which had gripped the barrel so tightly that its impression could be seen on his palm. The damage to the interior of the mouth, Hartshorne noted, revealed that Kurt had been shot there. There was one live shell in the shotgun chamber, and another in the magazine, indicating that the gun had been loaded with three shells, including the spent cartridge that had apparently fired the fatal shot. The victim was cold, in the early stages of putrefaction, suggesting that the body had been dead for some time. There were puncture marks on the insides of each elbow.
Hartshorne took photos of the body and then emptied the pockets: $63 in cash and a piece of notepaper with “Seattle Guns, 145 & Lake City” written on it. In the left front pocket, he found an address book, miscellaneous papers and another note, which read, “Remington 20 gauge, 2 3 / 4 shells or shorter, set up for light shot.” In the same pocket was a used Delta plane ticket, dated April 1, seat 2F, in the name of Cobain/Kurt—the ticket he used to fly from L.A. to Seattle after he left Exodus a week earlier.
After Hartshorne had finished examining the scene, he arranged for the body to be removed to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, where he would conduct the autopsy to determine the cause of death. This was standard procedure, though his parting statement to the assembled officers—including Sergeant Cameron, who had arrived an hour earlier—was not: “This is an open-and-shut case of suicide. The victim died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
The media, alerted by a radio report that a body had been found at the Cobain estate, had begun to gather outside shortly after 10:00 A.M. Within minutes of Hartshorne’s pronouncement, the world would learn that Kurt Cobain had committed suicide at the age of twenty-seven. His fans were shocked by the news, but, after what they learned from Courtney Love the next day, nobody was surprised.
When the Seattle Times published a story by award-winning investigative journalist Duff Wilson a month later detailing some curious inconsistencies about the case, it failed to cause much of a stir. The repeated assertions by Nikolas Hartshorne and Donald Cameron that the death was a “textbook case of suicide” had done their job. Most people had by then accepted the death as just another rock-and-roll tragedy—a self-destructive junkie who had crashed and burned. Besides, he had attempted suicide once before. Hours after his body was found, Courtney was telling anyone who would listen that the Rome overdose in March had in fact been a suicide attempt, not an accident as previously claimed. In Rome, she revealed, he had also left a note. The only difference this time was that he had succeeded.
But Wilson’s findings were nagging him. His sources in the SPD had tipped him off to a number of facts about Cobain’s death that just didn’t add up. Among the most glaring was the fact that a subsequent police investigation found there were no legible fingerprints on the shotgun, the shotgun cartridge or the pen that was found stabbed through the note. But it was the note itself that raised the most questions. Despite the fact that police on the scene had immediately described it as a “suicide note,” those who had seen it said that it didn’t mention suicide at all. More disturbingly, the only part of the note that might have alluded to such a fate appeared to have been added at the end, in a completely different style of handwriting.
To add to the mystery, somebody had attempted to use Kurt’s credit card between the time the medical examiner said Kurt died and the discovery of his body. The police never determined who was using the credit card, missing from Kurt’s wallet when he was found.
But an even more troubling detail had been disclosed in another Seattle newspaper three weeks earlier. Nikolas Hartshorne had completed his autopsy the day Kurt’s body was found and immediately announced that the
Hartshorne took photos of the body and then emptied the pockets: $63 in cash and a piece of notepaper with “Seattle Guns, 145 & Lake City” written on it. In the left front pocket, he found an address book, miscellaneous papers and another note, which read, “Remington 20 gauge, 2 3 / 4 shells or shorter, set up for light shot.” In the same pocket was a used Delta plane ticket, dated April 1, seat 2F, in the name of Cobain/Kurt—the ticket he used to fly from L.A. to Seattle after he left Exodus a week earlier.
After Hartshorne had finished examining the scene, he arranged for the body to be removed to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, where he would conduct the autopsy to determine the cause of death. This was standard procedure, though his parting statement to the assembled officers—including Sergeant Cameron, who had arrived an hour earlier—was not: “This is an open-and-shut case of suicide. The victim died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
The media, alerted by a radio report that a body had been found at the Cobain estate, had begun to gather outside shortly after 10:00 A.M. Within minutes of Hartshorne’s pronouncement, the world would learn that Kurt Cobain had committed suicide at the age of twenty-seven. His fans were shocked by the news, but, after what they learned from Courtney Love the next day, nobody was surprised.
When the Seattle Times published a story by award-winning investigative journalist Duff Wilson a month later detailing some curious inconsistencies about the case, it failed to cause much of a stir. The repeated assertions by Nikolas Hartshorne and Donald Cameron that the death was a “textbook case of suicide” had done their job. Most people had by then accepted the death as just another rock-and-roll tragedy—a self-destructive junkie who had crashed and burned. Besides, he had attempted suicide once before. Hours after his body was found, Courtney was telling anyone who would listen that the Rome overdose in March had in fact been a suicide attempt, not an accident as previously claimed. In Rome, she revealed, he had also left a note. The only difference this time was that he had succeeded.
But Wilson’s findings were nagging him. His sources in the SPD had tipped him off to a number of facts about Cobain’s death that just didn’t add up. Among the most glaring was the fact that a subsequent police investigation found there were no legible fingerprints on the shotgun, the shotgun cartridge or the pen that was found stabbed through the note. But it was the note itself that raised the most questions. Despite the fact that police on the scene had immediately described it as a “suicide note,” those who had seen it said that it didn’t mention suicide at all. More disturbingly, the only part of the note that might have alluded to such a fate appeared to have been added at the end, in a completely different style of handwriting.
To add to the mystery, somebody had attempted to use Kurt’s credit card between the time the medical examiner said Kurt died and the discovery of his body. The police never determined who was using the credit card, missing from Kurt’s wallet when he was found.
But an even more troubling detail had been disclosed in another Seattle newspaper three weeks earlier. Nikolas Hartshorne had completed his autopsy the day Kurt’s body was found and immediately announced that the
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