CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The chairman of the Cleveland Museum of Art confirmed Wednesday that an extramarital affair with a museum employee, who committed suicide in April, led to David Franklin's resignation on Monday as the institution's director.

Cleveland lawyer R. Steven Kestner, the museum board chairman, said on Monday that Franklin resigned for "personal reasons."

On Wednesday, Kestner said that the museum became aware in early October of a Cleveland Heights police report stating that Franklin called the police just after midnight on Monday, April 29 to report the suicide by hanging of a then-former museum employee with whom he was later widely rumored to be having an affair.

The Plain Dealer obtained a copy of the police report on Wednesday. It describes Franklin's phone call about the death of Christina Melinda Gaston, 34, the managing director of ChamberFest Cleveland and a recent former employee of the museum.

In response to questions about the report, Kestner said Wednesday night that the museum had learned in early October of the document and what he called “a dating relationship," and that the information moved the museum’s board to act in relation to Franklin.

David Franklin, left, and conservator Dean Yoder examined Caravaggio's "Crucifixion of Saint Andrew" in the museum's conservation lab in May.

A written statement Kestner provided by email briefly before the interview stated that rumors reached the museum’s board of trustees in January that Franklin, of Shaker Heights, who is married to textile artist Antonia Reiner and has two children, had been having an affair with Gaston.

Kestner said the museum hired an outside lawyer in January to investigate the rumors, which Franklin denied. Kestner declined to name the lawyer.

“The inquiry yielded no credible evidence to substantiate an inappropriate relationship and the inquiry was closed at that time,” Kestner wrote in his statement. “We believe that it would have been irresponsible to take action based solely on rumors.”

Kestner’s written statement continued: “In early October, for the first time and based on new information, the Board confirmed that a dating relationship had existed with a former employee during and after her employment at the Museum. Once the relationship was confirmed in early October, the Board acted expeditiously.”

Kestner said in the interview that the new information included the April 29 police report, the medical examiner's report from the autopsy following Gaston’s suicide, and other information he did not specify.

Kestner said he had seen none of the reports, but that the information showed that the affair with Gaston had occurred during and after her employment at the museum.

“I haven’t seen any of it,” Kestner said. “I relied on outside counsel for that. We just got all of this very recently.”

Kestner declined in the interview to say how the information precipitated Franklin’s departure, or whether the relationship with Gaston while she was an employee was a violation of museum policy or of Franklin’s contract.

When asked whether he was trying to keep Franklin on board at the museum during the past year in the hope that rumors about the affair would settle, Kestner said, “absolutely not, absolutely not.”

Meanwhile, Franklin is continuing as a consultant to the museum

“He’s not staying on for any reason other than to assist us in the transition so we know we’ve got everything we have to have for it to be smooth,” Kestner said.

Kestner also said he believed the museum would exhibit a future exhibition on the Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio that Franklin is organizing.

Kestner said the length of Franklin's relationship with the museum would be determined by Interim Director Fred Bidwell of Peninsula, an art collector, museum donor and former advertising executive, who was appointed to the post on Monday in a vote taken by the full museum board following a recommendation by its executive committee.

Virginia Davidson, a lawyer representing Franklin, said, “with respect to all of this, this is about a man’s personal life and this was a tragedy and has nothing to do with Dr. Franklin’s fine performance as director of the art museum and I would ask that people respect his privacy at this time.”

The police report said that Franklin described Gaston, a native of Boulder, Col., who was an accomplished musician, as a friend.

Gaston was the first full-time staff member at the fledgling ChamberFest Cleveland, an acclaimed series of chamber music concerts launched two years ago by Franklin Cohen, principal clarinetist of the Cleveland Orchestra, and his daughter, violinist Diana Cohen, concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in Calgary, Canada.

Gaston joined ChamberFest in the fall of 2012, Cohen said Wednesday.

“She did a fantastic job,” he said. “We were lucky when we found her. We had the instinct it would be a good fit.”

Cohen said Gaston’s death left him “in shock, almost as if I lost a family member. I’ll have a soft place in my heart for her. She was a wonderful person in my life.’’

Prior to her work with ChamberFest, Gaston worked at the Cleveland Museum of Art from Sept. 22, 2009 to Nov. 30, 2012, according to museum spokeswoman Caroline Guscott. She served in the development department. Gaston also previously worked at the Akron Art Museum. She also volunteered at Cleveland Cinematheque.

A Cleveland museum web page cached on Google's search index showed the museum listed Gaston as the person to contact about membership in Column and Stripe, an affiliate philanthropic group that offers “the opportunity to enjoy behind the scenes content and insider information about what’s hot and happening in Cleveland’s art scene and beyond, as well as becoming eligible to sit on the museum’s Emerging Leaders Board.”

Guscott said the museum removed the page from its own site a year ago.

A violinist, pianist and conductor, Gaston earned music degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Western Michigan University and Kent State University according to an obituary posted on the website of Tom M. Wages Funeral Service, LLC, in Lawrenceville and Snellville, Ga.

Gaston is survived by her mother, Elizabeth F. Gaston, and stepfather, Ronald Flower, and a sister, Cassandra Gaston.

Reached at his home near Atlanta on Wednesday, Flower said, “I’m afraid we’re not going to say anything right now. We’re still grieving over the whole situation.”

News of Franklin's resignation after three years at the museum shocked Clevelanders and observers in the art world and precipitated the latest leadership turnover at the institution, which has had four directors and four periods with interim directors since 1999.

The museum is two months from opening its new West Wing galleries containing Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian art.

The new wing will signal completion of an eight-year, $350 million expansion and renovation, for which the institution still needs to raise another $94 million. The institution will celebrate its centennial in 2016.

The Cleveland Heights police report states that Franklin said he received a text message at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 27 in which Gaston reportedly told Franklin she was “depressed from work.”

Franklin told police that he later went to Gaston’s apartment at 2651 Euclid Heights Blvd. and gained entry through the open back door after having first knocked on the front door and the back door. The time of his arrival is not specified in the report.

According to the report, Franklin said he immediately called 911 and waited until police arrived at 12:13 a.m. to find Gaston unconscious and dressed in a heavy green coat, “leaning over the bed” in her room. A length of white rope extended from her neck to the ceiling fan in the room.

The Cleveland Heights Fire Department Rescue Squad arrived at 12:20 a.m. and pronounced Gaston dead six minutes later.

After searching the apartment and Gaston’s car, police did not find a suicide note. The report said that Gaston’s Apple iPhone could not be located.

According to a July 1 addendum to the report, Flower, Gaston’s stepfather, called to ask police to list her cell phone as missing, along with a Fuji Fine Pix 1800 camera.

The autopsy completed by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office in the early morning hours of April 29 ruled Gaston’s death a suicide and noted linear scars on the insides of her wrists, indicating a previous attempt.

Franklin, a native of Montreal who grew up in Toronto, joined the museum in 2010 after having served 12 years at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, where he rose from curator of prints and drawings to deputy director and chief curator.

He earned a reputation as a respected specialist in Italian Renaissance art, particularly the paintings of Caravaggio.

Franklin’s tenure in Canada took a troubled turn in mid-2008 when he was fired and reinstated. News reports at the time spoke of accusations by the museum’s lawyers that Franklin had improperly deleted emails after he fired an assistant curator.

Cleveland museum trustees concluded the episode was no reflection on Franklin’s abilities, museum spokeswoman Cindy Fink said at the time. Franklin said the allegations were never substantiated and that he was found innocent.

Kestner headed the search committee that recommended hiring Franklin.

When asked Wednesday whether he had regrets about the hire, Kestner paused and said, “you know, the best way I can put it is that I think we had a rigorous process. We had a nationally recognized search firm in Phillips Oppenheim. We went about the process rigorously with board management and we did the best to get the best candidate we could.”

On Franklin’s watch in Cleveland, the museum has won accolades for innovative programs such as a new iPad app enabling museumgoers to construct their own tours of the museum by interacting with a 40-foot-long computer display, said to be the largest of its kind in an American museum.

Franklin collaborated with Case Western Reserve University on launching a new joint art history program. He has been applauded for saving the museum’s current exhibition of Sicilian antiquities from cancellation after cultural authorities in Sicily imposed hefty fees at the last minute.

Leading supporters of the museum backed Franklin with enthusiasm. In 2011, trustee Sally Cutler and her husband, Sandy, chairman and CEO of Eaton Corp., established a $2.5 million endowment to provide cash for special projects by Franklin. They called their gift a vote of confidence in him.

In September, former B.F. Goodrich president and COO Leigh Carter, a life trustee at the museum, donated an additional $1 million to support a permanent research fellowship in the director's office. Carter said he wanted to aid Franklin's work as scholar and writer.

“I’m making a bet that David Franklin is the second coming of Sherman Lee,” Carter said, referring to the museum’s director from 1958 to 1983, who was known for his art historical writing.

Also in September, museum trustee Nancy Keithley and her husband, Joseph, a trustee of CWRU and former chairman, president and CEO of Keithley Instruments, donated $15 million to support the new joint art history program at the museum and the university.

The museum’s board includes Terrance Egger, the chairman of The Plain Dealer Publishing Co.

When asked about Gaston, Egger said Wednesday, “I think it’s troubling and very sad about this young lady taking her life.”

He said he did not know about the terms of Franklin’s continuing relationship with the museum. He declined to comment on the relationship between Gaston and Franklin.

The search for a successor to Franklin could take six to 12 months or longer, Kestner said.

When asked if he felt horrible about the recent events at the museum, Kestner said: “you summed it up pretty well.”

And asked when a visitor could again enjoy art in tranquility at the museum, Kestner said, “we’ve got to earn that back.”

Correction: The original version of this story repeated an error in the Cleveland Heights police report about the suicide of Christina Gaston, which said that April 29 was a Sunday, not a Monday