Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – ca. April 5, 1994) was the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band, Nirvana. He served not only as the band's frontman, but as its "leader and spiritual center" {{ref|spiritualcenter}}. With the band's success, Cobain became a major national and international celebrity, an uncomfortable position for someone who claimed to be "ill at ease with fame and ill-equipped to handle the responsibility that accompanies success" {{ref|fame}}.

Suicide dispute

Cobain is legally recognized to have committed suicide. However, unanswered questions within the Seattle Police Department's report have led to a perception that Cobain may have been murdered.

Related Topics:
Suicide - Seattle Police Department

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The first to publicly object to the report of suicide was Seattle public access host Richard Lee. The day that Cobain's body was discovered, Lee climbed a tree outside Cobain's garage with a camcorder and filmed the area around Cobain's body. A week later, Lee aired the first episode of an ongoing documentary covering Cobain's death, insisting that Cobain was murdered. The series continued for several years.

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In addition, Tom Grant, the private investigator employed by Love after Cobain's disappearance from rehab, adamantly believes that Cobain's death was a homicide. Grant was hired by Love to find Cobain after his disappearance from rehab, and was still under her employ when Cobain's body was found. Grant cites the official toxicology report, which claims that Cobain's heroin level was three times the lethal dosage at the time of his death, as the key piece of evidence for murder. Grant argues that Cobain could not have injected himself, rolled down his sleeves, put his needle and spoon away, and still have been able to pull the trigger with such a dose. Grant also believes that the apparent suicide note was actually a letter announcing his intent to leave Courtney Love, Seattle, and the music business. Grant and a number of handwriting experts point out that the final lines of the note that most sound like a suicide note are written in a style that is jarringly different from the rest of the letter. In addition, Grant suggests that if the shotgun that Cobain used were positioned to match the findings of the autopsy report, his arm would have been too short for him to reach the trigger. Cobain would have had to fire the weapon with his toe, yet he was found with both shoes still in place. Many, however, see Grant as an opportunist, noting that he capitalized on Kurt's death by selling "kits" about the conspiracy via his website.

Related Topics:
Tom Grant - Suicide note - Handwriting - Shotgun

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Filmmaker Nick Broomfield decided to investigate the story for himself, and took a film crew to visit a number of people associated with Cobain and Love, including Love's father, Cobain's aunt, and one of the couple's former nannies. Most notably, Broomfield spoke to Mentors bandleader El Duce, who claimed that Courtney had offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain, and passed a polygraph administered by well-regarded polygraph expert Dr. Edward Gelb. Broomfield inadvertently captured El Duce's last interview, as he died days later. Broomfield titled the finished documentary Kurt & Courtney, and it was released in 1998. In the end, however, Broomfield felt he hadn't uncovered enough evidence to conclude the existence of a conspiracy.

Related Topics:
Nick Broomfield - Mentors - El Duce - Polygraph - Kurt & Courtney

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Journalists Ian Halperin and Max Wallace took a similar path and attempted to investigate the conspiracy for themselves. Their initial work, the 1999 book Who Killed Kurt Cobain? drew a similar conclusion to Broomfield's film: While there wasn't enough evidence to prove a conspiracy, there was more than enough to demand that the case be reopened. A notable element of the book included their discussions with Tom Grant, who had taped nearly every conversation that he had undertaken while he was in Courtney Love's employ. On their insistence, Grant played some the tapes for the journalists to prove his claims. Over the next couple of years, Halperin and Wallace collaborated with Grant to write a second book, 2004's Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, in which they claim to prove conclusively that Cobain was murdered.

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Further questions are raised by Cobain's initial "suicide attempt" in Rome which involved an overdose of Rohypnol and champagne. On March 5th, 1994, the day before his overdose, Courtney Love discussed her recreational use of Rohypnol in an interview with Select Magazine's Andrew Harrison: "I know is a controlled substance. I got it from my doctor. It?s like Valium. You know, fuck that Prozac stuff. I?m not a depressive, I tried it for like five or six days, and by the sixth day I started seeing tracers,? a statement prompted by Andrew Harrison's observation of a box of Rohypnol on Love's nightstand. In a two page article on Kurt's overdose in Melody Maker's March 12th, 1994 edition, music journalist Everett True reported that in an interview with Courtney she had given just prior to her flying to Rome to meet Kurt, she had said: "...I take those dihydrocodeines I get over here in London, with Rohypnol and champagne." While circumstantial, some advocating the murder theory have concluded from Rohypnol's easy concealability (it's tasteless when dissolved in an alcoholic beverage, making it a choice date rape drug) and Love's past abuse of the drug that Cobain's overdose was the result of a deliberate drugging by Love rather than a failed suicide attempt.

Related Topics:
Rome - Rohypnol - March 5th - 1994 - March 12th

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Advocates of the official verdict of death by self-inflicted gunshot wound cite Cobain's persistent drug addiction, clinical depression, and handwritten suicide note as conclusive proof. It is also notable that Grohl and Novoselic have remained silent in the matter, and that they would certainly have spoken out had they believed that Kurt was murdered.

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More recently, being interviewed for her role on Gus Van Sant's Last Days (a film inspired by the last days of Kurt Cobain), Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon was interviewed by Uncut magazine regarding the circumstances surrounding Cobain's death: The interviewer asked, "The film doesn't explain why Kurt killed himself. Can you?" Gordon answered, "I don't even know that he killed himself. There are people close to him who don't think that he did..." Uncut then followed by asking, "Do you believe the theory that Kurt was killed by someone else?" Gordon answered, "I do, yes." This makes Gordon one of few, if not the only, musician to have had a friendship with Cobain to declare, on the record, the belief that Cobain was murdered (Uncut, August 2005{{ref|uncut}}).

Related Topics:
Gus Van Sant - Last Days - Sonic Youth - Kim Gordon - Uncut

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