The third Disney World guest to die this month was described as an aspiring NFL referee who had recently moved back in with his parents. The man died after plunging from the 12th story of an adjoining hotel in the huge Florida complex last week.
Matthew Alec Cohn, 28, died by himself on Thursday at the Contemporary Resort hotel in Orlando, Florida.
Pictures on his Instagram show the Winter Garden native in his referee costume, labeled with the hashtag 'PathToNFL.'
An aspiring musician had tried to make it in Los Angeles before moving back home with his parents.
‘Big-time players, make big-time plays,’ he wrote in the caption under his last post, shared in September 2024 showing him blowing a whistle as a player steps into the end zone.
The Instagram account has since been made private. Cohn was living in Los Angeles for several years, and appeared to be trying to make it as a musician.
A SoundCloud account with matching personal details has links to a number of tracks.
A second Instagram account for Cohn based out of Los Angeles remains open.
![]() |
After leaving LA, Cohn briefly lived in Nashville, before records show him moving back in with his parents in the suburbs of Orlando last year.
He hadn’t posted on social media for over a year before his death.
3rd World Disney guest to die at Orlando, Florida venue in one month
Leading into his suicide death, Cohn on Wednesday night checked into the Contemporary Resort hotel and paid for a room with cash, before jumping from the 12th floor the following day, the US Sun reported.
Cohn, who was also a high school lacrosse athlete, died of ‘multiple traumatic injuries,’ an Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office spokesperson told the nypost.
Not immediately clear is whether Cohn had planned to jump to his death prior to checking into the Orlando venue. The suicide was the second at the Contemporary Resort hotel this month.
Similarly, Disney super fan Summer Equitz, 31, died after flying to Florida from her home in Naperville, IL without telling her family.
Her body was found on Oct. 14. Just ten months earlier she had posted being pregnant and expecting with her fiancee.
Last Tuesday, October 21, a second guest died at Walt Disney World Resort, less than a mile from the Contemporary Resort.
The man in his 60s, who has not been named, died after reportedly experiencing a medical episode at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground.
Meanwhile, a guest, identified only as a woman in her 60’s was found unresponsive on the Haunted Mansion ride on October 8 in Disneyland in California before being pronounced dead at a hospital.

