The Mysterious Death of Kurt Cobain

Like many of my contemporaries (and that means all of the other aging punk rockers out there in the world) I thought I knew all about the controversy surrounding the 1994 death of musician Kurt Cobain, specifically, the allegation that his death was actually a homicide staged to look like a suicide. And after first hearing about it, I quickly and easily dismissed the entire notion as nothing more than the reactions of a few over-zealous fans who, in my opinion, simply wanted to create the type of "Jim Morrison" mythology that the punk rock generation seemed to lack.

And I admit that I did this without ever taking the time to read about or research any of the materials available on the subject of Kurt Cobain's death. My attitude was based solely on reports from the mainstream media that said that Cobain was known to be "depressed" and a "suicidal" person. And because of that, I accepted that there was nothing of any substance to the allegations of murder.

In part, my attitude came purely from the sort of arrogant certainty that stems from the burnout one suffers from reading one too many conspiracy theories. That was coupled with a belief that most people who attempt to promote such ideas are usually overly imaginative, slightly paranoid and/or doing so strictly with an eye towards financial gain of some sort. (That may sound odd coming from a person such as myself who firmly believes that John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King were killed as a result of conspiracies by elements within our own government. But if one has delved as deep into the whole conspiracy realm as I have, you begin to become somewhat jaded after a while and there comes a time when you want those famous people who die to simply do so without any mystery, controversy or hidden agendas).

So the claim that Cobain's death was not the result of suicide, but instead stemmed from a vile conspiracy to murder him was viewed by me as just the latest and perhaps the lamest among a "market" already over-glutted with such folklore.

In early January of 1998 I moved from the east coast to live in Seattle. At that time, I was earning a living by doing legal writing and research for defense attorneys and Seattle offered some great opportunities, coupled with the fact that it is one of the most beautiful and "laid- back" cities in the United States.

It was shortly after my move to Seattle that I was surprised to learn that the whole "Kurt Cobain did not commit suicide" theory was still very much alive and well. I learned this from two sources: the first from the large amount of fanfare that surrounded the premier of the documentary film Kurt and Courtney when it was first shown in Seattle in 1998; the second from discovering that the local public access television featured a weekly show by a guy named Richard Lee called Kurt Cobain Was Murdered.

Once again, I quickly dismissed the whole theory as nonsense and decided that the lingering interest in the story was probably just a local phenomenon since Nirvana got their start in Seattle. I didn't go see the movie and I only tuned in occasionally and half- listened to the content of Lee's public access show. (Lee's presentation struck me as somewhat rambling and obsessional at times and his show seemed to feature the typical implausible type of connections that persons with overactive imaginations usually try to mold into a workable conspiracy theory).

And so it remained with me until one night in late 1999. My wife and I were invited by a couple of friends (on one of those typical rainy nights in Seattle) to watch a few movies with them on the VCR. Our friends had picked out the movies, one of which turned out to be the documentary film Kurt and Courtney. O.K., I told myself, I will suffer through this, if for no other reason than to be a polite guest and to confirm my suspicions that there really was nothing to the whole affair.

Although I thought the movie was a bit poorly produced and all too typical of the type of tabloid journalism that I despise, I was definitely surprised by the lingering doubts and overall complexity of the case as presented in the film and my interest was definitely sparked, enough so that I decided to take a closer look at the facts. (If for no other reason, I thought, than to see what the detractors had to say about this film and hopefully, to obtain a few dissenting facts in order to salvage my original summation about the whole thing and save face).

My first step was to jump on the Internet and type "Kurt Cobain" into a search engine. I immediately got about 40 hits for sites that dealt with the controversy surrounding his death. There was a hell of a lot of information there and, quite naturally, built around two camps: those who believed that Kurt Cobain simply committed suicide and those who believe that he was murdered. (I was able to determine quickly that the "pro-murder" sites outnumbered the "pro-suicide" ones).

And what I have discovered after reading through multiple web pages of information and the few books available on the subject is this: as it stands at the moment, the "truth" about the death of Kurt Cobain all rests on what you believe, who you admire, or ultimately, who you really trust the most.

Books by Curt Rowlett
	Labyrinth13: True Tales of the Occult, Crime & Conspiracy Available from Lulu.com and Amazon.com.

	Riding On Your Fears: A Manson Murders Essay Available from Lulu.com and Amazon.com.

	The Curse of Palmyra Island Available from Lulu.com and Amazon.com.