Debate over Kurt Cobain’s death reignites with new forensic claims
A group of forensic specialists led by a self-styled amateur detective is reigniting questions surrounding the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
They say new evidence they’ve uncovered challenges many of the assumptions and findings from the earlier investigation” and suggests his suicide may have been staged, though they have yet to persuade police to take another look.
“All we’re saying is that there are questions that need to be answered,” said Michelle Wilkins, from Vancouver, B.C., who became curious about Cobain’s death after watching the 1998 documentary “Kurt and Courtney.”
Nirvana helped define the grunge music movement that swept the country in the early 1990s. Cobain, 27, has become an almost mythic figure in the rock ‘n’ roll pantheon since he died on April 5, 1994, at his home in Seattle’s affluent Denny-Blaine Park neighborhood. His body was discovered three days later in a loft over an unattached greenhouse.
Since then, the circumstances of his death have enthralled people, spawning controversies, conspiracy theories, books and documentaries, largely focused on the idea that someone killed him, despite local authorities’ long-held stance that he died by suicide with a shotgun blast to the head.
So far, authorities have not been swayed by any theories, including Wilkins’, whose group presented their findings to Seattle police officials in November.
“The Kurt Cobain case remains closed,” Seattle police spokesperson Sgt. Patrick Michaud wrote in an email on Wednesday. “The SPD has no plans to revisit it.”
Wilkins, whose Substack bio describes her as a “skincare expert by day, forensic sleuth by night,” believes her examination stands apart.
She’s assembled a team of private-sector specialists in disciplines such as firearms, toxicology and handwriting. They say they’ve identified a series of discrepancies by reviewing publicly available police reports, photos and the more recent acquisition of evidence that wasn’t previously available to the public: part of Cobain’s autopsy report and a firearms review by the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory.
Their conclusions, which appear online in the open-access International Journal of Forensic Sciences, are dramatic and damning.
“Kurt Cobain, based solely on publicly available discovery and analyzed through a multidisciplinary critical method, was a homicide victim,” the article states. “His body was moved from the site of the homicide and staged to appear as a suicide.”
Wilkins also has the backing of Mark Larson, who spent 35 years in the King County prosecutor’s office, many as chief of the office’s criminal division.
“I have no doubt this case was underinvestigated,” he said.
New findings
Wilkins, 50, grew up with punk and grunge music.
“Kurt was our John Lennon,” she said in a phone interview, referencing the murder of the former Beatle and the generational trauma and influence that followed.
She has recorded her deep dive into Cobain’s demise in blog posts and podcast interviews. During her journey, she has received funding and has connected with people willing to help, like Bryan Burnett, who runs a private forensic laboratory in San Diego called Meixa Tech.
Others on the team include James Green, a questioned-documents examiner, and Aaron Brudenell, a firearms expert and forensic science consultant.
They were joined by Italian forensic scientists Feliz Nunziata, Pietro Zuccarello, Cataldo Raffino and Gabriele Rotter. They became involved, Wilkins said, because few American forensic experts showed any interest in reviewing the case.
A few years back, Wilkins said she managed to get a partial copy of Cobain’s autopsy from a relative of the singer-guitarist — a document never made public before. (Autopsy reports are not public record in Washington state.)
Then, with Larson’s help, Wilkins obtained the report on the Remington Model 11 20-gauge shotgun found next to Cobain’s body. Burnett and Brudenell concluded that Cobain could not have operated the weapon as described by police.
Because both the barrel and the bolt recoil when the particular type of gun is fired, any interference with the movement of the barrel almost invariably results in a malfunction and jam, according to a report compiled by the forensic team. The report says Cobain gripping the barrel should have caused this malfunction, yet it didn’t.
The team’s report also points to the lack of blood spatter on Cobain’s left hand, which was wrapped around the muzzle of the shotgun when he fired. The barrel of the weapon was coated with blood and, according to team, it was unlikely that none would have been found on Cobain’s hand.
Among the forensic team’s other findings:
* Both Cobain’s liver and brain apparently showed signs of necrosis, which the team says would only have occurred if Cobain was unconscious and dying from the drug overdose.
* Cobain’s blood contained a huge amount of heroin, which likely would have rendered him unconscious within a minute of injection and ultimately killed him, according to the team.
* The team identified what they believe to be a single needle injection mark on his left forearm. Cobain was left-handed and the autopsy showed all the other injection sites and needle tracks were found on his right arm.
* Blood on the leg of his jeans and the front of his shirt seems to indicate the body was moved after the gunshot.
* The forensic team identified someone who had been in the house before Cobain’s death who claimed he had seen others forcibly inject the rock star with heroin. The person was never interviewed by police, according to the report.
Handwriting specialists also scrutinized a suicide note left at the scene.
Larson said the Police Department’s initial investigation determined Cobain had killed himself within hours of his body’s discovery. As a result, steps that would normally be undertaken in a suspicious death scenario were bypassed.
“This investigation was over almost before it started,” Larson said.
The forensic report notes that while no single piece of evidence is “definitive proof of homicide, their cumulative weight is overwhelming.”
“Putting this information together, it would appear Cobain was murdered and that the attack was planned in advance,” the report concludes. “He was given … a large dose of heroin, suffered prolonged circulatory collapse, and was then shot.
‘This is a closed case’
The Seattle Police Department considers the case closed, noting that a cold-case detective reviewed the investigation in 2014 as Cobain’s death approached its 20th anniversary.
The review — which did not include any additional investigation — concurred with the previous findings that Cobain injected himself with a massive and likely fatal dose of heroin and then shot himself in the mouth with a 20-gauge shotgun.
At the time, the detective, Mike Ciesynski, conjectured why questions about Cobain’s death have persisted.
“Sometimes people believe what they read—some of the disinformation from some of the books, that this was a conspiracy. That’s completely inaccurate,” he said in a police blotter post. “It’s a suicide. This is a closed case.”
In November, Wilkins and Larson presented their findings to police Chief Shon Barnes, Assistant Chief Nicole Powell and representatives from the department’s homicide division.
Powell followed up on Jan. 27, writing that “your engagement has been valuable, and I acknowledge the importance of your concerns.” However, she stated that the department stands behind the findings of the original investigation and its 2014 review.
“We believe this determination reflects the findings accurately based on all the available evidence at the time of the incident and during the re-review,” Powell said.
The King County medical examiner’s office likewise said it will not conduct a review.
“Our office is always open to revisiting the conclusions if new evidence comes to light, but we’ve seen nothing to date that would warrant re-opening of this case and our previous determination of death, wrote Kate Cole, a spokesperson for Public Health - Seattle & King County.