By JORGE RUEDA, The Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela — The mother-in-law of former boxing champion Edwin Valero said Tuesday that the fighter was addicted to cocaine and had grown increasingly violent recently before he was arrested in his wife's murder and hanged himself in a Venezuelan jail.
The fighter's wife, Jennifer Carolina Viera, had told her family that Valero "didn't sleep, he didn't eat, he used drugs every day and he was growing more violent all the time," Mary Finol told reporters at her daughter's funeral in El Vigia in western Venezuela.
Valero, who gained fame with a record of 27 straight knockouts and a huge tattoo of President Hugo Chavez on his chest, was arrested Sunday in the stabbing death of his 24-year-old wife. Police said the former lightweight champion hanged himself in his cell early Monday.
Venezuelans — both those who knew the fighter and those who watched his spectacular career from afar — have been asking what went wrong in the fighter's life and why authorities hadn't stepped in to halt the domestic violence despite past incidents.
Venezuelan former WBA super featherweight champion Jorge Linares said the case has been "a hard blow for the sport, for those of us who appreciated him ... and for all Venezuelans."
"What's important is that we learn a lesson," Linares said. "We admired him as an athlete, but we never did anything to help him with his problems. We could have started by making public his problems and not hiding anything."
Valero's funeral was scheduled for Wednesday.
The former WBA super featherweight and WBC lightweight champion had a turbulent disposition and had been in trouble with the law before, both for violent outbursts and problems with alcohol and drugs.
Since 2008, Venezuelan news reports had repeatedly linked Valero to domestic violence incidents, but the fighter and his supporters denied those reports. And until recently the authorities had not commented publicly on such cases.
"We all looked away not to admit what was going on," the boxer's manager Jose Castillo told reporters on Monday. He said the authorities also "were very permissive with him and because of that we're now in the middle of this tragedy."
In September, Valero denied that he was detained on domestic violence charges after Venezuelan news reports that a neighbor called emergency services and told authorities the boxer had struck his mother and a sister.
Five months earlier, in circumstances that were never clarified by the authorities, Viera was treated at a hospital for a gunshot wound to her left leg. The authorities said at the time that she was thought to have been shot outside her house by an unknown attacker on a motorcycle.
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 Valero following an argument with a doctor and nurse at the hospital, where his wife was being treated for injuries including a punctured lung and broken ribs.
The Attorney General's Office said in a statement that Valero was detained March 25 on suspicion of assaulting his wife, but his wife told a police officer her injuries were due to a fall.
Valero's lawyer, Milda Mora, said that after the incident the boxer was held for nine days in a psychiatric hospital in Merida, where he underwent police-supervised rehabilitation. She said people close to the fighter posted bail on April 7 and he was allowed to go free.
"The court put him in rehab for six months and somehow he got out in a weekend," said his promoter Bob Arum, the founder of Top Rank. "I never talked to him during this period, I only talked to his manager. They were trying to get him to come to Mexico, to start training and cleaning himself up."
"It's obvious now, in retrospect, that he should have been institutionalized during this period, but it's silly to play the blame game," Arum said.
Mora said the Venezuelan government had also arranged for Valero to attend a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program in Cuba. He had missed a flight to Cuba earlier this month and was scheduled to fly there soon, she said.
Valero grew up in poverty, the third of eight brothers, and he started boxing at age 12.
Finol said that he started using cocaine around the same time and that he "lived constantly in the streets, with bad groups." She said he didn't finish school, and sold fruit to make a living while drinking liquor from a young age.
Mora also said he struggled with depression.
The fighter had a stellar 27-0 record, all of them knockouts, and had his last victory in Mexico in February over Antonio DeMarco.
Valero was replaced as WBC lightweight champion in February after he expressed a desire to compete in a higher weight division.
AP Sports Writer Dave Skretta in New York and Associated Press Writer Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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