Arturo Gatti's death ruled a suicide

Police in Brazil have made an official ruling on the death of Arturo Gatti, and they have decided the death was a suicide. Gatti's wife, Amanda Rodrigues, has been ordered to be released immediately. She was being held as a murder suspect.

Brazilian police say the death of boxer Arturo Gatti was a suicide and a court has ordered the release of his wife.

She was once suspected of killing him.

Lead investigator Paulo Alberes tells The Associated Press that authorities found that Gatti killed himself on July 11 in a seaside resort in northeastern Brazil.

Earlier, police said that Gatti's 23-year-old wife, Amanda Rodrigues, had strangled him with her purse strap as he drunkenly slept.

State court Judge Ildete Verissimo de Lima in the city of Recife has ordered her immediate release.

There is something about all of this that does not add up, one way or the other. Either the facts were reported poorly from the get-go or nobody really knew what the hell they were talking about from day one of this tragic event. Neither "outcome," as it were, would have made anybody feel any better. The fact of the matter is that a beloved and respected boxer and man is gone from this world, and nothing will change that.

Gatti's family and friends said immediately when the idea of suicide came up following Gatti's autopsy that there was "no way" that Gatti could have done something like this, and I don't intend to hurt any feelings or speak out of turn at all, but if you've ever known anyone that has committed suicide, there's no set type of person that comes to that end. They can be fun-loving, live life to the fullest sorts of people, or they can be downtrodden, beaten up by life people. Arturo Gatti was no less likely to have done it than anyone else, really. It would surely be a shock to those that knew him best -- and I mean an earth-shattering sort of shock -- but from the outside looking in, I can say with the deepest respect to everyone that it's not out of the question.

The whole case has been odd, though. Something isn't right here. I don't know what's not right, but something isn't. I don't expect this is the last we'll hear of this story, and I don't expect the Gatti family to accept this ruling, either.

UPDATE -- More from ESPN:

(P)olice began to back off the [murder] accusation about a week later after a coroner's report said Gatti may have killed himself as he was found "suspended and hanged." The autopsy report didn't exclude the possibility he was slain, but said he also could have died in an unexplained accident, besides killing himself.

"The police investigation concluded that Arturo killed himself," said Celio Avelino, Rodrigues' attorney. "I've said before it would have been impossible for her to suspend and hang a man of that size."

Judge Ildete Verissimo de Lima ordered the immediate release of the 23-year-old Rodrigues after receiving the police report.

The judge wrote in the ruling that police informed the court "the detention of the suspect was no longer needed" as the investigation "excludes the possibility of murder."

"The victim ... committed suicide by hanging," Lima's ruling read, referring to the police investigation findings.

The police missed that he was suspended and hanged when they started their investigation? The Gatti family absolutely needs to launch their own investigation. What has happened in this case is a travesty and it seems like it's been mishandled from step one.