Robert Kelker-Kelly died of arteriosclerotic heart disease, the Office of the Regional Medical Examiner in St. Charles, Mo. determined nearly a month after his Oct. 3 death. The ruling also classified his death as natural.
That finding answers the question many readers have been asking since he died suddenly at 62. Kelker-Kelly had complained of pain in his left arm and chest during a drive home from the airport, and he told Allison Kelly that he felt the need to vomit before they returned to their home.
Allison Kelly retrieved aspirin and went back to the bedroom, where she found him unresponsive and not breathing. She began CPR, and paramedics attempted life-saving measures, but he was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. on Oct. 3.
The medical examiner’s report gives the clearest explanation yet for a death that unfolded fast and without warning. It does not say what specific condition led to the arteriosclerotic heart disease diagnosis, only that the disease was the cause and the manner of death was natural.
Kelker-Kelly was known to soap opera viewers for 586 episodes as Bo Brady on Days of Our Lives between 1992 and 1995, 434 episodes on Another World from 1987 to 1998 and 42 episodes as Stavros Cassadine on General Hospital from 2001 to 2014. Sandra Dee Robinson paid tribute to him on Oct. 5, saying their early years on Another World were a whirlwind, that they learned together, and that although work was not always easy, she was grateful to have known him.
What remains unanswered is the medical history behind the heart disease itself. The cause of death is now official; the deeper question is whether there was any prior warning before the chest and arm pain that night.
