Former University of California-Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice Denton was suffering from severe depression and was in the care of a psychiatrist last June when she plunged 33 stories to her death from a San Francisco high-rise, according to the San Francisco medical examiner's report released today.

Her June 24th death was ruled a suicide. The cause of death was multiple blunt trauma injuries as a result of the fall.

Denton had been discharged the day before her death from UC-San Francisco's Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, where she had spent six days, according to the report. She had been prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft and sleeping aid Ambien. An autopsy found antidepressants in her system.

The report said Denton's mother, Carolyn Mabee, told investigators that ever since she picked her daughter up from the institute, Denton had been ``acting completely irrationally and told her mother that the police had been chasing her.''

Denton, 46, was suffering from depression, Mabee told medical examiner investigators, as a result of ``severe stress related directly from her job and her personal relationship with her partner.''

Denton was in a long-term relationship with Gretchen Kalonji, then Director of International Program Development in UC's office of the president.

After Mabee picked her daughter up from the psychiatric facility, Denton drove her around San Francisco, finally arriving back at Kalonji's Mission Street apartment about 2 a.m on June 24. But Denton ran off, according to the report, and Mabee spent several hours looking for her.

An Argent Hotel guest called police to report a body a top of a parking garage across the street shortly after 8 a.m.

M.R.C. Greenwood, who knew Denton and was former provost of the University of California and former chancellor of UC-Santa Cruz, said today after learning of the autopsy report details, ``We never really are going to know what happened.''

Liz Irwin, a UC-Santa Cruz spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that the campus is still trying to ``understand this terrible loss'' and is ``intent on moving past the tragic circumstances of her death.''

Friends had said that in the weeks before her death, Denton had been under extreme stress and had taken a medical leave on the advice of her doctor.

When she arrived at UC-Santa Cruz in 2005, she was a rising star in the academic world -- a forceful personality who had been dean of engineering at the University of Washington, with engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

But controversy erupted even before she was formally sworn in.

At a time when the UC system was under attack for overspending on top officials' salaries, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Denton's hiring package included a newly created $192,000 job for her partner, Kalonji, who had developed international strategies at the University of Washington. University officials defended the move as common in the academic world, where job offers are often extended to qualified spouses.

The university spent more than $600,000 to renovate Denton's official campus residence, angering faculty who had been fighting for affordable housing.

Weeks later, Denton drew fire for authorizing the arrest of student protesters who had put up a ``Tent University'' to protest fee increases and workers' low pay.

Someone threw a parking barricade through a window of her home. Denton asked campus police to guard her house and had an elaborate security system installed.

Then it was reported that a $30,000 dog run had been built at the chancellor's home for her two border collies. The news caused an uproar.

Denton became the target of sarcastic columns and cartoons, targeting everything from her sexual orientation to the clothes she wore and her social skills.

And just before she requested a medical leave, more than 100 students barricaded her car when she tried to leave the university parking lot, insisting that she watch a skit.