Thomas Kinkade died of an accidental overdose of alcohol and valium, according to the Santa Clara County, Calif., medical examiner’s report.
Specifically, the report stated his cause of death as “acute ethanol and Diazepam intoxication.” Other significant conditions noted were “hypertensive and atherosclerotic heart disease.”
The self-described “Painter of Light” died April 6 in his Monte Sereno home in Northern California. He was 54.
Kinkade and his wife of 30 years, Nanette, raised four daughters until they separated in 2010, the same year he was arrested for drunk driving and his company filed for bankruptcy.
Patrick Kinkade, the artist’s brother and an associate professor of criminal justice at Texas Christian University, told the San Jose Mercury News that the artist had sobered up recently, but said that he had relapsed into alcoholism just before his death.
A California judge last month issued a restraining order on behalf of Windermere Holdings, trustee and executor of the Kinkade Family Trust, against his former girlfriend, preventing her from talking about Kinkade. The trust claimed she had broken a confidentiality agreement.
