of suicide after his body was found hanging in a wooded area.
"I can confirm that Mark Salling passed away early this morning," Salling's attorney, Michael Proctor, said in a statement. "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," he added.
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The news comes after the LAPD were called to investigate a certain death in a wooded area somewhere near Tujunga last Tuesday. Salling's body had been found hanging in a tree and was immediately pronounced dead.
Just a month before the actor's death, he had been sentenced to prison on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. In December of 2015, the Internet Crimes Against Children unit of the LAPD obtained a search warrant for the actor's home, and there, they found over 600 videos and 25,000 images of child pornography in his computer and thumb drives which included children as young as three years old being sexually abused. He was subsequently arrested, and in May 2016, Salling had been indicted for these charges.
He eventually pleaded guilty to these charges, particularly the possession of child pornography, which had involved a prepubescent minor, last October. In December, the actor struck a plea deal and was scheduled to be sentenced this coming March. If he had been sentenced, Salling would've faced four to seven years in prison as part of his plea deal rather than the maximum 20 years in prison that came with his charges.
With his death, a source reveals that his family had been devastated by the late actor's unfortunate fate, saying, "His parents are doing as well as anyone in this situation can do. They're from Texas and are very church-driven."
"It's clear he was dealing with demons himself," another source close to the family said. "The problem doesn't live in the existence of demons or pain or sexual appetites that began to skew as time went on. The inherent problem is that he did not seek help or have someone close enough to him willing to call it out," the insider added.
