Human remains discovered in a river in Washington state have been identified by police as those of 42-year-old Alaskan Bush People star Matt Brown, days after family members took to social media to address speculation that the body of the reality show cast member had been spotted.
The Okanogan County Sheriff said Brown was discovered Saturday along the Okanogan River by a private search party and later formally identified by the coroner’s office, according to a Facebook update.
“The cause and manner of death will be determined by the Coroner’s Office,” the department added Sunday, before sending its condolences to Brown’s family and loved ones.
Police said that a body was first reported floating face down in the Okanogan River by a passerby on May 27, who said they had just spoken to a man sitting in the river, according to an earlier news release.
“A caller reported to Okanogan 911 that he had just spoken to a male sitting in the shallow water of the Okanogan River south of Oroville, WA. The caller turned away from the man sitting in the river, heard a sound, turned back toward the man in the water and saw the man was face down in the water drifting away in the current,” the release says.
In another statement detailing subsequent search efforts, the sheriff’s office said: “Deputies and a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife agent used boats, personal watercraft, sonar and divers to search an expanding area near the last location the male was seen.”
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The search was suspended on Friday due to poor weather conditions, it added. Brown’s body was discovered the following day by the private search operation, authorities said.
His brothers, Noah and Bear, who also appear on the show, both made statements over the weekend from their verified social media accounts, addressing their sibling’s death.
In a series of videos posted over the past week — two of which have garnered millions of views — Bear said in a Sunday update that he had been told his brother had been found and may have died by suicide, but stressed he could not confirm the information.
He explained that his brother had struggled with alcohol and drugs, which Matt was open about with viewers and addressed in a 2016 People interview, but that he had become estranged from the family, who had tried but were unable to help in his recovery.
Bear said in his most recent video that Noah was with the private search party and identified the body pulled from the river as Brown’s on Sunday.
“I identified it as Matthew,” Noah said in an Instagram post. “My oldest brother, Matthew Brown, has passed away,” he continued.
Brown appeared in 79 episodes of Discovery’s reality show Alaskan Bush People from when it first aired in 2014 until 2019, according to IMDb. The show followed the Brown family — parents Billy and Ami and their seven children — as they navigated life in the deep Alaskan wilderness, far from civilization.
After quitting the show, Brown started a YouTube channel where he filmed and shared his life and recovery journey, interspersed with personal reflections. He built a following of 65,000 subscribers and amassed eight million views on more than 1,000 videos, NBC News reported.
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