Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist for the American rock band Nirvana, was discovered de@d in his Seattle, Washington, home on April 8, 1994. After further examination, forensic scientists dated his dea†h to April 5, three days prior.
According to the incident report filed by the Seattle Police Department, Cobain was discovered with a sh0tgun across his body, a bullet wound to the head, and a su!cide note. The Seattle Police Department determined that Cobain committed su!cide. Once Kurt Cobain passed away, rumors began circulating that he had been murd*red.
Who was Kurt Cobain?
Nirvana, the American grunge music band fronted by Kurt Cobain, was a groundbreaking group in the early 1990s and a commercial success. Cobain had severe bronchitis and stomach pain from an undetected ailment for the whole of his life.
Furthermore, he had a propensity for drunkenness, experienced persistent depression and was a chronic user of both narcotics and inhalants. Two of Cobain’s uncles also took their own lives with firearms. After taking a large number of pills on March 3, 1994 in Rome, Italy, Cobain was sent to the hospital.
Gold Mountain Records, his management company has stated that the overdose was accidental and that he had been sick with the flu and was extremely tired. Courtney Love, however, later claimed that the overdose was an attempt at su!cide by her husband, Kurt Cobain: “It took him fifty pills to get him to stop.
Perhaps he lost track of how many he ingested. But there was an undeniable need to eat and eat and eat until death.” According to Cobain’s nurse cousin Beverly, the family history included multiple su!cide attempts and diagnoses of ADD and bipolar disease for the late singer.
How Did Kurt Cobain Die?
After checking into the Exodus Rehabilitation Center on March 30, 1994, Cobain escaped the following day by climbing over a six-foot wall. Cobain hailed a cab on April 2 and went to a gun store in Seattle, where he bought shotgun shells and got a receipt. After a burglary, Cobain told the cab driver he needed to buy shells.
Gary T. Smith, an employee of VECA Electric arrived at the Lake Washington Boulevard East home early on the morning of April 8 to install security lighting and discovered Cobain’s body in the greenhouse over the garage. Smith thought Cobain was sleeping until he spotted blood gushing from his ear.
Also, he unearthed a su!cide note with a pen inserted into it inside a flower vase. The shotgun, a Remington Model 11, 20-gauge was purchased for Cobain by his musician buddy Dylan Carlson. Carlson had bought it from a licensed firearms dealer in Seattle, Stan Baker’s Gun Shop.
While it’s true that conductor David Woodard made a Dreamachine for Cobain, subsequent reports disproved the notion that he had been overly reliant on it in the days preceding his suicide.
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Funeral of Kurt Cobain
At a memorial service for Kurt Cobain held at Seattle Center on April 10, 1994, a recording of Courtney Love reading the su!cide letter was played. Just as the vigil was drawing to a close, Love showed up and gave up some of his clothes to the remaining followers.
Fans visited to Love’s residence over the next few days to soothe her and share in her grief. A crematorium was used to dispose of Cobain’s remains. Some of his ashes were placed in a teddy bear, and the rest were placed in an urn that Loves kept at home.
She donated some more of his remains to the Namgyal Buddhist Monastery in Ithaca, New York. There, Buddhist priests sanctified some of his bones and mixed them with clay to create memorial sculptures. His mother held a funeral for him on May 31, 1999, and Love and Tracy Marander were present.
Frances Bean Cobain, his daughter, accompanied by a Buddhist monk, threw his ashes into McLane Creek in Olympia, Washington, the city where he “had found his true artistic muse.”
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