Mark Salling, the ex-Glee actor found dead in a Los Angeles riverbed Tuesday, died a suicide by hanging, the Los Angeles coroner's office ruled Thursday.
The cause of death was asphyxia by hanging, suicide," coroner's spokesman Ed Winter told USA TODAY.
He said the full autopsy report is not yet available, and he declined to discuss whether Salling left a suicide note.
Salling, 35, who was scheduled in March to be sentenced on charges of possessing child pornography, was found Tuesday in the riverbed of the Los Angeles River in a remote area of Big Tujunga Canyon a few miles from his home in the Sunland-Tujunga neighborhood in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
At the time, police and the coroner's office said the death appeared to be a suicide but the official cause and manner of death had to be confirmed by an autopsy.
Investigators also have not officially disclosed who found the body or why police went looking for him.
Salling, best known as Noah "Puck" Puckerman on Glee, was arrested in December 2015 after the LAPD's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force served a search warrant on his home. In May 2016, he was charged in a federal indictment with receiving and possessing child pornography, the Justice Department in Los Angeles announced.
Salling was scheduled to be sentenced under a plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors in which he admitted to possessing pornographic images of prepubescent children. The agreement stated that a search warrant found more than 50,000 images of child porn on Salling's computer and a thumb drive.
Prosecutors agreed to ask a judge to sentence the actor to a prison term of four to seven years. He would also be required to register as a sex offender, pay restitution and abide by restrictions on where he could live.
Salling is the second former Glee actor to have died. Cory Monteith was found dead in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia, in July 2013. He was 31. The local coroner determined Monteith's death was caused by accidental drug overdose due to a toxic mix of heroin and alcohol.