CLEVELAND — Charlotte County Sheriff’s detectives believe a 72-year-old local man whose body was found Friday morning just off Cleveland Avenue east of Punta Gorda died of “an apparent self-inflicted suicide by handgun,” according to sheriff’s spokesman Bob Carpenter.

A sheriff’s incident report released Tuesday indicates a deputy responded to a report of a white male lying on the ground in a grassy wooded area of the roadway. The body was located near Dalewood Street and Cleveland Avenue, the report indicates.