'Coast to Coast AM' host Art Bell's cause of death revealed
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Art Bell, seen in this March 1997 photo, died Friday, Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly confirmed. Bell's fans may pause to mull the significance of his having passed on Friday the 13th, of all days. (Aaron Mayes/Las Vegas Sun via AP)
The cause of death for radio host Art Bell, famous for his show “Coast to Coast AM” and its "X-Files"-flavored focus on the paranormal, has been revealed as an accidental drug overdose. He was 72.
According to the Nye County Sheriff's office, Bell's death "was the result of multiple drug intoxication from his own lawfully prescribed prescriptions."
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Bell "had four prescription medications in his system: the opioid oxycodone, the analgesic hydrocodone, diazepam, often marketed as Valium, and carisoprodol, a muscle-relaxant."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Bell died at his Pahrump, Nev., home, on April 13, Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly announced in a Facebook post to the community. She described him as a “longtime resident” of the area.
“Coast to Coast AM” confirmed the news on Twitter at the time, saying its staff was "profoundly saddened with the news that the creator and original host of Coast to Coast AM, Art Bell, has passed away at the age of 72."
According to an obituary shared by the program, the show became syndicated across the country in 1993 and drew in listeners with its wee-hours chatter about conspiracy theories and aliens, shadow people and spectral energy.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The obituary said that as Bell “begins his journey on the ‘Other Side,’ we take solace in the hope that he is now finding out all of the answers to the mysteries he pursued for so many nights with all of us.”
Even after relinquishing his title as host in the early 2000s, Bell returned to the airwaves now and then, and he also started a show for satellite radio, the obituary said.
Before “Coast to Coast AM” began, Bell, who was born in 1945, was in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and there he “indulged his childhood passion for radio by operating a pirate radio station,” according to the obituary.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Bell broadcast “Coast to Coast" from his radio station, KNYE, in Pahrump.
During Bell’s National Radio Hall of Fame induction in 2008, his former business partner, Alan Corbeth, said no one was better than Bell at understanding “how to create theater of the mind.”
Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz and the Associated Press contributed to this report.