A former Seattle Police Chief has said the investigation into the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain should be reopened. The late rockstar passed away in April 1994, with the official cause of his death cited by police as suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. Cobain was found dead in the loft of his garage surrounded by needles and drug paraphernalia along with his shotgun. Despite this there has been much debate about the circumstances of his death ever since.
Recently a new documentary directed by Benjamin Statler which speculates that Cobain could have been murdered has been released. Taking its name from the Nirvana song ‘Come As You Are’ the film is titled ‘Soaked In Bleach’ and came out on June 11th.
The film features footage of police chief Norm Stamper expressing his regret at how his force executed the investigation and states that the circumstances surrounding Cobain’s death should be reinvestigated.
Stamper says: We should in fact have taken steps to study patterns involved in the behaviour of key individuals who had a motive to see Kurt Cobain dead.’
‘If in fact Kurt Cobain was murdered, as opposed to having committed suicide, and it was possible to learn that, shame on us for not doing that. That was in fact our responsibility.’
In March 2014 unseen photographs of the crime scene emerged, prompting the Seattle Police Department to briefly reexamine the case. However, they deduced that the photographs offered no new evidence before reclosing the investigation.
Unsurprisingly Courtney Love and her lawyers are opposed to the film which presents a compelling case for reopening the investigation to her husband’s death. A spokesperson for the film later told Deadline that Love should ‘respect the First Amendment and let people decide for themselves.’
