CANTON — New details have emerged in Canton Police Chief Jeff Lance’s resignation last week amid a scathing report regarding how his department handled the Jorelys Rivera abduction and murder investigation.

Lance received six weeks of severance pay, amounting to $9,230, City Manager Scott Wood said.

Lance resigned last Thursday following the report by LaGrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar, which concluded that the Canton Police Department was hindered by a “clear absence of leadership” in its investigation of the case.

Lance has not returned phone calls requesting comment on the report.

Conflicting details surrounding Lance’s resignation have been reported in other media outlets.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday that Wood asked for Lance’s resignation, something the city manager denies.

“With respect to the particulars surrounding the resignation action, I have previously characterized it as a matter of mutual agreement,” he said, adding he stands by that characterization.

He said he had at least three meetings following the release of the report.

Two meetings were conducted with Wood, Lance and Interim Police Chief Todd Vande Zande. The other meeting involved Mayor Gene Hobgood, city attorney Bobby Dyer, Lance and Wood.

On Wednesday, the Cherokee Ledger News reported Lance as saying he believed Wood “had the backing of the city council” to ask for his resignation.

The Ledger also quotes Lance as saying he had a problem with resigning and that city leaders indicated they wanted new leadership in the police department.

Wood also takes issue with that point, adding “a majority of city council has expressed their support for the fact that this was an administrative and personnel matter and have appropriately chosen to remain distinct from it.”

City Councilman Bob Rush said the council did not ask Lance to resign.

“After reading the report, I, in an email to Mr. Wood, stated that while I felt the department needed additional and recurring training, I did not feel the report was lethal,” he said. “I also indicated that I would support whatever decision he made in the matter.”

Hobgood said it would not be appropriate for him to comment, because “the police chief is the employee of the city manager and not an appointment of the City Council.”

Councilman Hooky Huffman did not want to comment on the issue and City Councilmen Jack Goodwin, Bill Bryan and Glen Cummins said they did not personally ask Lance to resign.

“I was aware of the report, but I did not make any suggestions as to how the situation should have been handled,” Cummins said.

Though he did not ask Lance to resign, Councilman John Beresford said Lance’s choice was the right thing to do.

Beresford said the mistakes documented in the report were “enough to put us in a position where we had to do something about it, either correcting, changing or having (Lance) resign.

“The council did not meet as a body, but my opinion would be that we would have given him an opportunity to resign,” he said, adding that would be much better on anyone’s resume, compared to being terminated from a position.

Jorelys Rivera’s body was found three days after disappearing from a Canton apartment complex in December. Last week, Ryan McCabe Brunn, a maintenance worker at the complex where Rivera lived, admitted to killing the girl before he reportedly committed suicide in his Jackson prison cell.