Kurt Cobain: Murder or Suicide? - Part 2 - Killer Queens: A True Crime Podcast

On Friday, April 8th, 1994, the body of rockstar Kurt Cobain was found in his Seattle home, dead from an apparent suicide. Along with the death of the Nirvana lead singer and guitarist came a slew of theories about his death. Many people believed that his wife, singer Courtney Love, arranged to have him murdered when he threatened to leave her. What’s followed in the 27 years since Kurt’s death has been growing suspicion of Courtney’s involvement and countless rabbit holes that have left Nirvana fans wondering, what really happened to the king of grunge?

For part one, click here!

The 27 Club

On Friday, April 8th, 1994, electrician Gary Smith, was doing an inspection on Kurt’s home for an outdoor security system around 8:40 AM. He looked through the glass doors of the apartment above the garage that was used as a greenhouse, and saw what he believed to be a mannequin. He quickly realized it was a body laying on the floor, with a gun laying on his stomach, pointed upwards towards the head. He called 911 and investigators found the deceased body of 27-year-old rockstar, Kurt Cobain, in what appeared to be a suicide. Kurt joined the historic 27 Club, of celebrities who died at the age of 27, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison.

Fans were stunned and incredibly heartbroken. They couldn’t believe that Kurt had taken his own life. There’d been a recent interview in which Kurt said that he was getting happier in general, but he didn’t want to become so blissful that he became boring or lost his edge. People began to reflect on lyrics that Kurt had written in the past about depression and suicide. He used to deny public accusations that he was suicidal. He said that his lyrics didn’t mean anything, that they were jokes. He said that he wrote most of them the night before recording, with very little thought. Despite this, police quickly determined that Kurt’s death was a suicide on the same day that they discovered his body.

Kurt had died from a gunshot wound to the head. When police arrived, they found Kurt lying on the floor of the greenhouse with a shotgun laying on his stomach, pointed against his chin. There was a note laying on a pile of potting soil that had a pen stabbed through it. Near the body, there was a pack of cigarettes, a small towel, a hat, a can of root beer, and a cigar box that had the supplies for injecting heroin, as well as a small bag of heroin and a used syringe.

The french doors to the room were locked. The media initially said that Kurt had been barricaded inside, but this was untrue. The twist lock that was locked upon EMS arrival could’ve been locked from the inside or locked and pulled shut by someone leaving. Police also said there was a stool wedged against the door, however the first person in disputed this, saying that the stool was just nearby. The first person in was paramedic John Fisk. He said that he could immediately tell that it was a fatality. Though he didn’t recognize the victim initially, once police told Fisk who it was, Fisk was shocked. He said that he was easily recognizable despite the injury.

Kurt’s autopsy was never released to the public, along with several undeveloped rolls of film that were photographed at the death scene. Police said that they didn’t develop all of the crime scene photos due to Kurt’s death being ruled a suicide. Kurt’s toxicology report showed an extreme level of black tar heroin. His heroin blood level was 1.52mg/L. 5mg of heroin use will produce a blood level of 0.035mg/L. Most users use about 40-60mg in one hit, which will only get them to about 0.420mg/L. Kurt had about three times this amount in his system at the time of his death, which would’ve needed about 225mg of heroin to reach.

The initial medical examiner on scene also noted an impression on the webbing of Kurt’s left hand that was from the shotgun barrel. Six days after his body was found, the Seattle Police Department allowed Courtney and Kurt’s family to have his body cremated.

Suicide or Murder?

Shortly after Kurt’s death, theories began to surface that he was murdered. The most popular of the theories, was that Kurt’s wife, Courtney Love, had arranged her husband’s murder. The most notable of these theories was explained in a documentary by Tom Grant, a private investigator hired by Courtney Love. Grant formerly worked for the LA County Sheriff’s Department. He quit the department in high standing to obtain his own PI license and open his own company. He had a stellar reputation. Grant was hired on April 3, 1994 by Courtney to find Kurt, who she believed was missing. The following information is a mix of Grant’s account and information that Courtney and friends of Kurt provided.

After speaking to Courtney over the phone, Grant met her at a hotel. The first thing she said to him when they met was, “You leak this to the press, and I’ll sue the fuck out of you.” She told him that Kurt had been in rehab at Exodus Recovery Center in California and had left the day after checking in. One of Kurt’s visitors at Exodus reported that though they expected him to be depressed and look terrible, he actually looked great and was happy. The nanny brought Francis Bean by to visit her father before he left. This was the last time they saw each other.

Just after the domestic incident with Courtney earlier in March, Courtney and several other friends of Kurt’s gathered at the Cobains’ Seattle home for an intervention. Courtney reportedly threatened to leave Kurt, and Novoselic threatened to break up the band if Kurt didn’t seek help for his drug addiction. It was reported that his record label and managers attended the intervention as well. The following day, Courtney, in a move which she referred to as tough love, left for Beverly Hills and checked in at the Peninsula Hotel for an outpatient program to detox from tranquilizers.

Prior to checking into Exodus, Kurt asked his good friend Dylan Carlson for a gun. Carlson didn’t find this odd, as he’d lent him guns before. Kurt said he was concerned about intruders on his property, and the police had confiscated all of his guns. Carlson said he thought Kurt asked him to buy it, because he didn’t want police to confiscate this one. The two headed to a nearby gun store where Carlson purchased Kurt a six pound 20 gauge Remington shotgun and a box of ammo. Knowing that Kurt was heading to rehab, Carlson offered to hang onto the gun until he returned, but Kurt insisted on keeping it. Police believe Kurt dropped it off at his home before leaving for Exodus.

Courtney told Grant that she was concerned about Kurt using her credit cards after leaving rehab on March 31st. She was also worried about his mental state and believed he was suicidal. She knew about the gun that Carlson had purchased, and wanted Grant to find both Kurt and the shotgun. She told him that she knew he’d purchased a ticket to Seattle after leaving Exodus, but that no one had seen him since. She said that she’d called the credit card company and told them that the card had been stolen and to cancel them. There are also reports that Kurt was the one who cancelled the card himself to keep Courtney from knowing where he was. Tom said that much of the time that he was meeting Courtney, she was high on drugs or doing drugs.

On April 4th, Courtney called the credit card company who told her that Kurt had bought two tickets on United Airlines, but they couldn’t tell her where to. She said that she felt like Kurt wanted a divorce, that he’d been unfaithful. She thought that he’d cheated on her with the bassist in her band and his drug dealer, though reports said that Kurt never cheated on Courtney. She also told Grant that she’d planted a story in the news, saying that she’d overdosed and was in the hospital, in hopes of getting Kurt’s attention and bringing him out of hiding. She had a record coming out soon and said that all publicity was good publicity. She thought it would help to sell records if she leaked a story that she’d tried to kill herself after Kurt left her. Grant advised her not to confirm those stories.

Courtney went to the Seattle Police and filed a missing persons report for Kurt, but filed it underneath his mother’s name. She believed he was hiding out in a motel somewhere in Seattle, possibly with his drug dealer. Grant called hotels, checked under Kurt’s pseudonyms, but was unable to find him. He finally decided to take his search to Seattle. Since Courtney was still in Beverly Hills, she had Dylan Carlson go with him to look for Kurt. Cali DeWitt, one of Francis Bean’s nannies and Courtney’s ex boyfriend, was staying at the Cobain house with his girlfriend. He said that if Kurt came by the house, he’d let them know.

Carlson said that Kurt wasn’t depressed, that he was handling things well. He said that the overdose in Rome was unintentional and that the gun he’d bought for Kurt was in case of an intruder. He told Grant multiple times that Kurt wasn’t suicidal. Soon after they took the investigation to Seattle, Courtney began communicating with Grant only through Carlson. She said she wanted them to go through the house to look for the gun.

On April 7th, Carlson and Grant entered the home looking for the shotgun, but were unable to find it. They found a note from Cali laying on the stairs of the home. The note said: “Kurt, I can’t believe you managed to be in this house without me noticing. You’re a fucking asshole for not calling Courtney and at least letting her know that you’re o.k. She’s in a lot of pain Kurt and this morning she had another accident and now she’s in the hospital again. She’s your wife, she loves you and you have a child together. Get it together to at least tell her you’re o.k. or she is going to die. It’s not fair, man. Do something now.” Grant said he didn’t think the note made sense.

Rosemary Carroll, who was a close friend of the Cobain’s, as well as Courtney’s lawyer, believed that Cali wrote the note after he knew that Kurt was dead. She said that several weeks ago, Courtney had called her and told her that Kurt was leaving her. She asked her to find the meanest, most vicious divorce attorney, and if there was any way that they could void the prenup. Around the same time, Carroll said that Kurt called to ask if Courtney’s name could be taken out of the will.

After Kurt’s body was discovered on the 8th, Grant was stunned to learn about the existence of the greenhouse. He said that Carlson couldn’t really explain as to why he never told Grant to check the greenhouse when they were there. Anytime Grant had been at the home, it’d been dark and raining, and he couldn’t see the greenhouse. Carlson said Courtney never told him to check the greenhouse. Carroll said that she’d been with Courtney while she was on the phone with Carlson, and that she’d told him to check the greenhouse. Supposedly, at least 5 people, including Seattle police officers had been to the house to search for Kurt during daylight hours and didn’t see his body.

What we know for sure about Kurt’s last days? On March 31st, he had his last visit with Francis Bean at Exodus. Courtney made 13 unanswered calls to her husband that day. She reportedly told Grant that she’d only made one. On the evening of April 1st, he went to the airport and boarded Delta flight 788 to Seattle. Though Courtney was only 10 miles away in Beverly Hills, he chose to leave for Washington, rather than see her. On April 2nd, Cali said that Kurt visited him and his girlfriend in Cali’s bedroom at Kurt’s home in Seattle. Phone records showed that Cali spoke to Courtney eight times that day. The following day, Courtney hired Grant and supposedly neglected to tell him that her husband was seen the day before.

The Suicide Note

The note that was found on scene with Kurt was concerning to those that believed he was murdered. It was addressed to his childhood imaginary friend, Boddah. The first, and largest portion of the note seemed to be directed towards his fans. He wrote about how he doesn’t appreciate fame and doesn’t love things like he used to. At the end, there are four lines that are much bigger and appear to be written more frantically. They don’t match the writing of the first part. The lines read, “Frances and Courtney, I’ll be at your altar. Please keep going Courtney, for Frances. For her life, which will be so much happier without me. I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!”

When Grant showed Carroll the note, she immediately believed it to be a forgery. She said that she knew Courtney and Kurt better than anyone did. In one of Grant’s recordings of a conversation with Carroll, she said, “That suicide note, is a pastiche of things that he had written before… and of someone copying his handwriting. This is my theory. And a lot of it’s intuition. I think all of that weirdness with Cali, living in the house for several days while there was kurt’s corpse in the other place…i think it had to do with the suicide note..”

Grant said that initially Courtney did not plan on letting anyone else see the note. He supposedly tricked her into giving him a copy. Carroll called Grant and told him that Courtney had left a bag of items at her house on the 6th. In the bag, they found a piece of paper that had several letters written all over the page. From what Carroll and Grant said, they appeared to be tracings of letters from Kurt’s notebooks. However, once Carroll found that Grant was going public with his recordings and findings, she stopped providing information and assistance, and threatened him with a lawsuit and criminal prosecution. Since then, several people have analyzed the “practice sheet” found in Courtney’s bag. Some say that the letters appear very similar, while others say that they had to be manipulated to match.

More Discrepancies

There are several discrepancies that the people who believe Kurt was murdered point out. The first was the position that the shotgun was found. Kurt was lying face up, with the shotgun between his legs and pointed up to his head, with his left hand wrapped around the barrel. The shotgun was upside down, with the trigger pointing upwards. In the documentary, “Soaked in Bleach,” it’s said that the shotgun shell was on the left side of his body. If the shotgun was fired upside down, as it was found, the shell should’ve been expelled to the right. There was nothing found that the shell could’ve ricocheted off of.

They argued that the “cadaveric spasm” of Kurt’s muscles after his death would’ve captured his body in the exact position it was when he died, meaning that there was no way that the shotgun would’ve flipped after firing. A cadaveric spasm occurs only in death, however, it is a rare occurrence, not something that happens in all deaths. It’s possible that after the shotgun was fired, being top heavy, the gun flipped over, landing upside down in Kurt’s hand.

Another concern was the amount of heroin found in Kurt’s system. A doctor reportedly said that in a test, he’d given another person the same amount found in Kurt’s system, and the person was able to function without issue. However, this person was not given heroin, they were given methadone. Methadone is a substance used to treat opioid addiction. It gives a similar feeling as if one was taking opiates, but is usually prescribed by a doctor. Unlike a prescribed medication, heroin is generally cut with other drugs. Every batch of heroin can have different strengths, which can result in vastly different effects on the user. The person was also given methadone orally, which has a substantially slower absorption rate than injecting a medication intravenously, as Kurt did.

There are many doctors who say that they’d never seen someone with such a high content of heroin in their system, still be able to function enough to shoot themselves. It’s important to remember though that Kurt was a longtime addict, like many users, Kurt also had endless means to access heroin at any time. His tolerance was likely very high and heroin can stay in a person’s system for up to a week. It’s possible that he’d used heroin after leaving Exodus up until his death. Grant argued that there was no way possible that Kurt could’ve injected such a significant amount of heroin, then put away his drug paraphernalia, picked up the shotgun, and shot himself.

It was difficult for those with questions about Kurt’s death to understand why the police waited 30 days to process the shotgun for fingerprints, then released it to Courtney, who had it melted down. No fingerprints were found on the gun, which suggested to some that it had been wiped down. They allowed the greenhouse to be torn down and destroyed. They also didn’t understand why police so quickly ruled his death a suicide. Wildly enough, Courtney’s father came out publicly stating that he believes Kurt was murdered. He also said that it was a “well known fact” that the couple was going to get a divorce, and that Kurt was going to change his will. Some argue that Courtney and her father were estranged, that he just wanted attention.

Those who believed investigators’ findings about Kurt having died by suicide believe it to be caused by a combination of depression, drug use, and being overwhelmed by what he had become. In an earlier interview, when asked if his success had brought him happiness, Kurt laughed and said that money can’t buy happiness. He said, for a moment, it had brought him happiness, but then he began to think of finding treasures in secondhand stores and how special it was to find something that not everyone could find.

In an interview Grant said that ultimately, he believes that this was Courtney’s plan all along. He believes that she married him with the intent of furthering her career, and that when her success and future was threatened by Kurt deciding to leave her, she took action by arranging his murder. He believes that suicide note was initially written as a note explaining to his fans that he wanted to leave Nirvana, then the last four lines were added by someone else.

Other Theories

Eldon Wayne Hoke, also known as El Duce, was the lead singer of a controversial, pornographic metal band, The Mentors. El Duce said that he was offered $50,000 by Courtney Love to kill her husband and make it look like a suicide. He was self-described as warped and often intoxicated. He was well known in the music scene and states that Courtney approached him with the offer. He even passed a polygraph test. Theorists believe that another Seattle musician, who went by the name Allen Wrench, was the one who actually murdered Kurt, and that El Duce knew that.

In 1997, an unknown man (who some believe was Wrench) came to pick El Duce up to go to the liquor store. Later that evening, El Duce was found dead after having been struck by a train on the railroad tracks. They never found the man he was seen with. There is no concrete evidence to back these theories up, but there are quite a few rabbit holes to delve further into on reddit.

Kurt Cobain’s death is still listed as suicide. Many of his friends have publicly stated that they believe Kurt died by suicide, however there are countless people who believe that the rockstar was murdered. Despite this, many people believe that the investigation should be reopened, including renowned forensic pathologist, Cyric Wecht, “Should the case be reopened? My answer is unequivocally, unhesitatingly yes. The case should be re-opened.”

Regardless of the manner of death, the world lost a wildly talented artist, who influenced so many people and changed the face of music.