Alexandria Chavez
English 68
Professor Tolliver
Essay #3
2 December 2014
A Mystery Unsolved
Kurt Cobain: Suicide or Murder? Early morning April 8, 1994, 27 year-old Kurt Cobain, lead singer of rock band Nirvana, is found dead inside the greenhouse of his Seattle mansion. After checking himself out of a rehab facility located near Los Angeles, Cobain traveled back to his home in Lake Washington, Seattle – only a few days later did his wife, Courtney Love, file a missing persons report for her husband. Allegedly stuck in Los Angeles for business, Love could not search for Cobain on her own time; she hired a private investigator named Tom Grant to go out on the hunt for the Rock and Roll sensation. Grant and best friend of Cobain, Dylan Carlson, began an investigation that led nowhere; they searched the Lake Washington house several times, visited numerous hotels along the Aurora strip, and even checked out a few of Cobain’s drug dealers. When the morning of April 8 flew around, it took an electrician hired by Love to discover the deceased body of Kurt Cobain. Positioned on his back, Cobain was recognized with a shotgun cemented between his fingertips and a purported suicide note settled on a planter just feet away. Immediately, police officers ruled his death as suicide, but Nirvana fans, close friends and family, and Grant suggested that was not the case – they believed Kurt Cobain was indeed murdered. Although it may sound preposterous, there is evidence directly related to the one and only, Courtney Love as the murderer. One month before the tragic event, Cobain was rushed to a hospital in Rome after overdosing on pills – apparently this was not an attempt at suicide, but merely a mistake on Cobain’s half. At first, Love referred to the overdose as an accident, but after Cobain’s collapse, she interchanged her story to the media by claiming the Rome incident was certainly a suicide pursuit. Also, a week before Cobain checked into rehab, he purchased a shotgun with Carlson since he did not feel safe inside his Seattle mansion. If Love thought Cobain was suicidal in any way, why did she not mention anything to Carlson before he helped pick out the gun that ended Cobain’s life? Not only was Cobain in the midst of divorcing Love, but he had also planned to remove her from his will – of course, Love would not approve. Ponder upon this, Love would receive an abundance of fame and wealth from a suicide, not a divorce: she would inherit and manage all of Nirvana’s revenue, record sales would heavily increase because of the sudden death (which means more income), and the publicity would benefit Love to launch her own musical career. It was not long until numerous conspiracy theories began to circle around about Cobain’s departure. There have been various books, articles, and even films published containing personal opinions and insight on the conspiracies. One piece of information, however, has caused a great deal of controversy amongst fans – El Duce, a Los Angeles based musician featured in Nick Broomfield's documentary, Kurt & Courtney, claimed that he was offered $50,000 by Love to assassinate Cobain. As outrageous as it sounds, the musician passed two lie detector tests by the world's top polygraph experts; just a week after he was interviewed by Broomfield, he was hit by a train and announced dead on sight. The police stated that his death was an accident, but thousands believe Love had something to do with the awful tragedy. The way Cobain abandoned his fans left the world paralyzed and medical examiners baffled. Evidently, he locked himself inside the greenhouse, injected 1.52 mgs per liter of heroin, and pulled the trigger of his 20-gauge shotgun. The police work for this case was clumsy and careless, especially when it came down to detecting Cobain’s fingerprints on the shotgun – absolutely no legible fingerprints were found. If a person shot themselves, wouldn’t there be obvious fingerprints on the trigger? The gun was lain across Cobain’s chest, which means it would be nearly impossible for there not to be any fingerprints, unless someone else placed the gun and then removed the evidence. Cobain’s blood contained 1.52 mgs of morphine and heroin per liter, which is more than three times the fatal dose, even for a heroin addict who has built up a high tolerance to the drug. How could Cobain inject three times the lethal dose of heroin and then pick up a 20-gauge? Cobain would have been almost immediately incapacitated; he could not have picked up that shotgun. The note found at the scene by the police was immediately labeled as a "suicide note." Apparently, it was written for his wife and daughter, but later on it was clear that the note was addressed to his fans explaining why he was withdrawing from the music business. A snippet of Cobain’s note writes, “I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things.” Cobain was expressing his guilt for not wanting to continue creating music that had been widely appreciated all throughout the world. Also, the pen used to write the note held no legible fingerprints as well. Even though millions around the world believe in the conspiracy theories, there are still many friends and family who are conclusive about Cobain’s death being a suicide. Cobain suffered with drug addiction, depression, stomach pain, paranoia, and the pressure of fame –those are all huge factors which can drive someone to not only insanity, but suicide as well. Cobain’s mother, Wendy O’Connor, surely believes her son took his own life; in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, O’Connor stated, “Kurt’s problems were ongoing… he was probably a mis- or undiagnosed depressive, which runs in my family … The way I explain it is, have you ever been hit in the stomach and lost your breath? It’s a horrible, panicky situation. Can you imagine being in that state of mind—in that state of anxiety and fear—for years? He was a wonderful person, but he just couldn’t stand the pain anymore.” Because of his fear, anger, and anxiety, Cobain often wrote lyrics about the darkness of the world and how terrible it was to him. He used the phrase, "I hate myself and want to die" repeatedly, which some people use as proof that he was suicidal. It is true that Cobain’s persona was not joyful, but instead violent, destructive, and pessimistic; he lacked empathy which could have pushed him over the edge. When the verdict of Cobain’s death was officially ruled as suicide, reports of “copy-cat” suicides began making headlines; Nirvana fans unknowingly ended their own life after he allegedly took his own. Just a few weeks after her husband’s death, Love went on tour with her grunge band, Hole. As selfish and absurd as that sounds, it was even more bizarre when her father, Hank Harrison, wrote a book about the murder theories of Cobain – he believes his own daughter was the criminal mastermind of such a genius murder. When it comes down to it, one true fact about this mind-bottling case is that the Seattle police and medical examiners have no forensic evidence that proves Cobain's death was indeed a suicide. In contrary to that being said, there is a considerable amount of evidence for murder. Did Cobain really kill himself, and if so, was his loving wife the executioner? One day, the world will be exposed.

Works Cited 1. Grant, Tom. “Summary of Events.” The Kurt Cobain Murder Investigation by Tom Grant. 2 November 2012. <http://cobaincase.com/index.htm> 2. Halperin, Ian. Max Wallace. Who Killed Kurt Cobain? The Mysterious Death of an Icon. Citadel, 2000. 3. Hutchinson, Lydia. “The Mysterious Death of Kurt Cobain.” Performing Songwriter. 5 April 2014. <http://performingsongwriter.com/kurt-cobain-mysterious-death/> 4. “Kurt Cobain Suicide Note.” 28 November 2014. <http://kurtcobainssuicidenote.com/kurt_cobains_suicide_note_scan.html> 5. Kurt & Courtney. Dir. Nick Broomfield. 27 February 1998. Capitol Films.