UPDATED with official cause of death: The Okanogan County Coroner’s Office has confirmed that Matt Brown, who appeared in Discovery’s Alaskan Bush People reality series, died by suicide.
An autopsy completed today reveals Brown died from a “single penetrating gunshot wound to the head”, according to the coroner’s report obtained by Deadline. The report notes contributing circumstances were immersion in water – a river – and that he was under the influence of methamphetamine.
The body will be released to the family for final arrangements.
Brown’s body was found May 31 in a river south of Oroville, WA. He was 43.
See additional details below.
PREVIOUS, May 31: Matt Brown, a member of the family featured in Discovery’s Alaskan Bush People, has died. He was 43.
On Saturday night, Matt’s brother Bear Brown announced that his body was identified hours before in a nearby river, having died from an apparent suicide.
“This is an update about Matt,” he said in a TikTok video. “They found a body in the river a few hours ago, and it was positively identified as being Matt. Noah [Brown, their brother] was with him and helped pull him out of the water, and Noah identified him.
“I would have never suspected he would have hurt himself, honestly. He struggled for a long time, as I’ve mentioned. I was so worried he was gonna end up OD’ed or something like that, I didn’t think that he would hurt himself. It does look as though the injury is self-inflicted. Obviously, the coroner still has to look at him and stuff, but I thought that y’all guys should know that it is him,” added Bear.
The Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that they received a 911 call Wednesday from someone reporting that a man was sitting in the shallow waters of the Okanogan River just south of the city of Oroville, WA. The caller turned away for a bit, heard a sound and then saw the man “face down in the water drifting away in the current.” The sheriff’s department said a firearm was recovered from the water where the man was last seen. A search for the man had been suspended at 4pm Thursday due to severe weather.
Bear previously shared that Matt had been struggling with drugs and alcohol “for a very long time” and that he had been getting increasingly worried about him.
In Saturday’s video, Bear asked his followers to “please be respectful to my family and to my mom. And please, watch the comments that you leave, guys. Sometimes, words can hurt more than fists can.”
If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
“A lot of people have logged negative comments on Matt’s stuff too. One of his last videos, he was actually talking about how negative people were on his posts. And y’all should keep in mind that people on the other side of the screen, people that you’re watching a video of, they’re real people too.”
Appearing on Alaskan Bush People for the first eight seasons from 2014 to 2019, Matt Brown was the oldest child of Billy and Ami Brown, who built a life off the grid in the with their family in the docuseries. Billy died of a seizure at age 68 in 2021.
If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
