Noah Brown is opening up about the search efforts and subsequent discovery of his late brother Matt Brown’s remains.
“For the past couple days, I’ve been communicating back and forth with the different search teams,” Noah exclusively tells Us Weekly. “There [were] two separate search teams that were going to look for him. They were nonprofits and we’re all communicating.”
He continued, “One of the smaller, more local teams decided to go out yesterday, and about — I think it’s 3:20-something, 3:27, 3:28, something like that — they texted me and told me they had found him. So I rushed down to the spot.”
Local authorities confirmed Matt’s body was recovered from the Okanogan River in Washington state on Saturday, May 30.
Cops Say ‘Private Citizens’ Found ‘Alaskan Bush People’ Star Matt Brown’s Body
“A group of private citizens conducting a search along the Okanogan River located a deceased individual in the river,” a Sunday, may 31, updated press release shared by the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office’s official Facebook page read in part. “The individual was recovered and brought to shore, where he was positively identified as Matthew Brown.”
Noah tells Us that rather than “leaving the body where it was,” the small search team decided to load Matt “into a small skiff” and move his body “to shore.”
“Then myself and the rest of the people that were looking hauled the skiff up further on the shore, and that’s where it was … when the coroner came,” he adds. “Right now, all I can say is that he was lost in the river. He was lost in the river and we found him.”
According to Noah, his brother’s body is currently with “the coroner” and “they’re going to do an autopsy.”
They haven’t yet released the cause of death,” he tells Us, though is brother Bear Brown shared in a Saturday social media post that he believes his brother Matt’s death was “self-inflicted.”
Noah confirmed via TikTok on Saturday that he was present when his brother’s body was found and helped local authorities to ID his body. The Alaskan Bush People star tells Us that he is still processing the moment he realized the body was his brother’s.
“I’m kind of compartmentalizing, kind of focusing on, like, what the next thing is I’m supposed to do,” he says of the moment he saw his brother’s remains. “I knew I needed to be there in order to be able to identify him. It’s not just for the sheriffs and everything.”
He continues, “My family has this thing that if we don’t see the body and one of us is able to confirm otherwise, there is, like, a little glimmer of hope that maybe they’re still out there. His ID was on him, his social security was on him. And I, personally, I personally ID’d him. They unzipped the body bag for me, and I was able to visually ID [my brother].”
Bear Brown Condemns ‘Hateful’ Comments Amid Fears for Brother Matt
As to why he was the family member to positively ID his brother after he went missing, Noah tells us he was simply “in the vicinity.”
“I just happened to be the one to be taking the lead on it because, I guess, I was the most prepared to do it,” he says. “To kind of take all that responsibility.”
On Sunday, the Brown Family issued an exclusive statement to Us Weekly, speaking out for the first time as a collective unit after Matt’s untimely death.
“We are incredibly proud of the lives he touched. Some of the messages we treasure most are from people who told us Matt’s honesty about addiction and recovery gave them hope during their own darkest moments,” the family said in part. “At the same time, Matt spent many years battling serious mental health challenges and addiction. These were complex struggles that affected every aspect of his life.”
They continued, “Like countless families facing similar circumstances, we experienced periods of hope, recovery, setbacks, heartbreak, reconciliation, and renewed hope again.”
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