Art Bell’s Death: Accidental OD

• The Clark County, NV coroner’s office announced Wednesday that former Coast to Coast AM host Art Bell died of an accidental overdose from a cocktail of prescription drugs. Bell died on April 13 in a bedroom of his Pahrump, NV home at the age of 72.

As the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, the coroner’s office determined that Bell died of “multiple drug intoxication” caused by four prescriptions found in his system — the opioid oxycodone, the analgesic hydrocodone, diazepam, often marketed as Valium, and carisoprodol, a muscle-relaxant in his system. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension also contributed to his death, the coroner’s office said. In a video posted to Facebook, the Nye County Sheriff’s Office said the drugs that killed Bell were lawfully prescribed to him.

Bell stepped down from fulltime hosting duties in 2003, turning Coast to Coast AM over to George Noory, occasionally returning to host the show on weekends. In Bell 2013 launched a show on SiriusXM, Art Bell’s Dark Matter, which lasted six weeks, as well as an online endeavor called Midnight in the Desert. Later in his career, Bell retired and unretired several times under varying circumstances before hanging it up for good in 2015. He also moved his family to the Philippines for a time before returning home to Pahrump. Bell was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2006 and into the National Radio Hall of Fame two years later.