The
mystery behind the death of Kurt Cobain still stands despite the closure of the
case by the police officers who ruled his death a suicide. On April 15th,
1994, Kurt Cobain died, reported to have shot himself with a shot gun as well
as overdosing on heroin. (Maria Vultaggio, 1) But those who have taken the time
to take a deep look into his death know that several fishy details still have
yet to be reprimanded by the authorities like; why would Kurt Cobain shoot
himself with a shotgun when he could have simply let his heroin overdose take
over? And how did he manage to shoot himself after ingesting three times the
lethal dose of heroin? (Tom Grant,
1) After taking a look at the evidence
we can determine that everything points back to his murder.
Kurt Cobain was a creative mess. He loved to do drugs
but most of all he loved to create music. There is question on the entirety of
his mental well-being or lack thereof because of his train wreck of a
lifestyle. There is also a trail of mystery because of the face Kurt left
behind to his loved ones was one that represented happiness and a man prepared
to live life to its fullest despite the depressing nature of his music and the
word of his wife. He was difficult to read for people who didn’t know him well
because of his reservation and quiet presence, but it was clear to his closest
friends and family, save for Courtney Love, his wife, that he was content
before he supposedly committed suicide (“Soaked In Bleach”). This also leads us
to look into the character of Courtney Love herself and question the stability
of their marriage. The anomaly presented by his wife leads us to the source of
the conflict that is the death of Kurt Cobain.
Courtney Love worked in the music
industry similar to her husband and fell into the rough of the crowd. Detective
Tom Grant, the lead investigator of the Kurt Cobain case worked closely with
Courtney Love and he admits that she was an avid drug user and a manipulative
attention enthusiast. Grant said “Most of the time I was with her, she was
either on drugs or doing drugs.”(“Soaked In Bleach”) Not only that but she also
“Planted a story in the news … saying that [she] had OD’ed and that [she] was
in the hospital.”(1) This may have been
the reason that the two argued as often as Dylan Carlson said. “I don’t know
why Kurt married her. They don’t get along. They don’t agree about anything.
They’re always fighting. That type of thing.”(1) And perhaps it’s this constant
fighting that led to the divorce that Kurt planned to file. In a panic,
Courtney fled to a family friend and lawyer, Rosemary Carroll to see if there
was any way to annul the prenuptial agreement that she had entered upon the
marriage of her and Kurt but was denied (“Soaked In Bleach”). In Tom Grant’s
website on the Cobain case, he explicitly says “Kurt
was in the process of leaving Seattle and his wife Courtney, when he was found
dead. Courtney knew Kurt wanted out of the marriage. Just weeks
prior to his death, she asked one of her attorneys to get the "meanest,
most vicious divorce lawyer" she could find.”(Grant). In an
interview with Rosemary Carrol, she told him that “Courtney also asked Rosemary
if the prenuptial agreement could be voided.” “According to Rosemary, Kurt
hadn’t completed his will yet. He told Rosemary he wanted Courtney taken out of
it.” (Grant). All of this gives her proper motive to kill her husband before he
left her with one income to feed a baby and a drug addiction.
Kurt was faced with the difficulty
of choosing between a life of indulgence, or a life that centered around his
daughter. He had struggled with his own heroin addiction like Courtney, but was
attending rehab to help clean up his act and reduce his dependence on the
illegal substance after Courtney called him out saying, “This has got to end.
You have to be a good daddy.”(“Soaked in Bleach”) He spent some time in a rehab
center in Marina Del Rey, California prior to his death though it is unsure
whether or not his time in the center did anything for him. His tastes tended
to run towards things less polished and more rustic and homey whereas Courtney
preferred the expensive new things (Grant). He was known for going to trashy
motels as opposed to the expensive ones that he certainly could afford. He
enjoyed living humbly and having close relationships with the few people he
surrounded himself with (Grant) (“Soaked In Bleach”).
This however led people to believe him to be a closed
off and depressed which of course was backed up by his well-known heroin
addiction and the edgy nature of his grunge rock songs like Lithium where he
sings “I’m
so lonely, but that’s okay, I shaved my head … And I’m not sad. And just maybe
I’m to blame for all I’ve heard … But I’m not sure.” (“Soaked In Bleach”). (Lithium, Cobain) However those
who talked to Kurt could vouch that there was no meaning behind his dark lyrics
and that despite his quiet nature, he was not actually depressed. Kurt himself
in an interview said “I’m tired of people trying to put too much meaning into
my songs. A lot of times when I write lyrics, which is at the last second
‘cause I’m really lazy and then I find myself having to come up with
explanations for it. There was may be one or two lines here or there, but I
swear to god brother, it’s not really as much as it seems.” (“Soaked In
Bleach”). One friend of his mentions that “[He] think[s] people tended to read
him wrong just because he was a quiet person. [He] didn’t see Kurt as being
depressed at all, [he saw] him as being optimistic (“Soaked In Bleach”). All of
these combined features make it difficult to convict him as the suicidal man he
is painted to be.
The death of Kurt Cobain
is undeniably much more complicated than the story painted by the media. While
the public story is that he shot himself, it is important to see the minute
details of the case that could point towards his murder, as ordered by Courtney
Love.
The police report states that the door was locked from
the inside and that the “SFD broke the westside French door to gain access…”
(The Smoking Gun) When Tom Grant spoke with the police officers that were apart
of the investigation, they were “… inferring that Cobain had to have been alone
in the greenhouse when he died.”(Grant) However upon further digging, Grant
noticed that the lock on the door “… was a simple push-in and twist type.
‘Anyone could have pulled that door shut after locking it!’”(Grant.) After
pointing this out to Sargent Cameron, the officer that Grant spoke to at the
police station, Sargent Cameron added resentfully that “There was a stool
wedged against the door.” However the police reports mentioned that the stool
had been placed in front of the unlocked balcony doors on the other side of the
room which provided no outside access to the greenhouse (Grant). The evidence
suggesting that Kurt was locked inside, meaning no outside source could have
partook in his tragedy is all based upon the inference that nobody locked the
door behind them when leaving rather than the exploration of possibilities.
“The toxicology report from Kurt Cobain’s autopsy
indicated a heroin blood level of 1.52 milligrams per liter. Five milligrams
will produce a level of .035 milligrams. Most users, even heavy users, only use
up to 40-60 milligrams in one hit. So you can see to reach 1.52 milligrams per
liter, you’re talking about an amount that would have certainly have exceeded
200 mg that were injected into Kurt Cobain. Three times the amount that would
be considered lethal.” (“Soaked In Bleach”) A health professional enlightens us
that Kurt was definitely drugged up and that the effect of the heroin would
have killed him. It does not take a health care professional to know that when
a drug enters the body through the blood stream that it takes effect very
quickly. So when we are told that Kurt died from a self-inflicted shot gun
wound to the head it’s difficult to get around the fact that Kurt should not
have been able pick up a shot gun, let alone shoot himself. “Even for the most
sever heroin addict, it would have incapacitated him. He would have been
unconscious. Then to roll down the sleeves, put away the heroin kit, pick up
the shot gun, position it backwards and pull the trigger… It just doesn’t make
sense.” (“Soaked in Bleach”)
These two inconsistencies are not to sniff out the
corruption of police. When Kurt went missing initially, Courtney filed a police
report that states “He bought a shot gun and may be suicidal.” (The Smoking
Gun) This means that the police were already considering the idea of a suicide
before brought upon the case, meaning their judgement is impaired with bias of
prior knowledge. So rather than snooping out every possibility with the utmost
scrutiny, they went with the easiest, logical scenario without following up on
the discrepancy of the theory.
In light of all this evidence, it appears possible that
Courtney may have had something to do with Kurt’s death. Following his death,
Courtney received his entire estate which she couldn’t have inherited otherwise
because of the divorce that Kurt planned to file. (Grant) If Courtney set up
his murder then it is possible that the murderer injected him with the heroin
to sedate him, unaware of the sheer volume that they were injecting him with,
then proceeded to shoot him with the shot gun that a “suicidal” man had bought
only a few days previous. Kurt’s heroin addiction made the combination of the
two seem rather characteristically sound to the police. If the person who
murdered Kurt had left, it would have been easy for just about anyone to lock
the door behind them and leave. A man by the name of Eldon Hoke incidentally
claimed that “Love offered to pay him $50,000 to
dispose of the Nirvana front man.” (Maria Vultaggio) In an interview for a
documentary following the conspiracy of Kurt’s murder he said “Yeah, she
offered me fifty grand to whack Kurt Cobain.” (Maria Vultaggio) Two days later,
this man was mysteriously hit by a train and died. (Maria Vultaggio)
In a survey, 20 people were asked if
they believed that Courtney had Cobain killed and 50% of which said yes. 67% of
those aware of Tom Grant’s breakdown of the case believed that Courtney had
Kurt killed. However there is still not enough evidence for the police to
conduct a deeper investigation to see if Courtney truly conspired against her
husband.
Despite
the reports of the police and the media, the death of Kurt Cobain is still
debated upon. The fishy details of his circumstance such as the overdose, the
false reports and the demeanor that Kurt displayed prior to his death have yet
to be validated, leaving us to wonder until further evidence is found. Did Kurt
really commit suicide, or was he murdered for the benefit of his wife Courtney
Love?
Works
Cited
Drive, By Dynamic. "Case Outline - The Kurt
Cobain Murder Investigation by Tom Grant." Case Outline - The Kurt Cobain
Murder Investigation by Tom Grant. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Oct. 2016.
Grant, Tom. "Case Outline." The Kurt Cobain Murder
Investigation by Tom Grant. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
Grant, Tom. "Summary Of Events." Cobain Case. Dynamic Drive,
n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2016.
"Kurt Cobain's Death, 10 Years After." The Smoking Gun. TSG Industries
Inc., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.
Soaked in Bleach. Dir. Benjamin Statler. Prod. Donnie Eichar.
Perf. Daniel Roebuck and August Emerson. 2015. Netflix.
Vultaggio, Maria. "Kurt Cobain Conspiracy
Theories Remerge."International Business Times. IBT Media Inc., 05
Apr. 2016. Web. 05 Oct. 2016.
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