“Everyone thinks his family is pushing him away, but that’s not the case. He didn’t want anything to do with them,” Baer said.
After that, Bear said, her and Matt’s relationship became increasingly distant, with only occasional phone calls.
“I always try to encourage him to continue on his path, you know, stay sober,” he said, recalling that the last time he saw his brother was for a few minutes at Walmart. “Then he called me and said he fell off the wagon. And I said, ‘Hey, get back up. Everybody falls down, you just get back on. Go to rehab if you need to. You’ve earned this, you’ve fought hard before.'”
But “that was the last phone call I had with him,” Baer said. “I know he had problems and struggles, but I never thought he would take his own life.”
At the end of the video, Bear explained why she decided to open up about her family’s difficult time during the search.
“I wanted to hear from my family first,” he concluded. “I know more and I will let you all know more, but I ask that you be respectful of my family, especially my mother.”
