MIAMI _ The death of a federal prosecutor whose body washed up on a Hollywood beach in May with a gunshot wound to the head has been ruled a suicide, the Hollywood Police Department said Thursday.
Beranton J. Whisenant Jr., 37, had just started a new job in the Miami office of the U.S. attorney in January when his body was found floating off shore on May 24, stunning family members, friends and colleagues who had remembered the lawyer as passionate and dedicated to his legal work.
Hollywood police said detectives and the medical examiner determined Whisenant "died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound" before his body was discovered on the beach. It did not say why the investigation _ which was left to Hollywood police after the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI said they had found no connection to Whisenant's job or cases _ took months.
Hollywood spokeswoman Miranda Grossman said in June that detectives were "still actively investigating it and are waiting for new evidence to come in."
Whisenant had worked for the Miami law firm Foley & Mansfield before taking the new job in the U.S. attorney's office, and colleagues said that he eventually hoped to become a judge. He had also volunteered on Florida Bar committees and taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami law school.
Before Hollywood police announced the investigation had concluded Thursday, several sites had published unfounded rumors about possible motives behind Whisenant's death, though there was little evidence in any of his prior cases or background to substantiate them.
Whisenant is survived by wife Ebony, who is a doctor and teaches at Florida International University's medical school, and three children.
