Kurt Cobain: Suicide or Homicide? The New Forensic Claims
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What happened on April 8, 1994, regarding Kurt Cobain?
On April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain was found dead in a room above the garage of his Seattle home. Authorities later revealed that he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A handwritten note was discovered nearby. A 20-gauge shotgun was found resting across his body. The King County medical examiner ruled it a suicide. The Seattle police closed the case. But almost from the beginning, doubts and conspiracy theories began to swirl about the note, the toxicology results, the position of the gun, and the blood at the scene. For more than 30 years, the debate never fully went away.
What doubts and conspiracy theories emerged after Cobain's death?
Now, a new independent team of forensic researchers have reexamined the original autopsy and crime scene material. They say they identified five key pieces of evidence, from blood pattern analysis to drug levels, that they argue were inconsistent with the official account. In this special episode of The Trial USA, we spoke to retired Seattle Police Captain Neil Lowe, a veteran of the force who was on duty when Kurt Cobain's death was first investigated. Lowe explains why Cobain's death has suddenly returned to the headlines, what this new independent team of forensic experts is now examining, and why they believe the evidence points toward homicide rather than suicide. I'm Kayla Brantley, and this is our special investigation into the death of Kurt Cobain.
We'll be back in just a moment with the interview.
What new evidence has the independent forensic team uncovered?
And joining us now is former Chief Neal Lowe, who's a former investigator with the Seattle Police Department and has reviewed the evidence in Cobain's death. Neal, thank you for being here. This has been such a big story. You were a police officer in Seattle in 1994, right? when Kurt Cobain was found dead. Can you take us back to that time? Walk us through the circumstances of his death and if at the time there was anything suspicious versus now with all of this new evidence that's come to light.
Well, I think there were things that were suspicious, just that nobody was there that gave it a hard look. I was in a different precinct. I had just made lieutenant. I was at South Precinct. And they had put out a notice to our roll calls, which read to the patrol officers before they go out on the streets. And it was that supposedly Kurt's mother... We'll come back to that. Reporting that he was in town, possibly, and was possibly suicidal, and he escaped drug treatment. Pretty close to that. So that really didn't impact my precinct. Within a couple days that they found Curtin, he was dead, and it seemed to match up with the predicted story. I think that set the tone for what happened. When detectives finally got to Curtin,
Kurt's house. They went in there with the mindset, okay, here we have a, this is really during kind of like a heroin epidemic in Seattle. We have a rocker, he's done heroin and he's dead and end of story. So homicide detectives didn't really want to process it. It says there's no suspect here. He's laying on the floor. And our protocol was that patrol officers would handle everyday suicides. And so they were trying to kick the case to patrol. And patrol was rightfully saying, this is a pretty big hot potato here. You guys investigate it. So Captain Larry Farrar brought up the big squad of detectives and they showed up. Well, I didn't like the photo I saw of them. When you see them in the greenhouse up there and their arms are like this and they're leaning back and a couple of guys are working or
helping, but all they're doing is helping patrol write the report. They didn't collect evidence in the sense that they didn't scrape fingernails, they didn't bag his hands, and I have a real problem with what I saw in the photographs when they finally came out of Kurt's hand, the one that was supposedly holding the shotgun. You know, it's kind of gruesome, but I don't know how else to put it. Have you ever shaken a Coke bottle or can and tried to drink it and had it come out your nose? imagine that happening if something goes in if you know physics something's got to come out
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What happened on April 8, 1994, regarding Kurt Cobain?
0:03–0:46
2
What doubts and conspiracy theories emerged after Cobain's death?
0:46–1:42
3
What new evidence has the independent forensic team uncovered?
1:42–5:14
4
Why has Kurt Cobain's case returned to the headlines?
5:14–7:51
5
What were the circumstances surrounding the original investigation?
7:51–20:30
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Trial: USA
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