This is not going to be a story about Kurt Cobain. This is just facts, opinions and questions about the time leading up to and after his death. Also about the flawed investigation and why no one has or ever will get the story of his death accurate.
No matter what happened in Kurt's infamous and frustrating past, people and circumstances can change. People can misdirect, alluding from the truth.
We are not going to go back to the begining, to his childhood. That would be useless, a waste of time and energy. We are going to start with facts and then maybe build something out of that.
For now we don't care who discovered his body. That person could have planted or disruppeted things with in the scene. We will get to that later. We need to push all of that, and the doubts and questions we have about everything, out of our minds if we are going to do this right. i know we can't get the official autopsy report, even though it is illegal for that to be with held from the public with a little thing called "The Freedom of Information Act". i digress..
His death certificate.
A. A perforating shot gun wound to the head.
B. (mouth).
No exit wound. So the pellets from the shotgun blast remained inside the head. This was a "penetrating" shot, it did not exit.
So, supposedly there was no blood or tissue "splatter" typical in most shotgun blasts to the head.
There was a pool of blood on the floor from seepage, and damage inside the mouth could be observed, thus the police report indicates, "Obvious trauma to his head."
All right. Let's talk about Kurt gripping the shot gun. That action is called a Cadaveric spasm. It is a spasm after death and can last through rigor mortis(when the body stiffens). This is a fact that means, Kurt was holding onto the shot gun when he died. Now this doesn't mean he pulled the trigger. It also doesn't mean that he didn't either, but he was holding onto the barrel when he died. You can't fake a cadaveric spasm as far as i am aware of.
The position of the gun. The shot gun was inverted with the trigger and the magazine trap door pointing up. The barrel end is just above his belt line. There is a spend 20 gauge shell casing on top of his jacket. This is to the left of of under a garden tray. The Case Investigation Report stated that the gun probably pivoted when fired. That is why it is in a such a weird position. However, that is just their opinion.
I have yet to find the receipt, supposedly found and documented in The Case Investigation Report, for the purchase of the ammunition from the "Seattle Guns" store dated 4/2/1994.
The shot gun was purchased by Kurt's friend Dylan on March 30, 1994.
Kurt supposedly gave Dylan, so Dylan could by the gun. According to the police report, Kurt was afraid that he wouldn't be able to get a gun or it would be confiscated.
The shot gun had no usable prints. Could this be because the gun was not checked for fingerprints until May 6, 1994???? That is almost a month after he is found dead.
And now the drugs.The Case Investigation Report stated that there "was evidence of parenteral drug use, including needle tracks and fresh puncture wounds." Parenteral just means it wasn't ingested. "Wounds". So how many times did he shoot up?
His morphine level was 1.52 mg.(miligrams per liter of blood). So what does that mean? First of all that is a very high level, even for someone who has built up a high tolerance. It also doesn't mean that is how much he shot up with. It just means that is what is left. Cobain would have had to inject as much as 225 to 240 mgs of heroin to reach a blood morphine level of 1.52 mg. It is hard to understand this, because here is no such thing as a "blood heroin level" because heroin is transformed into morphine when it enters the blood.
It is triple the leathal dose. Heroin effects you imediatly. And if all that hit him imediatly, how did he put his kit away so neatly before shooting himself? How did he kill himself without assistance?
He also had valum in his system.
The suicide note.
Kurt's mother thinks he wrote the note. Some experts say he wrote the whole thing. Some experts say he didn't write the last part. Also, some people think it doesn't sound like a suicide note.
The pen that was used to write it was stabbed through the note. I did not have any usable fingerprints.
There was also a second note that Courtney supposedly found under her pillow. Supposedly it stated that he didn't want her to follow him and he was sorry. She didn't tell anyone about the second note until 7 months later when it "accidently" slipped out durring an interview.
This was found on the stairs in his home. Supposedly Courtney had the "nanny" write it and leave it for Kurt.
This is one of the last autographs he signed.
Why did he write April 5, on it. That is not the date he signed it. Did he know when he was going to die?
Kurt's body was creamated.
Courtney had the gun melted down.
When they checked Kurt's wallet, one of his credit cards was missing. The police checked the statements and found out someone was using his card after he died. They stopped using it after the body was found.
Kurt and his stomach problems. Kurt had Crohns disease. It much more than a stomach problem. It messes you up. It can be so debilitating. It can give you depression as well as making your body hurt, among the stomach issues.
He finally found medicine that worked. And was symptom free after 6 grueling years.
Kurt and Courtney were getting a divorce.
Kurt wanted out of the marriage and was afraid of Courtney.
Courtney knew he wanted a divorce and she said she wanted the "meanest, most vicious divorce lawyer" she could find.
Courtney threaten to take away Frances Bean if Kurt didn't go to rehab and get help.
Kurt did not barricade himself in the room he died in. That was false information.
Suicide attempt in Rome.
On March 3, 1994, Cobain was in a coma in a hospital in Rome. Supposedly he broke up pills of Rohypnol and put them in champagne. Courtney said it was a suicide attempt. Kurt didn't usually take Rohypnol. His drug of choice was heroin.
Dr. Osvaldo Galletta, who treated Cobain after the incident was quoted as saying "We can usually tell a suicide attempt. This didn't look like one to me."
He also specifically denied Love's claim that 50 Rohypnol pills were removed from Cobain's stomach.
The private investigator Courtney had hired to find Kurt, when he went missing before his death, said Kurt's attorney contacted him after Kurt died. She pressed him to investigate Cobain's death, and that Cobain was not suicidal. The attorney also claims that Cobain had asked her to draw up a will excluding Love because he was planning to file for divorce. The attorney also provided the detective with a handwriting practice note that she found in Love's backpack that was left at her home. It has been suggested that the handwriting on this practice note is markedly similar to the handwriting found on the last four lines of Cobain's suicide note.
The guy that said he was offered 50,000 to kill Kurt by Courtney and turned her down.
Eldon Hoke nicknamed El Duce. He was best known as the drummer and lead singer of the shock
rock band The Mentors.
On December 1993, Courtney approached Eldon, outside The Rock Shop (a Hollywood record store). The following conversation is alleged to have taken place:
C Love: "El, I need a favor of you. My old man's been a real asshole lately, I need you to blow his fucking head off."
El Duce: "Are you serious"?
C Love: "Yeah, I'll give you $50,000 to blow his fucking head off."
El Duce: "I'm serious if you are".
CLove: "Where can I reach you"?
El Duce: "You can reach me here"
They then went inside to discuss the matter more privatly.
Shop owner Karush Sepedjian said he overheard Love saying, "Can you handle doing this? Can you get this done? What do you want for it"?
Eldon would later tell Sepedjian that Courtney offered him $50,000 and a blow job on the spot, which he turned down. Hoke gave Love a business card and she left. For his part, Eldon brushed it off .
Sepedjian received a call nn March of 1994 from Love asking for El Duce. He informed Courtney that the band was on tour. She started screaming.
""That son of a bitch, we made an agreement. What am I going to do"? Karush told her " "I don't know, I've got a business to run. Goodbye."
Love did not call back and Sepedjian did not relay the message to Eldon Hoke.
A few years later, after Kurt died, Eldon did an interview for a documentary. After the interview he took a polygraph.
When asked "Did Courtney Love ask you to kill Kurt Cobain?" his respond fell into the category of "beyond possibility of deception".
When asked "Were you offered $50k by Courtney Love to kill Kurt Cobain?" the result was nearly the same.
Eldon stated that although he wasn't interested in the offer, he had passed the information on to an associate named Alan.
On April 17, 1997, Eldon went to Drew Gallaghe house to aquire a fake id. When Drew asked Eldon why he needed it, Eldon supposedly said. " "People get buried in cornfields, people get lost in swamps". When Drew asked Eldon what he ment by that, Eldon hinted that he may have killed Kurt Cobain.
Following evening, after his final performance on April 18, 1997 at Al's Bar in Los Angeles, he showed up in the company of a man he claimed to have met that day.
It was just one week had passed since his interview and Eldon was exhibiting signs of extreme paranoia.
Eldon and the man left and Eldon was never seen alive again.
The following day, Eldon's mangled body was discovered on the railroad tracks in Riverside, Ca.
Eldon had either fallen asleep on the tracks, drunkenly stumbled or been pushed in front of an oncoming train.
Tom Grant, the detective that Courtney hired to find Kurt when he went missing. He thinks that Courtney had Kurt killed. He suggests that the heroin was used to incapacitate Cobain before the final shotgun blast was administered by the perpetrator.
Two weeks before his suicide, a police report detailed how officers had been called to his Seattle home after Cobain had locked himself in his bathroom and threatened to kill himself. The report said that at the time, police were told 'he had a gun in the room.'
The officers confiscated that gun and three others, along with a bottle of various unidentified pills.
Later that night, Cobain told them that he hadn't actually been planning to take his own life. He said that he just wanted to get away from Courtney.
Kurt's friend, Michael Stipe, from R.E.M. said "In the last few weeks, I was talking to Kurt a lot," Stipe said in a statement. "We had a musical project in the works, but nothing was recorded."
Kurt was all set to record a sample album with Stipe, but called at the last minute and canceled. This was the day he went into rehab before his death.
According to one of Cobain's visitors at the clinic, "I was ready to see him look like shit and depressed. He looked so fucking great. He walked out an hour later." At 7:25 p.m.
Cobain told the clinic staff he was stepping out onto the patio for a smoke and "jumped over the fence."
Michael DeWitt was Courtney and Kurt's live in nanny. Originally told the the police, Kurt came into his room at circa 6:00 AM, sat on his bed and awoke him and his girlfriend, Jessica Hopper, who was spending the night. Kurt and Michael DeWitt talked for a few minutes and Michael DeWitt told Kurt to call Courtney. Michael DeWitt admitted he called Courtney later in the day to tell her that Kurt was at the house. Michael DeWitt's story would later change.
According to the police report, Michael “Cali” Dewitt, a live-in nanny who was also a drug addict at the time, was transported by taxi from the Cobain home to the airport on Thursday, April 7, the day prior to the discovery of Mr. Cobain's body, whereupon Dewitt flew to Los Angeles.
Love later had DeWitt’s father do extensive renovations to her home and got ‘Cali’ a lucrative job with Geffen Records.
Whatever we believe, it won't change the fact that Kurt Cobain died. And all the glorious music he would have made went with him.
Whatever happened, i believe he was a troubled soul. I think he was trying to get better. i believe he wanted to distance himself from Courtney. i think he thought that would help him to get his life on a better track. How can you distance yourself from someone you had a child with, unless you didn't want your child in your life. And i think he did want Frances in his life. i think he adored her.
i believe he couldn't have committed his suicide by himself by looking at the evidence.
Whether it was his idea or someone else, i believe he had help. Either he was lead down that path from his circumstances or someone shoved the gun in his mouth. Someone had to have put his kit neatly away.
And why wasn't there fingerprints found on the note?
i do believe he was holding onto the barrel of the gun when it went off. i'm not sure if he is the one that pulled the trigger or not. i'm also not sure if he is the one that shot himself up with the drugs or not.
Michael Dewitt and Courtney, knew about the room over the garage and didn't bother to tell anyone he might be there? At least, not until after he was dead. And the person that found him wasn't a police officer or the P.I. that Courtney hired, it was an electrician that just happened to climb up there?
Did Courtney and Dewitt already know Kurt was dead?
Did they kill him?
Did Dewitt find him deceased and under the direction of Courtney shoot him with the drugs, after he killed himself, so the plublicty around his death would grow into this monster that would never go away?
Sadly, I don't think we'll ever know the truth.
What did Kurt's friends and family think of his death?
Even though many of Kurt's friends accepted the suicide conclusion to the story of his life It still came as a shock.
Mark Lanegan, a long-time friend of Cobain's, told Rolling Stone: "I never knew (Cobain) to be suicidal. I just knew he was going through a tough time."
In August 2005, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon was asked about Cobain's motive of suicide, in an interview for Uncut Magazine. "I don't even know that he killed himself. There are people close to him who don't think that he did ..."
When asked if she thought someone else had killed him, Gordon answered, "I do, yes."
A musical hero of Cobain's, Greg Sage, said about him in an interview:
"Well, I can't really speculate other than what he said to me, which was, he wasn't at all happy about it, success to him seemed like, I think, a brick wall. There was nowhere else to go but down, it was too artificial for him, and he wasn't an artificial person at all. He was actually, two weeks after he died, he was supposed to come here and he wanted to record a bunch of Leadbelly covers. It was kind of in secret, because, I mean, people would definitely not allow him to do that. You also have to wonder, he was a billion-dollar industry at the time, and if the industry had any idea at all of him wishing or wanting to get out, they couldn't have allowed that, you know, in life, because if he was just to get out of the scene, he'd be totally forgotten, but if he was to die, he'd be immortalized."
Cobain's grandfather, Leland Cobain, publicly said that he believes Cobain "was murdered" and not the victim of suicide.
Courtney Love, from her recorded message to Kurt's fans days after his death
"I'm laying in our bed, and I'm really sorry. And I feel the same way you do. I'm really sorry you guys. I don't know what I could have done. I wish I'd been here. I wish I hadn't listened to other people, but I did. … And I have to go now. Just tell him he's a f*cker, OK? Just say 'f*cker." "You're a f*cker." And that you love him."
Wendy O'Connor, Kurt's mother, "Aberdeen Daily World," 1994
"I'll never hold him again. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go."
Nirvana's Dave Grohl, SXSW 2013 Keynote
"When Kurt died I was lost. I was numb. The music I had devoted my life to had now betrayed me. I had no voice. I turned off the radio. I put away my drums. I couldn't bear to hear someone else's voice singing about pain, or joy."
Nirvana's Krist Novoselic, eulogy given at a memorial two days after Kurt was found dead
"On behalf of Dave, Pat, and I, I would like to thank you all for your concern at this time. We remember Kurt for what he was: Caring, generous, and sweet. Let's keep the music with us. We'll always have it. Forever. Kurt had an ethic towards his fans that was rooted in the punk rock way of thinking. No band is special, no player royalty. But if you've got a guitar and a lot of soul just bang something out and mean it. You're the superstar. Plugged in the tones and rhythms that are uniquely and universally human: music. Heck... use your guitar as a drum, just catch the groove and let it flow out of your heart. That's the level Kurt spoke to us on: in our hearts, and that's where he, and the music, will always be, forever."
R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, to MTV, a week after Kurt's death
"In the last few weeks I was talking to Kurt a lot. We had a musical project in the works, but nothing was recorded. He loved Courtney and Frances Bean, and he loved Krist and Dave and Nirvana. He really loved those guys. His death was a profound loss, and I just don't think I can say anything else right now."
Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, "Melody Maker," May 21, 1994
"It's so difficult to really believe he's gone. I still talk about him like he's still here, you know. I can't figure it out. It doesn't make any sense... One time, he told me flat-out, just delivered me a whole paragraph on the respect he had for what I did, and he realized it was pure. This was at the MTV Awards. 'Tears in Heaven' was playing in the background, we were slow dancing. I remember going out surfing the next morning and remembering how good that moment felt and thinking, 'F*ck, man, if only we hadn't been so afraid of each other ...' Because we were going though so much of the same shit. If only we'd talked, maybe we could have helped each other."
Neil Young, "Mojo," 1995, after refusing to discuss Kurt's suicide note, which quoted Young's lyric, “It's better to burn than to fade away.”
"He really, really inspired me. He was so great. Wonderful. One of the best, but more than that. Kurt was one of the absolute best of all time for me."
Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, to CNN, 2013
"We came offstage and were about to go on for the encore, and I think the bass player of Tad came in and told us. He just kind of barged in and was emotional, and started talking about the reports that they had found Kurt but they weren't sure if it was him or not, but it was. We all got very emotional; it was very surreal. We weren't home; we weren't around any people we knew. I guess, in a sense, we could all take solace in the fact that — especially Soundgarden — that we were born from this idea that we played kind of dark moody music. Our identity ... kind of was a band that created a soundtrack for that type of weird awful scenario."
Henry Rollins, to MTV, the week after Kurt's death
"I think maybe in a situation where all these people want a piece of you, where you're being pursued by tabloid newspapers, being in these situations might drive one to extremes. When that around you is so excessive, the money, the attention, the hype, the hysteria, all of that, perhaps something in your own life might rise to that occasion and that might get out of your control. Also, a lot of people, they're brilliant, and they're very sensitive and perhaps they're not ready for the brutality of mass acceptance, and that's the word that describes it best – brutal."
The Pixies' Black Francis, "AV Club," 2006
"'Frank, Kurt Cobain said that 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was a rip-off of a Pixies song. How does that make you feel?' I've been asked that question so many friggin' times that I don't even know what to say anymore. Why is this so important? I guess it's because Nirvana sold a boatload of records.… People were trying to call me to do interviews on the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. They want me to say some poignant shit about some poor guy who blew his head off. It's just like, 'Give me a f*ckin' break, man'…Just say the guy made some good records, and let's get on with it. Don't make me get all poignant and say, 'You know what I'd like to say? He spoke for a generation, blah blah blah blah blah.' I'm just so sick of all that. The whole culture is like that. The whole sense of nostalgia is crazy."
David Bowie, Spin, April 1995
"I was simply blown away when I found out that Kurt Cobain liked my work, and I always wanted to talk to him about his reasons for covering 'Man Who Sold The World.' It was a good straightforward rendition and sounded somehow very honest. It would have been nice to have worked with him, but just talking would have been real cool."
The Who's Pete Townshend, The Observer, 2002
"I mourn for Kurt. A once beautiful, then pathetic, lost and heroically stupid boy. Hard rock indeed.
Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis, in his autobiography "Scar Tissue," 2004
"It was an emotional blow, and we all felt it. I don't know why everyone on earth felt so close to that guy; he was beloved and endearing and inoffensive in some weird way. For all of his screaming and all of his darkness, he was just lovable."
Iggy Pop, "Spin," April 1995
"I went to see Nirvana at a small club called the Pyramid on Avenue A in New York City. It was hard to hear the guitar, but the guy playing and singing had a vibe; he hopped around like a muppet or an elf or something, hunched over his guitar, hop hop hop, hippety hippety hop. I loved that. When he sang, he put his voice in this really grating place, and it was kind of devilish sounding. At the end of the set he attacked the drum kit and threw the cymbals, other bits and finally himself into the audience. Later I saw the same guy passing the bar. He was little, with stringy blond hair and a Stooges T-shirt. I felt proud."
Leonard Cohen, "Addicted to Noise," 1995
"I'm sorry I couldn't have spoken to the young man. I see a lot of people at the Zen Center, who have gone through drugs and found a way out that is not just Sunday school. There are always alternatives, and I might have been able to lay something on him. Or maybe not."
Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, "Spin," April 1995
"Kurt's wounds were so deep that when the music floated to the surface after being filtered through his soul, it was incorporeal."
Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2010
"Once Kurt Cobain killed himself, our generation has been lost trying to find anybody willing to be a point person. Who has stepped up from my generation and meant anything, to anybody other than themselves? I can’t think of anybody. I’ve tried many times but failed."
Slash, on VH1, mid-late '90s
"I thought the guy was brilliant. It's a loss and probably at the same time, it was probably inevitable that he did what he did, but he wrote some great stuff."
Nirvana's Pat Smear, "Rolling Stone," 2013
"My Nirvana experience was much different than the other three guys. For me, it was really new and exciting. I was just a guy from a punk rock band, thrown into this huge thing. There were dark periods, too. But there wasn't a dark cloud over the whole thing."
Meat Puppets' Cris Kirkwood, Rock Hall of Fame interview, 2013
"Our appearance on the 'Unplugged' was such a gas! What a cool use of your new-found popularity: take the f*cking Meat Puppets on TV and shove them down everybody's throats! My kind of art making. Huzzah! Kurt (Cobain) was so sweet, so gracious. I miss him still. But he had us be a part of their Unplugged, and it will outlast us all. Rock ever onward."
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