FRANCES BARNETT website pages

[KnowledgeIsPower]

Guitar Part Interview, Part 1

On the 8th January 2004 I was interviewed by Karim Djidjelli, Olivier Roubin and Romuald Ollivier, of Guitar Part magazine. They travelled from Paris to London to meet up and there followed a three-hour interview.

They published a 22 page article on Kurt’s death in the February 2004 edition of Guitar Part, see cover above.

Thanks, guys, for travelling all that way.

I’d been trying, for over four years, to get the information about DeWitt and Rome out. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about some of it.

Karim, Romuald and Olivier, it was good to talk to people who could see and understand Courtney's manipulation of the media. I appreciate that you gave me the opportunity to put some of that information across to mark the 10th year of Kurt’s murder and for providing a section on the hoaxes surrounding this case, including Allen Wrench.

I’ve since come up with additional information which I didn’t have when this interview took place and additional thoughts came up while I was transcribing this interview, so I have included this information/observations in bold.

This was a long interview (over 3 hours). Here’s a transcript of some of it:

Guitar Part: Michael DeWitt was a friend of Kurt’s, why suspect him as a murderer?

Barnett: How do we know he was a friend? None of his actions show him as a friend. Whose word do we have for that? He and Courtney were acting very suspiciously, Courtney was trying to take attention away from him, as a suspect.

As soon as she was interviewed by the police on April 18 1994, she was saying that she knew Kurt committed suicide, so she was immediately taking attention away from DeWitt. When she sent Grant to Seattle on April 6, why didn’t she get Grant to meet up with DeWitt? DeWitt was there (at the house) and then suddenly he disappeared. Grant met with Dylan and Mark Lanegan, but where was DeWitt? He was in the house, and suddenly he disappeared, so what was that about?

If someone is suicidal, then a friend would go looking for them and help other people to look, but DeWitt disappeared.

Guitar Part: But can we suspect him just on the fact that he wasn’t in the right place, at the right time?

Barnett: Well, he was there at Kurt’s house in Seattle, and then when things started getting hot, when Grant arrived in Seattle, and just before Kurt was found, DeWitt disappeared.

Now, if he was the person who did the murder, he’s not going to want to be seen. He’s going to try and keep away from it, which is exactly what happened.

Guitar Part: What do you believe really happened?

Barnett: First of all, I believe that Michael DeWitt and Courtney Love tried to murder Kurt in Rome and then I believe that Michael DeWitt murdered Kurt on April 3rd/early 4th, which I make pretty clear on my website. The things Courtney was setting up long before it happened, she was planning this. This was a premeditated murder. It wasn’t a spur of the moment murder.

Guitar Part: And what about Dylan Carlson? Tom Grant said that he is not a suspect, but there’s the fact that he failed to mention the greenhouse, that’s quite strange.

Barnett: Grant and Dylan went up to 171 Lake Washington Boulevard and Dylan went to look at the house while Grant stayed in the car. Dylan was gone for 5 minutes and then returned to the car.

He and Grant then went and called Courtney (to get the alarm system on the house turned off). During this call, Courtney told Dylan to look in the greenhouse.

About 30 minutes later (at 2.45 am April 7th 1994) Dylan and Grant went back to 171 and got into the house. There was a TV on in a bedroom (with bed unmade) and when Grant asked whose room it was, Dylan said it was DeWitt’s bedroom. So where was DeWitt? He was there and then he went? He left the TV on and his bed unmade. It looks like he left quickly.

Dylan never mentioned to Grant to check the greenhouse.
DeWitt was obviously in the house, his TV was on (and bed unmade) so, and this is speculation, but maybe when Dylan went up to the house initially, and spent 5 minutes there, maybe he bumped into DeWitt, who could have threatened him.

After this interview took place, I obtained the following police report, dated April 25 1994. It is possible, looking at the report, that there was surveillance on the house at the time Dylan and Grant were there, because Seattle private investigator Ernest Barth took the initiative and set it up.

When Courtney discovered there was surveillance on 171 she was furious. Why? Maybe she was scared that Barth knew too much of DeWitt’s movements?

Unfortunately, at 1330 on April 7 1994, Ben Klugman, who worked for Grant, instructed Barth to remove the surveillance. See police report below:

Guitar Part: Could we imagine Dylan found Kurt’s body?

Barnett: He was at the house for five minutes, I don’t know what happened in that time, but the fact that Courtney asked Dylan to check the greenhouse is strange. Why didn’t she phone DeWitt and tell him to check it and for him to get in contact with Grant, and show Grant around? She didn’t do that.

Guitar Part: DeWitt said he had the credit card.

Barnett: Attempts were made to use the card after Kurt died. The only person that said anything about the credit card that was missing was Charles R Cross, where he reported that DeWitt had the credit card/card number, but that’s Cross bringing up something that has never been reported before.

A big issue has been made that the credit card was missing, and obviously anyone involved in Kurt’s murder is going to want to try and explain away things.

Cross has made some horrendous mistakes in the way he’s reported. Have you read his book? Cross’ book is an attempt to rewrite everything that happened back then.

Cross reported that Courtney sent Eric Erlandson to the Lake Washington Blvd house in Seattle on Tuesday April 5 to look for Kurt. That contradicts the fact that she got Grant to go to Seattle on the 6th.

If Courtney sent Erlandson up to Seattle on the 5th, why did she send Grant up on the 6th? And if she did that, why didn’t Erlandson contact Grant? Why wasn’t Erlandson mentioned, (in the police report) as being in Seattle on April 5th? Because he wasn’t there.

In order to place Erlandson in Seattle on April 5th Cross had to contradict the timeline in an article printed in the April 27 1994 edition of The Rocket. I scanned and uploaded this article to my ‘Events’ section.

For the sake of the argument, if, as Courtney claims, she really had sent Erlandson to Seattle on the afternoon of April 5th because she was so worried about Kurt, she would have got Erlandson to check the greenhouse. Had Erlandson been there and done that on April 5th, he would, of course, have found Kurt dead.

Additionally, if Erlandson and DeWitt were really searching for the gun in the secret closet in the master bedroom of 171 Lake Washington Blvd on April 5th, as Cross reported in his book on page 335, why would Courtney instruct Grant and Dylan to search there again on the evening of April 7th, but fail to mention to them that Erlandson had checked it on the 5th? Why didn’t Courtney get Erlandson to meet up with Grant?

Cross made no attempt to question Courtney’s stories and cross reference them with outside and independent witnesses, police reports or news stories published back in April 1994. Had he done so, he’d have realised that her current day stories don’t stand up under scrutiny.

Cross’ book is an attempt to cover up and misinform and you have to look at not only what was happening at the time, but look at the way misinformation has been perpetuated and built on to the point where you get a complete attempt to cover up what was going on, by a journalist who is a good friend of Courtney’s.

And that’s not Dylan Carlson manipulating information, it’s Courtney Love.

Guitar Part: Yes.

Barnett: And Cross’ book does it in a way that takes attention away from DeWitt.

Guitar Part: What about the second note?

Barnett: Courtney claimed (to Grant) that she found a second note under the pillows of her bed in the house (171). But Grant and Dylan had looked under the pillows and mattress of that bed on April 7th and there was no note there. So Courtney was lying, and what she said was written in that note sounds more like the note that Kurt wrote to her in Rome, so it’s like she was twisting the facts there.

This is another flaw in Cross reporting that Erlandson was in Seattle searching the house (171) on April 5th, because if the note was under the pillows and Erlandson and DeWitt searched “every nook and cranny” as Cross reported, page 335, then if a note was there, they would have found it.

If Cross believed the story that Courtney sent Erlandson to Seattle on April 5th, why didn’t he question Erlandson’s failure to check the greenhouse or find the note that was supposedly under the pillows of the bed? It’s very suspicious that Cross had to contradict various reports/articles in order to place Erlandson in Seattle on April 5th 1994, but that he didn’t question Erlandson’s failure to actually find anything!

Guitar Part: When do you think that Kurt was going to change his will?

Barnett: Rosemary Carroll told Grant that, I think it was about 2 weeks before he was found dead that Kurt had phoned her up to change his will, but that he hadn’t yet signed it. So I think it was after the Rome incident.

When Broomfield interviewed the nanny, she said that Kurt and Courtney were arguing over Kurt’s will, and that she (the nanny) couldn’t stand the atmosphere at the house and quit, a week or so before Kurt died.

Guitar Part: So if Rome was attempted murder the will can’t be the motive for the murder.

Barnett: If Rome was attempted murder and Kurt was suffering from memory loss, then not only was Kurt going to change his will, but he would get his memory back. From Rome onwards Courtney and DeWitt were living on borrowed time, if it was a murder attempt, because Kurt would eventually remember, most people that suffer Rohypnol attacks do get their memory back over time. So if Rome was a murder attempt they had a bigger motive to carry on with it. You can’t try to kill someone and then leave the victim to remember (regain memory). You’d have to finish it off.

In Rome, Kurt was on the verge of leaving Courtney and he left a note of which Gold Mountain employee Janet Billig said “Kurt insisted it was not a suicide note. He just took all of his and Courtney’s money and was going to run away and disappear.”

So, regardless that Kurt may not have made moves to change his will until after Rome, in Rome, Kurt was literally attempting to leave Courtney, which is motive, and Courtney and DeWitt had the means (Rohypnol and champagne), to hand.

Guitar Part: What do you think about the theory that Kurt didn’t have the ability to kill himself and so asked DeWitt or someone else to kill him?

Barnett: You mean that Kurt might have taken the heroin and then got someone to shoot him?

Guitar Part: Yes.

Barnett: It doesn’t make sense. If you are going to kill yourself with heroin, why would you want someone to shoot you afterwards?

Guitar Part: Well, theoretically maybe it was an accident. Kurt may have died of a heroin overdose and the person who was with him may have shot him to make it look like a suicide. It was proved there was no blood, I believe.

Barnett: There was no exit wound. (There was blood).

Guitar Part: So, can we suppose he was already dead when someone shot him?

Barnett: Why? (would someone shoot him if he was already dead?)

Guitar Part: To make it look like an accident.

Barnett: If it was an accidental overdose, why not say it was an accidental overdose? Say you’re a junkie and your friend dies of a heroin overdose, why would you go and shoot them? Even if you’re a junkie, if someone dies of an overdose in your company, you wouldn’t go and shoot them.

But, imagine if you’d tried to murder someone using Rohypnol and champagne, and you really thought you’d succeeded and that the person was dead, only to see that person recover.

If, a month later, you managed to get that person drugged/comatose and even if you thought the person was indeed dead from the drugs, maybe the stress of the last month would lead you to shoot that person to make absolutely certain that there was no way the person could recover, especially if there was a gun to hand.

From further on in the interview, Barnett:……going back to the days after the Rome incident, Courtney was obviously scared of something, which, if you’d tried to murder someone and it didn’t succeed, you’d be scared.

Joe Mama said that when he saw Kurt in the rehab (in April 1994), Kurt looked “great”, and Joe Mama was saying that Courtney was “terrified and scared.” (The actual words were “freaked and scared”).

What was she scared of?

You can’t just look at this case as the few days in April 1994, you have to look at the Rome incident, and even before that when Courtney was going on about the heroin and drugs and question (her) motives for doing that, look at how the unnamed sources were saying exactly what she was saying, the exact words. It looks like she was getting her friends to put out misinformation from the start. (See my November 1999 update and September 2000 update, section one, for more on this issue).

She didn’t fly up to Seattle to search for Kurt when he was “missing” in April 1994.

Her actions contradict her claims, on every level. They only make sense when they are viewed in the context of a failed murder attempt (by her and DeWitt) in Rome, and subsequent suspicious behaviour between her and DeWitt to finish off the job, in April 1994.

Guitar Part: What about Grant’s claims that he has more information about this case which he is holding back. Do you think it’s true?

Barnett: Grant obviously has stuff, I mean he released the recorded conversations (in December 2001). Maybe if journalists had interviewed Grant and reported what he was saying and then dug in and indicated that they were going to report this properly, Grant might well have given that information out earlier.

I’m sure he has more information, but there’s so much information available, showing that the police never did a proper investigation, showing that Courtney and DeWitt were acting very suspiciously and that it wasn’t Grant who instigated the theory. Reporters haven’t been using information which he gave out initially and building on it.

Why didn’t he release it earlier? I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s said to journalists when they’ve interviewed him. He might well have given them information that they didn’t include in their stories.

VOX’s November 1995 edition published a large article on Grant’s proposition that Kurt was murdered. Again, the journalist of this article didn’t mention that Grant had placed Courtney and DeWitt as prime suspects. In a radio show in early 1996, Grant commented on this particular article:

“….the two writers that interviewed me for the VOX magazine article, and that was basically a hatchet job, these are guys that write stories for Courtney all the time and VOX magazine is owned by NME – New Musical Express - and these were a couple of writers for the rock press that were out to discredit my work, basically.

If you didn’t sit in on the interview when they were here from England, they spent 5 or 6 hours with me and I recall the discussions. In fact I tape recorded the discussions, I had a tape recorder sitting on the desk in plain view and got their permission and I recorded our interview. And when you know what was said in the interview as opposed to what came out in the article, I could see some deliberate deception there, and I don’t hesitate to say that because there was some stuff, the way it was written, that was obviously intended to deliberately mislead the public, and those were statements about the Seattle Police Department claiming, for example, that there was a stool wedged against the door, they no longer claim that and I don’t believe these people even talked to the SPD.

They also alluded that they spoke to Rosemary Carroll, but the way the article was written, it was written very carefully and I think you can tell from the statements they made that they never spoke to Rosemary Carroll. Somebody else told them what Rosemary Carroll had to say about this and again there was nothing specific. They tried to allude that she discredited my work but there was nothing specific. What is it about what I have said that is either a lie or untrue?”

The author of this particular article was Andy Richardson, the photographer was Steve Double. The Editor of VOX at the time the article was published was Steve Sutherland.

Guitar Part: How do you think Courtney and DeWitt are coping with the pressure of the internet community?

Barnett: The (Nirvana) internet community isn’t very good. Most Nirvana fansites can go into minute detail of what songs were performed at which gigs and yet are unable to focus on information (with regards to this case). Which is something I never understood.

Guitar Part: Maybe Courtney and DeWitt will break with the pressure?

Barnett: I don’t know. Courtney Love, in the last few years seems to be having a lot of problems, which I’m sure you know.

Guitar Part: She’s in rehab.

Barnett: Supposedly. I’ve seen articles asking why she’s in this state? “She’s having a meltdown,” “what’s wrong with her?” etc.

It’s no good saying “poor Courtney, she’s having a meltdown” which is the attitude she’s getting from the mainstream media. What they have to look at is why is she having this breakdown? What has happened in the last few years that is causing her to lose it?

Guitar Part: Maybe the release of her album at the end of February is to provide a subject and distract away from Kurt’s death, so she doesn’t have to answer questions about Kurt’s death?

Barnett: The media shouldn’t give her the cheap publicity that she needs for her album. Report on her problems and the cause of her problems.

Guitar Part: Do you think that the media could discover more?

Barnett: Well, I have discovered more and I sent it to the media and they ignored it. Journalists should process information and report it fairly and accurately.

Guitar Part: Yes.

Barnett: And not only have certain journalists not done that, but they seem to be making a joke amongst themselves and with Courtney Love.

List of some e-mails and print-outs I sent:

30 June 1999 My ‘Courtney Love’s Modus Operandi’ section sent to worldnetdaily.com, Mojo magazine,Vanessa Ho of the Seattle Post Intelligencer. None of them replied. (Vanessa Ho had contributed to an article on Kurt’s death by Linda Keene and Duff Wilson which was published by the Seattle Times’s May 11 1994 edition).

4 July 1999 My ‘Courtney Love’s Modus Operandi’ section to Melody Maker. I received no response.

31 July 1999 Copies of the ‘Rome Incident’ section to [e-mail] (Boston Globe), [e-mail] and an e-mail copy to Duff Wilson of the Seattle Times.

In their book ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ Max Wallace and Ian Halperin reported:

(Duff) Wilson says he believes that the death was “probably a suicide” but he doesn’t rule out the possibility of murder, “especially because of a number of strange things surrounding the Rome incident.” (WKKC? page 108).

Because of Wilson’s above comment, and given that Wilson is an investigative reporter who had co-written an article with Linda Keene, on Kurt’s death for the Seattle Times’s May 11 1994 edition, I thought Wilson would be interested in my article on the Rome incident, but it got no response.

13 August 1999 A copy of the bulk of my work to the Editor of Mojo magazine, Mat Snow. I received no response.

13 August 1999 My ‘Unnamed Sources’ and ‘Rome Incident’ sections to John Harris, Editor of Select magazine, asking him to forward them to Select journalist, Caitlin Moran.

29 September 1999 A print out by airmail to Seattle Chief of Police, Norm Stamper. I got no response.

2 October 1999 My section ‘Courtney, after Rome’ to [e-mail]. I received no response.

Guitar Part: The media focus on Kurt’s childhood to explain his “suicide”, but perhaps the key is Courtney’s childhood to explain the murder?

Barnett: Yes! You’re right. Cross goes on about how suicidal Kurt was from a young age, just because Kurt talked about suicide, lots of people talk about suicide but nonetheless live long lives! But when Kurt’s friends and Kurt himself was saying that it was a joke, and his friends said that at the time, Kurt seemed fairly happy, that he didn’t seem suicidal, it contradicts what Cross reported.

Courtney Love’s capacity for violence, from a young age also has to be considered, but Cross doesn’t bring that up, and her violence is well documented.

Guitar Part: What do you think of Hank Harrison? Do you think it was a mistake to show him in the Kurt and Courtney documentary?

Barnett: Harrison obviously knows more about Courtney than a lot of people, especially when she was younger. But in an article in 2002 he’s still undecided, he says (paraphrase): “maybe Rome was attempted suicide, but maybe it wasn’t a real suicide attempt.” Hank Harrison hasn’t moved on from that, he seems incapable of looking at the wider picture, unable to apply what he does have to the murder “theory.”

Note: the above quote was actually from Broomfield’s film, my mistake. The exact quote by Hank Harrison of Kurt’s overdose in Rome was: “But even if he did try to kill himself, it was a fake suicide, he didn’t really - he was just trying to get attention.” Harrison made no mention of the fact that in Rolling Stone's June 2 1994 edition Janet Billig of Gold Mountain stated that Kurt left a note in Rome explaining that he was leaving, and that Kurt had stated it wasn't a suicide note.

In the April 1996 edition of High Times, Harrison said: “Nothing Kurt Cobain could do could make Courtney Love happy. And so the guy got more and more depressed. If he did kill himself, I know why!”

Six years later Harrison said similar for an article in the Daily Mail dated October 13 2002: “I blame Courtney for Kurt’s death. She killed him. I’m not saying she pulled the trigger, but I truly believe she is responsible... If she didn’t pull the trigger herself, I believe she drove him to it.”

Which shows that Harrison hasn’t taken on board evidence contrary to the “Kurt the depressed suicide candidate” story as put forth by his own daughter, and yet Harrison believes that he understands his daughter’s mind. In POV’s March 1997 edition Hank Harrison seemed to be on friendly terms with El Duce:

Back in the days when Harrison had a website with a sub-section on this case (www.arkives.com), he made the following comments on El Duce:

I printed the above from Harrison’s site in January 2000. His site no longer exists, but archive.org have some of it stored, where the above reference can be found, fourth paragraph down: web.archive.org/web/20010427054624/www.arkives.com/KC/KCForum/KCrench.html

In April 2004 Harrison stated, for Court TV chat:

www.courttv.com/talk/chat_transcripts/2004/0416love-harrison.html

To summarise:

1. Harrison's take is that Kurt's overdose in Rome may have been a suicide attempt, but it was probably a “fake” suicide attempt, a cry for “attention,” even though, at the time Harrison made this comment it was known that Kurt stated to Janet Billig that the note he left in Rome was not a suicide note.
2. Harrison believes that Courtney may, or may not, have killed Kurt.
3. Harrison believes that Courtney may, or may not, have driven Kurt to kill himself.
4. Harrison knows El Duce didn't murder Kurt, even though Il Duce told Harrison that he “did it” and Harrison believed him.

Which looks like Harrison doesn’t know what to think, can’t grasp the most basic aspects of this case (the note Kurt left in Rome wasn’t a suicide note), and can’t keep his story straight.

When Grant said he believed that Rome was attempted murder, Max Wallace and Ian Halperin just dismissed the idea because they said Grant didn’t offer evidence to support that belief.

But Max Wallace and Ian Halperin should have been digging up information which either disputed or supported Grant. As journalists they should process information and build on it, that’s what investigators/homicide detectives do. You look for information to form an opinion. You don’t just say “This man says he thinks 'this'” and then not investigate!

Broomfield could have done a lot more. If I’d made that film, I’d feel bloody ashamed of it. If I’d written Wallace and Halperin’s book, I’d have felt like an idiot by now. I’d feel foolish if I was them. At the beginning of my work (in 1999) I’d hoped that they would contact me and explain why they didn’t include it (information on DeWitt, Rome, and other issues brought up on this website) and neither of them ever did. That book wasn’t good enough.

Guitar Part: Do we know why DeWitt was in Rome? (In March 1994).

Barnett: He travelled with Courtney and was Frances’ nanny. I’ll show you the magazines that reported that DeWitt was in Rome in March 1994. (I show Select’s May 1994 edition and Rolling Stone’s June 2 1994 edition).

Guitar Part: Have you been in contact with Tom Grant?

Barnett: I’ve had a bit of contact, not much. He’s answered a couple of questions I’ve put to him which weren’t specifically regarding the case.

I consider the most important question I asked him was if he specifically named Courtney Love and Michael DeWitt as his prime suspects, back in January 1995. He said yes. I wanted to know if he was making that information available in January 1995 and he said yes.

The reason I wanted to know this is because in Kerrang’s January 28 1995 edition, they reported that Grant had done a radio show in the US about his murder “theory”, but that Grant gave no indication of who his prime suspects were.

Obviously, that’s bullnuts! Grant did indicate his suspects. I want to know why RAW magazine’s February 1 1995 edition also failed to report that Grant was literally pointing the finger at Courtney and DeWitt. Their failure to report this meant that their readers weren’t being given correct information, available at that time.

The media’s treatment of this case, their approach to Courtney Love and their treatment of Kurt, is my main interest. If journalists don’t report thoroughly, then anyone can get away with anything.

Guitar Part: What’s become of DeWitt, is he still friends with Courtney?

Barnett: I don’t know. If I was a journalist and I had a publishing company giving me expenses to investigate, I’d be doing it. But I have to work a normal job, I get no help.

Guitar Part: I’ve read they are still friends.

Barnett: I shouldn’t think they have cut off, they have to keep in touch in order to keep their stories somewhat straight with each other. Cross’ book is such a big example of the lengths that they will go to contrive to cover things up, I’m sure Cross, Courtney and DeWitt probably all got on the phone together: “You say this”, and “and that’s his alibi,” “Michael’s girlfriend/s will back it up!” etc.

But the stories in the Cross book don’t tally with the events as they were happening at the time. The existence of Cross’ book is proof that a lot of effort has gone into trying to cover it up. And that book has been promoted by most of the corporate media companies like Time Warner, who own NME (New Musical Express), which gave Cross a two page interview in their September 8 2001 edition, and Courtney an interview where she plugged the book (in their September 15 2001 edition).

Time Warner owned CNN’s Jamie Allen reviewed the book and described Cross’ work as “extensive research” !

On September 10 2000 on the official ‘News’ section of holemusic.com/kittyradio.com they published a speech by Courtney in which she said: “Charles Cross, who is writing the definitive book about Kurt.” That was almost a whole year before the book was published, which shows that Courtney was very confident that Cross wouldn’t rock the boat by asking awkward questions, but would stick to her version of the story. Maybe that’s why the news section eventually disappeared?

archive.org to the rescue again, you can check out Courtney Love’s official website’s news section for yourselves: web.archive.org/web/20001213000800/holemusic.com/news/index.html and at: web.archive.org/web/20011211171502/kittyradio.com/news/index.html

Scroll down to the September 10 2000 section of the news, then it’s the 13th paragraph down. I provide the screenshot below for proof that this news did occur and was archived on a website independent of holemusic.com.

The letter, left, was printed in the Seattle free paper The Rocket, of which Charles Cross was the editor. It’s one reader’s response to an article Cross wrote on Courtney and her band, for the Rocket’s March 10-24th 1999 edition.

Guitar Part: Do you think, with the 10th anniversary that there will be something coming out from journalists in the US?

Barnett: It would be nice if someone did report this properly. I hope you do something. You could do it, you work for a magazine, you take the responsibility and get the ball rolling!

[KnowledgeIsPower]

Guitar Part Interview, Part 2

Guitar Part: What about Kristen Pfaff?

Barnett: Kurt was leaving Courtney, and Kristen was getting out of Seattle and both her and Kurt died. Kristen seemed to be upset about Kurt’s death. When Kristen died, the medical examiner was Nikolas Hartshorne, the same guy who examined Kurt. Hartshorne was a friend of Courtney’s from years back. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reported that Hartshorne wasn’t going to comment on the cause of Kristen’s death for two weeks as he wanted to conduct toxicology tests. But why didn’t Hartshorne apply that caution when Kurt died? Hartshorne wasn’t clear on his criteria for a proper investigation. For proof of this, see scan below:

Guitar Part: Kristen’s boyfriend broke the door in to find Kristen. What kind of door was it, what kind of lock did the door have?

Barnett: I mention that on my site, I ask what kind of door and lock, but I don’t know. I can’t help you there. But Courtney claimed, in Rolling Stone’s December 1994 edition that Eric Erlandson had to be dragged away from Kristen’s body. Erlandson supposedly left the evening before she was found. At what point was Erlandson in the room having to be dragged away from Kristen’s body?

It was reported that Paul Erickson found Kristen, but it’s also been reported that Eric Erlandson found Kristen. The person who reported that has since changed it to report that Paul Erickson found the body. Now, this is a reporter that knew Eric Erlandson quite well, so how could he have got the name wrong?

Guitar Part: Who is this journalist?

Barnett: Jerry Thackray aka Everett True. He’s the journalist who thinks Rohypnol is a baby sedative! That’s the kind of idiocy that we get from journalists over here. Why did Virgin publish a book by Thackray? He admits he lies as and when it suits him.

Jerry Thackray: “I’ve told this tale in many forms before, all different and most of them were lies. I’ve never liked to be pinned down on anything,” LTT, published by Virgin in 2001, page 26. Jerry Thackray: “Rohypnol is, of course, the powerful baby sedative…..” LTT page 4.

Barnett: Thackray once wrote an article about drugs (see ‘Viewpoint’ article, below) and his attitude was like (paraphrase), ‘if you are going to talk about drugs, talk about it in context, with a mature approach to the subject..’ and yet he’s written a book on grunge music and there’s almost 300 pages and a lot is about Kurt and his drug use, but I don’t think Thackray once mentions Kurt’s drug use in context with his stomach problems. Thackray is a huge friend of Courtney’s.

Re-reading that article, Thackray seems to have ignored everything Kurt ever said about his heroin use, including that it alleviated the stomach pains he suffered from and that he didn’t like people who glamorised drugs.

In his latest book, LTT, Thackray overlooks that it was Courtney who boasted about her drug use and who was underhandedly encouraging the drug rumours that surrounded her and Kurt, right from the start of their relationship.

I recently discovered an interview with Courtney, conducted by Lisa Carver, which shows that there was a time when Kurt obviously was concerned about a “problem” which Courtney then described as her drug problem not their drug problem. This is evidence backing up the fact that Kurt’s drug use wasn’t ever as big/long term/ as Courtney and unnamed sources have tried to imply, so I've scanned the section covering this issue.

In this interview Courtney also refers to Everett True/Thackray’s role in making her a “star" !

The full interview can be found in 'Rollerderby' published by Feral House 1996.

When Thackray discovered Courtney was helping Charles R Cross write his book on Kurt, Thackray claims that he fell out with her: “We chatted for a while and then I lost my temper with her because she was helping a Seattle journalist I have no respect for, write a book on Nirvana.” (LTT page 276). And:“We finally fell out when she refused to take responsibility when I challenged her about helping Charles Cross in his Kurt Cobain book” (http://www.magnetmagazine.com/interviews/true.html).

However, Thackray’s book, LTT, is very similar to Cross’ book, Heavier Than Heaven, it seems to be an exercise in reinforcing Courtney’s “Kurt was a suicidal junkie” myth, with no less than 28 references to Kurt’s “suicide”/Kurt “killing himself”/Kurt’s “Rome suicide attempt,” etc, regardless of the mass of evidence available which contradicts her claims.

Barnett: And that’s another thing, the people in this list aren’t mentioned in Charles Cross’ book. In Cross’ book (and Jerry Thackray’s), it’s all “Kurt was on drugs; Kurt was suicidal” and the (contradictory statements of these) people in this list aren’t mentioned in his book:

“Kurt was nowhere near the junkie people paint him as”. (Courtney, Vox’s Feb 1997 edition).

Krist Novoselic: “I don’t know how much heroin Kurt was doing because I never saw him. I never saw Kurt f**ked up on heroin. I never went to his house. I saw him high a few times, but never really a f**kin mess. I never saw that. That’s just what I heard or what I assumed. He was down in LA, I’d never go down to LA. I’d never go to his house. I didn’t want to go because I was afraid of what I might see. A lot of my perspective was second hand.” (CAYA p 256).

Novoselic: “smack was just a small part of his life." (Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 14 1994).

Courtney Love on their return from Rome: “I was not a heroin addict at that time, neither was Kurt, though he was abusing it in ways hitherto unseen ever by me. Mixing it, synergising it, yet I’ve mixed it since he died and never gotten wasted like that.” (Vanity Fair June 1995 by Kevin Sessums).

“I know he was not taking drugs on that tour (In Utero, Feb 1994). He was walking around drinking Evian water and looking clean every time I saw him…” (Tony Barber, bassist for Buzzthingys Melody Maker April 16 1994 edition).

Pete Shelley vocalist and guitarist, “He seemed really clean when we were on tour…” (Melody Maker April 16 1994 edition).

“If Kurt had some kind of hardcore drug problem he must have hid it extremely well because he never did have a problem when I was in the band. . . we’d drink a lot, and Kurt, he didn’t- I mean, you can tell when people are f**ked up. You can totally tell, their attitude changes and they’re almost not even there sometimes. And there just weren’t any of those kinds of problems at all,” Chad Channing.(Eyewitness Nirvana by Borzillo p 44-45).

“To my knowledge I never saw him high. The three or four times I had long conversations with Kurt he seemed the most sober person on earth.” (Peter Buck, NME’s September 24 1994 edition).

I’ve been asked repeatedly if Kurt was on drugs while I was there. And I’ve been around people who use dope a lot, and on the one hand I know how they behave and on the other I know how deceptive they can be. And my best estimate was that, no, he wasn’t, he was being very productive. That was a period of his life where he was very focused. He was focused on making this record and he didn’t want to let the other guys down. He was committed to the task. He was as sober — and I use that adjective to mean serious — as anybody I’ve ever worked with in the studio.”(Steve Albini, MOJO May 2001).

Was it obvious he took heroin? Lenquette: No. He never looked like a junkie. He took drugs, like everyone in this business, but no, he never appeared to me like a druggie. Youri Lenquette, Loaded June 1994.

He (Kurt) was very open, very honest and seemingly very happy. He also seemed clean. I know it seems strange in the light of Kurt’s Rome overdose and I even asked photographer Mark Leialoha if he thought the same. He agreed that Kurt seemed happier and cleaner than we’d seen him or known him to be. Steffan Chirazi, commenting on his meeting with Kurt at the Omni Arena, Atlanta, November 1993 in Kerrang’s April 23 1994 edition. And:

“Kurt did not seem even mildly depressed, let alone suicidal.” And:

“The whole evening in Atlanta turned out to be one of the best nights of the year; a great show, a relaxed post-gig atmosphere, no bullnuts, just a good vibe.”

Steffan Chirazi interviewed Kurt in November 1993, resulting in an article published in Kerrang’s December 11 1993 edition, see cover below, left. Chirazi reported that at Nirvana’s November 1993 gig at the Omni Arena in Atlanta he met Kurt backstage: “Frances Bean is wandering the premises with a beaming smile for everyone. Soon Kurt will lovingly, patiently feed her some macaroni cheese dinner for a late night snack, before cuddling her and talking quietly in her ear...."I’m not going to say a d**n word about it being tough; I’m having the best time of my life!” laughs Cobain...

Odd, then, that Charles R Cross reported that in Atlanta, November 1993, Kurt was supposedly at a physical low, lying on the floor backstage, clutching his belly from stomach pain while Courtney castigated John Silva for not overseeing the food prepared by the caterers. Heavier Than Heaven page 297.

The top photo of Kurt and Frances (left) was published in Rolling Stone’s June 2 1994 edition, attributed to Kevin Mazur. It’s possible these pictures are from October 1993, when David Fricke interviewed Kurt and later commented on this meeting: “It has been a year, almost to the day, since I interviewed Kurt. At the time, he told me he was happier than he had ever been. And frankly, I believed him.” David Fricke, Rolling Stone’s December 14 1994 edition.

And journalist Gavin Edwards said similar. While Dylan Carlson and Kurt himself said he wasn’t always using drugs.

…if Kurt was using heroin while he was around me , he hid it well. In Seattle last summer (of 1993) he was alert and happy…(Gavin Edwards, June 1994 edition of Details magazine).

Guitar Part: What were your reasons for investigating this case?

Barnett: I’d read Max Wallace and Ian Halperin’s book and I picked up on information which they hadn’t. It snowballed and no one was showing interest in it. I like to dig things up, find out as much as I can about everything that I can. No one else was doing it.

Guitar Part: What do you think of the Geffen conspiracy?

Barnett: Courtney and DeWitt’s behaviour, their manipulation and calculation (creating as much mess and misinformation as possible about Kurt), she was starting that before she signed to Geffen. Hole didn’t sign to Geffen until 1992.

But Courtney was starting the drug rumours (and misperception of Kurt’s drug use) and had Kurt trapped, because she was pregnant by December 1991. When she did a gig in London in December 1991 she threw stuff out to the audience and said:

“This is heroin. I love heroin, I do it all the time. Me and my boyfriend, we do heroin all the time”.

I’ll play you the tape.

I play the audio tape and give them a copy to keep.

So Courtney was bringing up the heroin. There’s no doubt that Kurt used heroin, but you have to look at what he said his reasons for using it, were. You can’t just say “Oh, he was a junkie” as if that explains it all.

Courtney was encouraging lies and misperception of who Kurt was.

People were influenced by that, and that was before she got involved with Geffen.

Guitar Part: You're not frightened of Courtney Love?

Barnett: No

Guitar Part: You’ve had no threats?

Barnett: No. Maybe a couple of veiled threats from a guy called Andrew Amirault, but anyone who’s ever threatened me has pretty much had a nasty shock.

Andrew Amirault, aka Toby Amirault, claimed to be an investigative journalist who was supposedly campaigning to get this case reopened. His website was plugged by several major publications: MOJO and Kerrang magazines (owned by Emap), Melody Maker (owned by IPC Media), worldnetdaily.com, the Boston Globe, the latter article and Amirault’s mention in it, was reported in Max Wallace and Ian Halperin’s first book, ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ page 187. See my recently revised 29th December 1999 update for more on Amirault.

Guitar Part: Have you heard about Brad Barnett, is he related to you?

Barnett: No, he’s not related to me. Barnett is a common name!

Brad Barnett claimed to have met Kurt on April 4th 1994. At that point Grant believed Kurt was already dead/murdered. Grant left a message on my message board (scan of this is in my December 1999 update), mentioning that he had corresponded with Brad Barnett and could prove Barnett was a hoax, although he didn’t go into details.

In Max Wallace and Ian Halperin’s book 'Who Killed Kurt Cobain?' page 95, they reported on a witness (Brad Barnett) who claimed to have seen Kurt on April 4 1994.

However, it was clear to me, from the start, that Courtney Love and unnamed sources were attempting to make out that Kurt was alive after Courtney had filed the missing persons report, which she did on April 4 at around 7am, see police report below. In this report, Courtney was stressing that Kurt was possibly suicidal, had a gun and was possibly frequenting a heroin dealers house on Capitol Hill (Caitlin Moore’s). (Christopher Sandford (p 326) wrongly reported that Kurt's mother filed this report and gave the time as 9am). I believe that Kurt had been murdered by the time Courtney filed this report, and that Courtney was using details of the murder (heroin use and gun) in combination with the suggestion that Kurt was suicidal so that when Kurt’s body was discovered, the police would use her suggestions as evidence that Kurt had committed suicide. Which was why I was cautious of Brad Barnett’s story.

Guitar Part: And what do you think about Allen Wrench?

Barnett: El Duce let the name “Alan/Allen” slip in Broomfield’s film, and in Wallace and Halperin’s (first) book, they reported that a punk rocker from LA knew who the murderer was and that he was going to make it known in a book he was writing. It turned out this person was called Allen Wrench.

Now, I do believe that Eldon Hoke was offered $50,000 by Courtney to murder Kurt, Hoke passed the polygraph test, which supports his claims.

But anyone could have gone up to Hoke and, acting seriously, told him that “It was Allen” who murdered Kurt. It’s not difficult to suggest a name (and Hoke simply believed it).

When I first started researching this case, like everyone else I picked up on El Duce’s dropping the name “Alan/Allen” in Broomfield’s film. It was only when writing the ‘Unnamed Sources’ and ‘Rome’ sections that I concluded that “Alan/Allen” was a false lead.

Courtney approached El Duce in December 1993. She possibly attempted to contact him again at the end of March 1994, but a serious incident had occurred between those dates, Kurt’s overdose in Rome.

I fully believe that Courtney and DeWitt tried to murder Kurt in Rome, and if I am right, then when Kurt recovered, Courtney and DeWitt were on borrowed time, because after Rome, Kurt seemed to have lost his memory as to the events leading up to that overdose. Memory loss is a common symptom of people who have suffered Rohypnol assaults. At some point, Kurt was likely to regain his memory.

If, in March/April 1994, Courtney had successfully managed to find a replacement for El Duce to carry out the murder, then it would have been a "clean" murder, made to look like a suicide.

Not only would Courtney have been clear of the crime scene but so would DeWitt, and there would be no need for any suspicious activity between them.

In reality, Courtney and DeWitt were acting very suspiciously, DeWitt was lurking around 171 but avoiding Grant and he was making no attempt to help to find a supposedly suicidal Kurt.

Further, when Courtney discovered Ernest Barth had installed surveillance on 171, she was furious, so obviously something suspicious was occurring at that house which she was aware of/ involved in and which she didn’t want anyone to know about.

See my recently revised section on Eldon Hoke aka El Duce

In May 2000 Grant provided an update on the hoaxes surrounding this case, one of which is Allen Wrench, see scan of that update, below:

Given the fiasco that developed over El Duce passing the polygraph test and the way in which El Duce was left to face the consequences, it's possible that it was made worth his while to help create a false lead, or that someone simply told him "Alan/ Allen" did it, and El Duce simply believed them.

Guitar Part: What about the fact that the people are all junkies, strange personalities, how can we believe any of them, like Eldon Hoke, Dylan Carlson, even Courtney? They are only junkies.

Barnett: But a junkie is a person with their own motivations and behaviour.

You can say “Courtney is a junkie, DeWitt was a junkie, Dylan was a junkie, Eldon Hoke was an alcoholic, etc.” OK.

But Dylan was a junkie who was saying that Kurt wasn’t suicidal, so Dylan was giving the police very good reason to investigate Kurt’s death.

Courtney was/is a junkie who happens to be a particularly violent person and who has deliberately mislead journalists (and police) and paid people to plant a false story. So, that’s that junkie, who looks a d**n sight more suspicious than Dylan, who gave the police good reason to investigate Kurt’s death properly.

“Junkie” isn’t a fair description, it’s someone who takes drugs, but they are people who have their own motivations and behaviour regardless of whether they are on heroin/alcohol, or not.

Guitar Part: But for journalists it’s an easy conclusion to make.

Barnett: Well, don’t take the easy route. Easy is not worth it!

Guitar Part: I was surprised in Broomfield’s film that Carlson stated that he didn’t know Kurt and Courtney were going to divorce.

Barnett: Dylan’s in a difficult situation. It’s easy to pinpoint Dylan and say he’s suspicious because he said he didn’t believe they were getting a divorce, but while the police aren’t taking this case seriously, Dylan has no protection.

If your best friend was found dead and you knew they weren’t suicidal, but the police were saying that he was suicidal and the media were saying he was suicidal, but you went to the police and said that he wasn’t suicidal, and if the police then told you to go away, at some point you’d think that “I’m one of the few people that are giving reason to doubt this suicide and I’d better shut up and be careful about what I say.”

Dylan gave the police good reason to investigate Kurt’s death properly. No one would do that if they had been involved in a murder plot or if they had murdered someone.

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl have kept their mouths shut. Novoselic kept quiet for years. There’s only one telling reference of his, regarding Kurt and April 1994: “Smack was just a small part of his life. I don’t understand what happened, I haven’t worked it out.” (Seattle Post Intelligencer April 14 1994).

But in Charles R Cross’ book (Heavier Than Heaven, pages 320 & 325), Novoselic has changed his story, he’s saying stuff like: “Kurt was using a lot of drugs and I knew he was going to kill himself, knew I’d never see him alive again.” That doesn’t tally with what he was saying back in April 1994. He’s changed his story.

For an article in Spin magazine by Jim DeRogatis (June 2002) Krist Novoselic said “I’m ready to

do deals with Courtney, I’m easy,” so Novoselic isn’t going to come out and speak about this case, he wants to make the deal, he wants the money and that’s spelt out in that Spin magazine.

Guitar Part: Perhaps the murder was premeditated but not for a specific time or place?

Barnett: All the information shows that Courtney was planning this and that she was ensuring that Kurt was written off as a “suicidal junkie” and when you look at people who have murdered, they are very manipulative and get things to work for them, they set up the right environment.

Barnett: Do you believe Courtney was planning this murder?

Guitar Part: Yes!

Guitar Part: I was convinced by her father, which is odd, but I believe the key to it is Courtney’s personality. When I heard her father talking about her childhood and when we did some research, I really felt she had the capacity and motivation.

Barnett: Yes, although I’d rather not use information that comes from Hank Harrison, he can give pointers, but you can use information obtained independently of him to come to that conclusion.

Like, when Wallace and Halperin reported (in their first book) that Grant believed Rome was an attempted murder, their response was that Grant offered nothing to support that idea, well, you can apply that to anyone!

In my November 1999 update I quoted the poem Harrison attributed to Courtney, 'Future Date,' as an example of Courtney's manipulative and calculating psychology, but I've also included several other examples, obtained independently of Harrison. (You can see Harrison reading 'Future Date' in Nick Broomfield’s film 'Kurt and Courtney').

Guitar Part: Before we began to work on this case I didn’t suspect (that Kurt had been murdered).

Barnett: I didn’t either! In 1998 I thought Kurt had committed suicide and now I’m totally convinced that Kurt was murdered.

Guitar Part: Yes, for us, we followed the media.

Barnett: The media has bombarded their readers with misinformation, so that the minute “murder” is mentioned, it just sounds like another conspiracy. But there is so much evidence of murder. I mean, when I read the MOJO May 1998 article, it was done in a jokey way, badly written. Then when I read W & H’s book I thought the argument was a bit stronger, and then I started looking into it and my belief got stronger.

The fact that journalists I sent my work to ignored it, but continued to go along with the “suicide” verdict, well, a lot of journalists are friends of Courtney’s. You probably are!

Guitar Part: No!

Guitar Part: I don’t know what I’d ask Courtney if I had the chance. First and foremost we are music journalists, but now we have worked on this case, it would be difficult to see her purely in terms of music.

Barnett: Well, she’s getting publicity for her new album and there are articles on its release, and I wonder what is going through the minds of the journalists that write them? How can they ignore everything and just talk about music?

Guitar Part: Probably most journalists are our age and have grown up with the media manipulation (misinformation). I remember when I saw Broomfield’s film ‘Kurt and Courtney’ and I didn’t believe it was serious. For me it seemed like somebody else who was trying to make money. It’s easier to think that.

Barnett: People are making money from Kurt all the time, like Steve Sutherland said: “Kurt sells issues.”

There’s an article by Steve Sutherland in 1993 and his attitude to Kurt was that Kurt was just a junkie, whining about his problems, and that if Kurt didn’t want the fame, he should shut up and get out of the music industry.

But that’s exactly what Kurt was trying to do! (And he was on the verge of leaving Courtney, seeking a divorce and changing his will to exclude her).

But after Kurt died, Sutherland ignored those facts and went along with Courtney.

In an article for NME’s November 12th 1994 edition, this guy from The Black Crowes, Chris Robinson, went into Courtney’s behaviour (after Kurt died), he found it offensive, and the journalist that interviewed him, Steve Sutherland, then defended Courtney, and that’s just typical.

It shows the attitude of journalists towards Kurt when he was alive. The media published so many stupid little stories; “Kurt died in a car crash,” “Kurt won’t be performing at Reading,” “the band have split up,” etc.

It got fed to people and people got tired of it. Kurt himself got sick of it. He said he was constantly trying to put the record straight, but constantly journalists misreported him or used information he gave, out of context.

Guitar Part: The problem is that some of the media manipulate peoples perceptions, saying things like “Kurt was a coward to commit suicide and leave his daughter.” I’m surprised that with all the TV shows in the United States that no show has done an investigation on this case?

Barnett: Someone e-mailed me the other day and joked about the show ‘Crime Scene Investigation’ and the lengths they go to, to find the truth.

The person who e-mailed me was expressing contempt between real life crime that is treated so poorly and a fictional series which is so much more serious and competent.

For the 10th anniversary of Kurt’s death, Court TV wheeled out Hank Harrison.

Time Warner own 50% of Court TV.

If real life forensic teams want to apply their knowledge, they can. If they don’t want to, they won’t.

END
Back to Frances Barnett's In Defence Main

[KnowledgeIsPower]

Interview January 12 2004
This section uploaded 2nd July 2004.

In December 2003 I received an e-mail from Andrew Wilkie of BBC Radio 2. He requested an interview for a programme which was to be aired in April to mark the 10th anniversary of Kurt’s death.

I called him to arrange a time for the interview, some of the questions in that call:

Wilkie: I’d like you to be the person who puts forward the Kurt was murdered side of the story and want you to tell me how you got interested in the case and if you were a big fan of his when he was still alive, and what your story is, really.

Barnett: Will you be asking any specific questions, have you done any research?

Wilkie: I’ll probably put together a list of questions which I’ll e-mail you in advance so you can have time to think about what you’re going to say…….I’m trying to get in touch with Tom Grant at the moment, I e-mailed him at that address, it says “I’ll read all your e-mails but I don’t know if I’ll be able to reply to them.” I don’t know how often the inbox gets checked.

Barnett: I haven’t got a clue.

Wilkie: Have you ever had any dealings with him at all?

Barnett: I’ve had minimal amount, not much. I try to keep my work independent and go my way, asking myself questions and trying to find answers, take it the way I think it needs to go.

Wilkie: At what stage did you become interested in this story? Were you a fan at the time? I don’t even know how old you are!

Barnett: I’m over 40 (laughs). (Born 1961).

Wilkie: What was it about the whole thing that attracted you to it?

Barnett: I read Wallace and Halperin’s book and started digging up stuff that they hadn’t included, which I thought was important information and I couldn’t understand why it hadn’t been included (in their book).

Wilkie: Where did you get it from?

Barnett: It’s on my website, I provide all the sources. I noticed patterns of misinformation and ignoring of certain information, so I sent it to journalists, none of them picked it up. That seems totally unacceptable to me, because that’s their job and I thought that if they weren’t going to report it, then I would, which is why my website started.

Wilkie: As far as you know, was there anyone who was digging about for this information before you were?

Barnett: No. If they were, they weren’t reporting it anywhere. Not in magazines or newspapers, it wasn’t being reported on the internet. It’s important information and you can’t have nine years of reporting from the mainsteam media and have them miss out relevant information and miscontextualising information, which is what’s been happening. The media’s there to report and it hasn’t been doing that.

Wilkie: Why do you think that’s happened?

Barnett: Well, there’s big money interests, advertising, pressure, probably, from various sectors, various individuals don’t want it known. Loads of people are making a lot of money out of Kurt’s murder, who want it kept quiet. They’ve been getting away with it for too long, ignoring it, and it can’t continue, and I’m determined to do whatever I can to bring this to peoples attention.

Wilkie: What sort of success have you had? Have the Seattle police communicated with you?

Barnett: No. I've concluded that while they can keep it quiet, the media and the Seattle police will do just that.

Wilkie: I’ve been reading that (Charles R Cross) book and I’ve seen the Broomfield documentary as well and of course the two stories are completely different. Which bits in the biography are you not happy with?

Barnett: Cross is on chummy terms with Courtney and has been for years, he doesn’t bring up relevant information, which is what I expect (from him). To anyone with any common sense, that’s biased reporting in favour of Courtney Love.

And that book is being promoted by all the big publishing companies, but what’s this silence on other information that’s more verifiable than stuff Cross has brought up? Courtney was plugging that book before it was ever published, she was desperate for that book to come out.

Wilkie: Yes, it’s very obvious it was authorised, beyond any doubt.

Wilkie: What is it about this case in particular that fascinates you so much?

Barnett: I like Kurt’s music, although it’s not my favourite band and I don’t like the other two members at all. I think Kurt deserves better treatment than he got, he’s been totally mistreated by the media, not only since his death, but even before that. I think he deserves better….and like you say, forensics can do so much and you see programmes where they go to the ends of the earth to find the answers to someone’s death, and yet with Kurt, he’s not been given that, and he deserves that.

Wilkie: At the end of Cross's book, he says quite clearly that it took the police 40 days and 500 interviews to come to the conclusion (of "suicide"). So what's that all about?

Barnett: Right from the start they were looking at this as a suicide, and they were probably using the fact that Kurt’s own wife was saying he was suicidal as information to go on. She’s the last person you'd want to take information from, as fact. If you are going to use information from them, you have to question it every step of the way, and they didn't.

Wilkie: That’s what you're doing.

Barnett: Yes

Wilkie: Great stuff!

Wilkie and I then arranged a date for the interview and on January 12 2004 I went to the BBC Radio 2 building. Here’s a transcript of some of it:

Wilkie: I’m not convinced that Courtney Love and Hole is a big enough fish for it to be worth their (the media/journalists) while to purposefully avoid bad mouthing her. I’m not convinced by that. I think if the boot was on the other foot, for example, if it was Kurt Cobain who had survived and the suspicion was on him then I would have thought that, yes, he was certainly a big enough star for that argument to work. Why it should be, then, I’m not entirely sure. I’m really not sure.

Barnett: But if you look at the attitude that, if you take one particular journalist, Jerry Thackray, and he was always really supportive of Courtney right from the start and he was always taking her side.

When you read joint interviews where he interviews Kurt and Courtney, you’ll see him going with her and you’ll see a kind of tension between him and Kurt, and the fact that Kurt tried to explain his drug use to Jerry Thackray for the articles that he wrote, and that Thackray continued with Courtney to try and play on the drug hysteria, rather than taking it as a serious issue, if he was doing that when Kurt was alive then obviously he’s going to take Courtney’s part when these allegations came forward. Because that’s what he was doing when Kurt was alive.

Wilkie: Yeah.

Barnett: And so they (journalists) are stuck in that trap.

I suggest that I start off with a summary of Grant’s initial murder allegations and what lead him to form those conclusions.

Barnett: In January 1995 Tom Grant, the investigator hired by Courtney Love in April 1994 made public his belief that Kurt had been murdered and that Courtney Love and her friend, Michael DeWitt were the prime suspects. Michael DeWitt, also known as Cali, was a longtime friend of Courtney’s and in 1993 he was employed by Kurt and Courtney as a nanny for their daughter, Frances.

Grant was initially encouraged to investigate Kurt’s death by the promptings of Courtney’s entertainment lawyer, Rosemary Carroll, who, from as early as April 13 1994 had serious concern that Courtney was possibly involved in Kurt’s death. Carroll was adamant that Kurt wasn’t suicidal and she also informed Grant that Kurt had called her, after the incident in Rome where Kurt had suffered a near fatal overdose, that he hadn’t completed his will and that he wanted Courtney taken out of it.

When Grant got a copy of the so called “suicide” note, he showed it to Carroll and she was very disturbed that Courtney’s writing was similar to that writing in the so called “suicide” note.

So Grant, over a period of about eight months, developed and investigated further and concluded that Kurt had been murdered and he had been encouraged, during this time, and helped by Courtney’s entertainment lawyer, Rosemary Carroll.

Wilkie: Just to get that clear, Grant’s evidence is, on the one hand, the fact that it’s disputed that Kurt was suicidal and that also, is there not evidence that he wasn’t the only person in the room and that it was to do with the position of the chair in relation to the door?

Barnett: In the greenhouse?

Wilkie: Yeah

Barnett: When the police reported this they were making out that the room was barricaded from one set of windows, which purely lead to a balcony, so it wasn’t an exit, anyway, and that the exit door had been locked and therefore (implying) that Kurt would have been in that room on his own.

But it wasn’t barricaded, there was nothing propping against the doors at the balcony end of the greenhouse. The lock on the exit door was of the type that, when you shut it, it locks, which I assume is like Yale locks, you don’t have to double-lock it with a key. So the fact is, the police were trying to make out that Kurt had shut himself in the room and that no one could have had access to him. But anyone could have been in that room, and when they pulled the door shut, it locked.

Wilkie: And the problem then, is that the Seattle police, in a very short space of time, concluded that it was a suicide.

Barnett: Yes, I’ve got reports here which show that they were calling it a suicide on the crime scene, where Kurt died, at 9.50am, which was about an hour after they arrived. By about midday a spokeswoman for the SPD was saying that a suicide note had been found. Well, they’d done no tests whatsoever at that point.

So they were treating it right from the start as if it was a suicide. And it was reported that it was a suicide, the Seattle Times April 8, the day Kurt was found, said that there was a “single page suicide note” next to the body. That was the overall impression that was being given, right from the start.

Wilkie: The question over the suicide note is that there is a section at the top which is Kurt’s handwriting, but then there is a section where the handwriting changes. What should we infer from that?

Barnett: The last four lines of the so called “suicide” note is completely different writing, different style, different spacing.

Grant believed that someone else had written that section of the note and that’s the only section of the note that could look like it was with suicidal intent. (On page 112 of Wallace and Halperin’s book 'Who Killed Kurt Cobain?' they quote Grant: "However, anybody reading those last four lines would automatically assume that it was a suicide note. The question is, did Kurt really write them, or were they added later?")

Rosemary Carroll, when she saw this note, called Grant up, quite disturbed, asking him if he would go to her and have a look at Courtney’s writing in reference to this so called “suicide” note.

So Courtney’s own entertainment lawyer, who knew Kurt quite well and who didn’t believe Kurt was suicidal, had strong suspicions that Courtney had a part in writing that note and also the terminology in that note she said was more the kind of terminology Courtney would use, rather than Kurt.

Wilkie: Do you want to explain what the situation is with the will? There’s a question that Kurt was about to write Courtney out of the will.

Barnett: I think that after he returned from Rome he called Rosemary Carroll up, saying that he was writing a new will in which he wanted Courtney to be taken out of it, but that he hadn’t signed the will. That’s all I know about it.

So after the Rome incident, where Kurt suffered an overdose of Rohypnol and champagne, Kurt was showing signs of having Courtney Love written out of his will and also that he was intending to get a divorce. He died before he could sign the will and get a divorce and leave her.

Grant released recorded conversations with this entertainment lawyer and Courtney Love, and Courtney is clearly on those tapes telling Grant that Kurt was leaving her and that he wanted a divorce.

Now, this is on tape and it’s coming from Grant, but it’s never been brought up in books and coverage on this case. The fact that these tapes exist I don’t think has been mentioned in any mainstream music magazine. How can you ignore that kind of information? You can’t”

Wilkie: Sticking with the mainstream music press, every interview or report that you’ll ever read about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain will mention at some point that he was quite a heavy heroin user. You claim that he’d actually kicked the habit by the time Nirvana were disintegrating and by April 1994.

Barnett: There are witnesses stating that Kurt was clean during his tour in February 1994 and these witnesses directly contradict information that has been given to various authors which claim that Kurt was getting a bigger heroin habit in that time period. So you have to wonder why they (journalists) were being given that information and yet there are people who were saying that Kurt was clean as far as they were concerned, Kurt was clean during that tour (Feb 1994):

Pete Shelley, the vocalist and guitarist who toured with Kurt in February 1994, said of Kurt : “He seemed really clean when we were on tour.”

Tony Barber: “I know Kurt was not taking drugs on that tour, he was walking around drinking Evian water and looking clean every time I saw him.”

The photographer, Youri Lenquette who photographed Kurt in Feb 1994, when he was asked if he thought it was obvious that Kurt took heroin, Lenquette replied:

“No, he never looked like a junkie. He took drugs like everyone in the business, but no, he never appeared to me like a druggie”.

So you can’t ignore information that’s coming from them. You have to question why these journalists are trying to make out that he was such a heavy drug user when there’s people who say that he wasn’t.

Wilkie: Why do you think that journalists like to chew up that story?

Barnett: Well, it means that they don’t have to ask any questions that differ from the official “Kurt was a junkie, he was suicidal and that’s what it was building up to, and he committed suicide, fullstop."

Before the death they were calling him “Kurt “just say no” Cobain” because he was known not to be taking part in the drug taking and drinking. He was being reported as clean.

Another journalist, Jerry Thackray, when Kurt had the overdose in Rome, was saying that as far as he knew, when he last saw Kurt in December 1993, that Kurt had looked cleaner and cut down on his drug use quite a lot, and he was saying that after the Rome incident.

So he should have been asking himself: well, if I perceived Kurt to be cleaner than he had been in the past and that, as far as I knew he wasn’t drinking and taking the drugs that he had been taking (in the past), and these people from these bands say that Kurt was clean when they were seeing him, why not start asking questions as to why Kurt suffered that overdose in Rome in the first place?

Because that’s an important thing to do with Kurt’s death, that he suffered an overdose of Rohypnol and champagne shortly after Courtney Love joined him in Rome and he nearly died from that and there’s a whole lot of suspicious things going around with regards to that incident, too. You have to take that into consideration because Grant believed that that was an attempt by Courtney to murder Kurt.

Wilkie: Let me put a possible sequence of events forward then: that Kurt had cleaned up his act in the early part of 1994, he was keen to kick his habit which it seemed to me to have been fairly out of control at times. Then in April he relapsed and because the toxicology report from the death said he had something like three times the lethal amount of heroin in his body. Grant says that’s impossible because if he has all that heroin in his body….

Barnett: …would have been immediately incapacitated?

Wilkie: Yes. So what I don’t understand about this is how he had three times the lethal dose of heroin put in their body without their consent?

Barnett: Well, if he was with someone that supplied him, talked him into having a shot of heroin that was purer than he believed, then it wouldn’t be difficult to render him unconscious. I really don’t know how that amount of heroin could have got into his body, the proposition that he shot that amount up and then put a gun to his head, isn’t possible. And Grant did believe, and I think in his manual said that if you’re going to take drugs you have to be very careful about who your friends are, because he considered that someone managed to talk Kurt into taking the drugs and that it’s quite possible that he had purer heroin than Kurt would have known about.

Wilkie: OK. When you first became interested in this case, what was it that prompted you to take it further?

Barnett: I’d read an article in Mojo’s May 1998 magazine about the possibility that Kurt had been murdered. The article wasn’t particularly written very well, it was a bit jokey in the way it was written. But it did mention two authors, Max Wallace and Ian Halperin who had written a book on the subject. It’s when I was reading that that Grant in that book was given the opportunity to explain why he came to the conclusion that Kurt had been murdered. He was also specific in claiming that Courtney Love and Michael DeWitt were the prime suspects.

Wallace and Halperin did report that, but they asked why Grant should suspect Michael DeWitt? And said that Grant offered nothing to support his suggestion. And so I read the book and old articles on things that were happening at the time when Kurt was alive and I noticed that, where Grant had claimed that he believed that the Rome incident was a murder attempt, Max Wallace had said that although Grant claims this, he offers no evidence to support that. And reading old articles of around March/April 1994 when this incident was written about, it became clear that Michael DeWitt was actually with Courtney in Rome at the time of that incident.

Before Courtney flew to Rome she was interviewed by a couple of journalists in London, which is where she was before she went to Rome. In one interview she was talking about her habit of combining Rohypnol with champagne, as a practice of hers when she used drugs. In another interview by a journalist from Select magazine the journalist reported that there was a box of Rohypnol on the hotel table when he was interviewing her.

So the day before she went to Rome she was talking of her use of combining Rohypnol and champagne and she also had that drug with her. Then she went, with DeWitt to Rome and something happened there, there was an argument between Courtney and Kurt and within hours of that Kurt was in hospital, in a coma, from an overdose of Rohypnol and champagne.

In context with other things that had been reported, that Kurt left a note in the hotel (saying that he was leaving Courtney, running away), you have to wonder how did Kurt came to take an overdose of those drugs and drink? He was known not to be using drugs and drinking at that time. Rohypnol is a notorious drug in date rape cases, it isn’t difficult to administer that drug to a person without their knowledge, it has not taste, smell or colour. So if Kurt was leaving her, in Rome, and there’s evidence to suggest that he was, then maybe she administered that to stop him without his knowledge.

Wilkie: And there’s some discrepancy with the timing?

Barnett: Yes. It’s been written in Poppy Brite’s book that Courtney woke up at four in the morning to find Kurt unconscious. Well, we know the ambulance wasn’t called until about 6.30 in the morning. So that’s a big question, if Kurt was unconscious at 4am, why did it take 2.5 hours to call the ambulance?

Wilkie: Is Poppy Brite’s book an authorized biography of Courtney Love? Is that Courtney as told by her?

Barnett: Courtney was helping Brite and Courtney put Brite in touch with friends that could give Brite information. Courtney has, in almost every book, been in contact with the authors.

In Melissa Rossi’s biography on Courtney, Courtney was quite often phoning Rossi and pointing her in directions that she wanted Rossi to investigate. And it looks like Courtney was trying to get Rossi to take up false alibis and leads that Courtney herself was providing.

With Brite, again, Courtney called Brite and Brite wrote the book. With the Cross book, Courtney would e-mail him information which he reported in that book (HTH) without any attempt to question Courtney Love.

Wilkie: Have you ever had any contact with Courtney Love?

Barnett: No

Wilkie: Do you have any indication of whether she’s aware of your website then, all the investigation that you’ve been doing?

Barnett: Well, I think that information that I’ve brought up on my website, which has never been brought up within the context of Grant’s claims that Kurt was murdered, has affected her, because I do see Charles Cross’s book as an attempt to explain certain issues that I have brought up.

From the phone conversation with Wilkie, prior to this interview: I’m sure her deterioration in the last four years coincides with certain information that I’ve brought up, very publicly, without compromise, something she’s not used to at all. I mean, even Max Wallace, Halperin, Broomfield, they provided a bit of information, it helped, but they didn’t actually piece stuff together. So that’s what I’ve tried to do on my website.

It was never reported that Courtney had Eric Erlandson sent to Seattle back in April 1994 to look for Kurt. It wasn’t in the police reports. In the report it was mentioned that Courtney stated that she sent Grant up to Seattle to look for Kurt on April 6th, and yet Cross is claiming that she sent Erlandson up on the 5th of April. They contradict. That was never mentioned in the police report and I think that it was an attempt to make out that Courtney was so concerned that she sent Erlandson up there. But it clearly wasn’t true.

Wilkie: She herself didn’t go up there (to Seattle to look for Kurt) at all?

Barnett: She didn’t go up there. No.

Wilkie: In these days of the internet it seems that there’s so much information shared that in former times was kept in the files of journalists and the police. How has your use of the internet helped you gather information and to put information out? How do you go about that?

Barnett: I don’t really use the internet to gather information. I look at old articles which were written at the time, police reports which obviously were written at the time, and then I look at how events which have been written about in biographies such as Rossi, Brite and Cross are a total contradiction to information which was being put out at the time, and how certain information has been ignored and other bits have been completely changed. But I don’t use the internet for research, I prefer to view original articles.

Wilkie: And how do you go about getting police documents?

Barnett: I do actually use the smoking gun website to look at the reports with regards to Kurt. Note: after this interview I obtained copies of all the police reports that the Seattle police department are willing to release. There are several reports on the inventory supplied by the SPD which they will not release. See my recently updated Eldon Hoke aka El Duce section.

Wilkie: For anyone that doesn’t know the smoking gun website, the reports are all scanned in as they appear.

Barnett: They are actual copies police reports, but you can get copies, the police will provide them.

Wilkie: 99 percent of people, if they read the Mojo story (May 1998), even if they seriously thought there’s something fishy going on, most people wouldn’t have dedicated so much time as you have and collected so much information. Why? What is it about this case that leads you to specifically zoom in on this case?

Barnett: It was mainly that Wallace and Halperin in their book were saying that Grant had Michael DeWitt as a prime suspect and that Grant believed that the Rome incident was an attempted murder, and W & H mentioned that, but then they said: but he offers nothing to support this.

Well, the fact is that Max Wallace and Ian Halperin didn’t even mention that DeWitt had been in Rome. And when you start to look at the Rome incident as attempted murder, things begin to go into place. So I thought that was quite important. Why had they missed that out?

And when I looked at the Rome incident, it did seem to be quite possible that had been a murder attempt. So, building on from the questions Wallace and Halperin asked in their book is how my website developed. And I was sending that information to journalists and I was getting no reply.

Wilkie: So did this almost start as an accident?

Barnett: It did snowball into what my site has become now, because the reporting on this case has always been very biased, it’s been either an attempt to downplay what Grant was saying, or a total ignoring of information that Grant has provided or it’s been misreporting of events that were happening at the time. And that, to me, isn’t acceptable, and someone had to report this with some kind of responsibility and looking for the truth, rather than just going along with the accepted verdict.

Wilkie: And tell us about your website and just how much information is on there? You’ve got all this paperwork and all these quotes and reports from the police. How much stuff have you got?

Barnett: I do consider that there’s quite a lot of original material that has been brought up on my website that hasn’t been brought up by anyone who has ever written, other than Grant, about this murder case. Information that, when you take everything into consideration and you have that information to hand, supports Grant’s claims. The fact that W & H didn’t mention that DeWitt had been in Rome was quite important, and I brought that up. And then I began to focus on Michael DeWitt because I noticed that references to him had been lost over the years. It was like he had been written out.

Wilkie: What do you know of his history before all this?

Barnett: All I know is that he was a friend of Courtney’s from years before he ever met Kurt, and between Courtney and Michael DeWitt they were acting very suspiciously in the days leading up to and after Kurt was found dead. And you cannot explain their suspicious behaviour if you believe that Kurt committed suicide, because their behaviour isn’t consistent with him committing suicide. They were up to things that they wouldn’t have been up to, unless it was a murder.

Wilkie: How much time do you spend on this whole project?

Barnett: I used to spend a lot more time on it than I do now because I consider that most of the work I have on my site shows that Courtney Love and Michael DeWitt were acting suspiciously. It does support Grant’s claims and it shows the way in which the media and journalists have been manipulated by Courtney directly, in that she would be phoning them up and giving suggestions which they followed and went along with, and that was a blatant turn off from what Grant was saying.

You have to take all that into consideration because it’s all part of Courtney Love’s attempts to cover her tracks.

Wilkie: Were you a Nirvana fan?

Barnett: No. I wasn’t into Nirvana at the time. I didn’t get into their music until 1996.

Wilkie: So when you first started would you say that it was more or less a clean slate?

Barnett: When I first started, when I read the Mojo article, I thought Kurt had committed suicide. I didn’t change my mind when I read that article, it wasn’t until I read W & H’s book and realized that Grant was very able to back up what he was saying and prove his claims that Rosemary Carroll was a main instigator in believing that Kurt had been murdered, that I began to take things seriously.

And the fact that Grant can prove this, I think you have to listen to what he was saying and at the same time it’s not acceptable that the mainstream media haven’t reported on these tapes, because they’ve been saying for years: Kurt loved Courtney but he just couldn’t cope with his depression and that’s why he committed suicide. But he was on the verge of leaving her, having her written out of his will. And then suddenly, he was dead, and none of his friends thought he was suicidal, he stated that he wasn’t suicidal, and you can’t ignore all that and that’s what has happened and that’s not fair.

Wilkie: You’ve obviously done so much research on this that you must almost feel like you kind of knew Kurt Cobain really quite well, just from the amount of information that you’ve read about him and the amount of conversations you must have had about him?

Barnett: Well, if you read interviews of him at the time and if you see bootleg recordings, a different Kurt comes across than the Kurt that you find in the Charles Cross book.

When Kurt was alive he was fed up with a lot of the drug rumours and hysteria that followed him around and he spent a lot of time in interviews trying to explain that, yes, he used heroin and he used it to deal with the stomach problem that he had. And that stomach problem was well documented.

So give Kurt a fair hearing of what he was saying at the time with regards to his drug use. You cannot just say that he was a junkie, that he was suicidal, when there is so much evidence contrary to that picture that has been painted. And that picture that’s been painted of him being a suicidal junkie comes from Courtney Love.

Wilkie: Have you presented all this information to the authorities in America as well as to the press?

Barnett: I sent quite a lot of my work to the Seattle police department in September 1999. They never replied. It’s clear that they have no intention of having this case reopened. They reached this verdict (“suicide”) within an hour or so of finding Kurt’s body. They are blatantly ignoring important information. Cross claims that they did 200 hours of interviews with Kurt’s friends and that they did a thorough investigation, but the fact of the matter is, they didn’t.

They were reporting that Kurt was barricaded in a room, that’s not true. Grant, within a week of Kurt’s body being found, was voicing his suspicion to Detective Sgt Cameron of the Seattle homicide department that there was something wrong and Cameron wasn’t willing to listen to what Grant was saying.

Wilkie: Did this become a full time job when you first started it, it must have?

Barnett: No. I have a job. I have to go to work. This is stuff that I do in my spare time.…. Initially it did take a lot of time and now it’s just a matter of every time I read an old article I might find something new in there that I hadn’t thought of before, that puts more of the right picture across.

Wilkie: Is there anything that you want to say that I’ve not covered in this?

Barnett: I think that the whole way that this case has been treated in the media is totally unfair. It’s irresponsible.

But when you look at the way Kurt was being treated by the media and various journalists when he was alive, they were treating him unfairly in that respect too.

Kurt, when he was alive was plagued by all the drug innuendo and rumours and Kurt took the time to explain why he used heroin. He wasn’t using it all the time and there are many people that state that he wasn’t using it all the time.

You have to look at why Courtney Love was telling people that she and her boyfriend used heroin all the time, shortly after she got pregnant with Frances.

I have her on tape at a gig throwing what look to be packets of sweets or something out to the audience saying:

“This is heroin, I love heroin, I do it all the time. Me and my boyfriend, we do heroin all the time”.

That was in December 1991 when she was pregnant.

I offer to play Wilkie a tape of this comment by Courtney Love. He said that he’d like to record it from the actual video that it comes from and that he’d e-mail me and arrange to collect it, record it and return the video back to me. After I left the studio, I never heard from him again. He never used any of this interview.

Press play to hear it for yourselves.

She then did the Vanity Fair article and the interviewer, Lynn Hirschberg, wrote that Courtney had knowingly taken heroin after she had found out she was pregnant. That particular article caused a lot of problems for Kurt and Courtney. Courtney Love denied that she ever said that to Hirschberg, she said that she was misquoted, that she didn’t say that and that she was reported out of context. Hirschberg’s reply to that was, I recorded the interview, I have it on tape.

Well, if Courtney Love is on tape bragging about using heroin at a gig in 1991, it isn’t inconceivable that she wouldn’t have been saying that to Lynne Hirschberg.

Kurt and Courtney then lost custody of their daughter and when they got custody of Frances back, in November 1992 Courtney was phoning another journalist (Rossi) and starting off the whole drug thing again: “Kurt is off his head on heroin” and “I’ve lost my husband to drugs”.

When you see pictures of Kurt in 1993 a lot of the time he looks fairly normal and clean and there are people to back that up.

So you have to wonder why Courtney Love was doing that, because it looks to me like an underhanded attempt to bring about all that misinformation and misperception of how they used drugs and why. You have to ask why she was doing that.

The fact that a lot of misinformation about Kurt and the events leading up to his death came from Courtney Love, she was doing similar there.

So you have to look at the media’s treatment of Kurt when he was alive.

Their inability to question anything Courtney Love has done, and yet they are willing to accept any misinformation that comes their way, even though there’s evidence contrary to that, to me is unacceptable.

Wilkie: Do you think it’s bravado that lead Courtney to give all these quotes and interviews about how much drug using, in an attempt to sort of live up to the rock and roll…it’s often been mentioned that Kurt and Courtney Love bears an uncanny resemblance to Nancy Spungen and everyone knows that story.

Barnett: Well, Courtney was encouraging that. She could say that she was joking about it, but it’s not a joke when your daughter’s custody is lost. It’s not a joke when your husband is perceived to be an out and out drug addict when he’s not. You can’t do that to a person.

Would you want to be married to someone who was telling journalists that you were taking drugs all the time? Would you want to be married to someone who was telling another journalist that she knowingly took heroin after she found out she was pregnant? Would you want to be married to someone who, within a short while of getting custody of your daughter back was telling another journalist that you were ‘lost to drugs’ and off your head on heroin? Would you want to be married to someone like that?

That isn’t a joke, that’s serious. They lost custody of their daughter for that. Would you want to be married to that? Would you?

Wilkie: Maybe I am! (laughs).

Barnett: Who in their right mind would want to be married to someone who was causing that amount of trouble? And that was serious trouble and it’s not a joke.

And the fact that she did that to him when he was alive and the fact that she has put out so much misinformation and has had unnamed sources that are giving that (mis)information out, and the fact that journalists are using that (mis)information as fact, isn’t right.

I just want to say that Christopher Sandford, in his book on Kurt mentions the discrepancies between the accounts of the so called official, that's named sources, friends of Kurt’s, Dylan Carlson, Mark Lanegan and even Novoselic, their accounts differ completely from the unnamed sources.

Sandford stated in his book that: “Where sources asked for anonymity, usually citing friendship with Cobain’s widow, every effort was made to persuade them to go on the record. Where this was not possible I have used the phrase ‘a witness’ or ‘a colleague’ as appropriate.

So Sandford recognized the discrepancies there and wrote about the differences between named and unnamed sources, and the fact that the unnamed sources were usually friends of Courtney’s implies that Courtney was having stories put out that were false. And Sandford did that, and Melissa Rossi (Courtney's biographer) fell for the false leads, and none of these reporters have shown any integrity in trying to discern what is the truth and what is lies and where those lies come from. And when you trace back those lies to their original source you find Courtney Love.

And nine years of that begins to look like she’s been trying to cover her tracks, and that supports Grant’s claims that Kurt was murdered and that Courtney Love and Michael DeWitt were the prime suspects.

Wilkie: Do you think you are any closer to getting any action on this?

Barnett: No. My attitude is that while people aren’t informed, while people are being mislead through the media, then the Seattle police are sitting easy and they aren’t going to do anything.

The media have had nine years to report this case properly and they blatantly haven’t. So my attitude is, if the media aren’t going to report it the police are happy and Courtney is happy. So the thing to do is to tackle the media, challenge the media’s reluctance to cover this case with integrity.

Wilkie: OK.

Barnett: Which is why I put out the flyers.

Wilkie: Oh, yes, tell us about the flyers. Available on your website for people to print out are a number of flyers in different languages which you encourage people to print out and leave in library books and…

Barnett: “…music magazines. If the media and journalists, which I name on my site, aren’t going to report this case properly then they should be held accountable as to why they’re not reporting it properly, why they are continuously presenting misinformation as fact. So they need to be held accountable for that and I encourage people to put out flyers tackling that issue.

Wilkie: And just tell them where you can get the flyers from and what they are.

Barnett: There’s a link to my flyers on my websit. There’s flyers specifically for people in the UK, two general flyers, and flyers in Spanish and Italian.

I do encourage people to distribute them, because the media isn’t reporting this fairly and if we let them get away with that, then nothing will happen with this case. If we challenge the media, challenge named journalists, maybe something will happen. At least they’re not getting away with it unchallenged.

In late 2000 I provided a flyer which included more information on the Rome incident and Michael DeWitt’s presence in Rome.

The flyers highlighting named journalists and their shoddy reporting methods were uploaded on 12th October 2002.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to distribute the flyers I hope you will continue to hand them out.

Wilkie: Do you visit the Kurt Cobain chat rooms and message boards?

Barnett: No. I used to read them when I first got involved with it but there’s so much idiocy that goes on there, so many attempts to confuse issues that I haven’t got time for that. I’d rather take on named journalists and corporate publishing companies which are perpetuating the misinformation. That’s all I’ve got time for.

Wilkie: And do you get many contacts from people on message boards?

Barnett: No. I’ve had a lot of time wasters that have contacted me over the years. I don’t visit message boards and I don’t get involved with anyone in too much depth who e-mails me because I have things to do in my own time that are more important. I think taking on named journalists is more important.

Wilkie: How about people who run other websites, is there much collaboration there?

Barnett: I don’t collaborate with anyone.

Again, I’ve had people waste my time in the past, people that I’ve met through the internet, and right from the start it became clear to me that I was the one bringing up new information or information that has been lost. No one else at all was bringing up that information, that I met through the internet.

So, you know, my work, I decided, I’ve done this, I’m going to remain independent. A couple of people wanted me to merge my website with theirs, I said no. I’m responsible for what I write and I can’t be distracted by anyone else.

Named journalists, corporate publishing companies. If they want to argue with me, or take anything on, fine, but I haven’t got time for unnamed people on the internet intent on causing as much confusion and time wasting as they can.

Wilkie: And tell us about your website and just how much information is on there? You’ve got all this paperwork and all these quotes and reports from the police. How much stuff have you got?

Barnett: She didn’t go up there. No.

Just as a summary of the way Kurt was treated by the media when he was alive, can I read this? It gives an idea of one journalist’s treatment of Kurt and his response to this case.

In an article printed in NME in October 1993, the journalist accused Kurt of “perpetuating his own sordid little myth”. (The actual phrase was "Kurt Cobain is, contrary to his many public statements, fostering and encouraging us to buy into his sordid little myth." Read the full article below.)

This particular journalist chose to ignore the fact that in March 1994 Kurt wanted to divorce Courtney and leave her. This journalist has completely ignored that, and has also ignored that Courtney’s own entertainment lawyer played a big role in the developing of this case for murder.

This journalist then went on to claim that there was “no credible suggestions of foul play” (in Kurt’s death) and that Kurt’s “suicide” note was “alarmingly explicit”. He made no mention of the fact that Courtney’s entertainment lawyer had urged Grant to go over to her house and look at samples of Courtney’s handwriting and the handwriting on the so called “suicide” note.

This journalist has never pointed out that Courtney Love was bragging about how she and her boyfriend (who was Kurt, at that time), used heroin all the time, in December 1991.

This journalist never questioned how it was that Courtney came to be on tape admitting to using heroin after she found out she was pregnant, or why she denied saying this when the interviewer, Lynn Hirschberg, claimed she had this interview on tape.

This journalist never questioned Courtney’s motives for encouraging the drug rumours and never highlighted the hypocrisy in her statement to him in 1993 that, with regards to the drug rumours which surrounded her and Kurt “everyone else on the planet didn’t need to magnify it and make it 50,000 times worse”. Courtney Love was the one that was encouraging the drug rumours.

In short, the attitude this journalist had to Kurt when he was alive, is no different to the attitude he, and others, have shown to Kurt since he died. It’s an unfair attitude.

Wilkie: Who’s the journalist that you’re talking about?

Barnett: Steve Sutherland.

Wilkie: Right, he was the editor of NME.

Barnett: The editor of NME, he was also the editor of Vox and I think he’s now the editorial director of NME.

Wilkie: OK. Fine. Thank you.

END

Following is the October 2nd 1993 review of Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’, by Steve Sutherland. After Kurt died, a reader sent a letter to NME, taking Sutherland to task on his attitude towards Kurt in this article. See the end of this article for the reader’s letter, and Sutherland’s reply to that letter.

24-HOUR PITY PEOPLE

NME October 2 1993

Why is it that pop stars think their fans are interested in songs about the problems of being famous? STEVE SUTHERLAND bemoans the fate of artists who find they cannot live with the person they become after Joe Public sets them on a pedestal.

When is a new Nirvana album not a new Nirvana album? When it is a soap opera.

Think about it. ‘In Utero’ is a record that exists entirely inside the drama that dogged its creation. It’s a record that chooses never to distance itself from its creator. It’s a record that screams, “You’ve read all the stuff about Courtney and the smack and the pain that I’ve been through. You’ve read all about the paranoia, about the way the press tried to crucify me. You’ve read about how I nearly killed myself. It’s a miracle I exist. Hey, you better buy me!”

So ‘In Utero’ is a pretty good scandal but does it make it a good record? I doubt it. A good record stands up on its own, means something beyond its own biography, assumes the shapes of each listener’s joy and pain.

But ‘In Utero’ is just the sound of Kurt Cobain washing his dirty linen in public and then complaining about the soap powder. I mean, if he hates his notoriety so much, why make a record so obsessed with that hatred that its bound to generate even more? Surely by railing against it so publicly in print and vinyl, Kurt Cobain is, contrary to his many public statements, fostering and encouraging us to buy into his sordid little myth. If he loathes fame so much, why hog the spotlight?

And it’s not just Nirvana who are currently profiting from this whingeathon. They’re all at it. There’s an epidemic of self-abusers out there falling over themselves to confess and come clean. Just glance back at the last few issues of NME. What litany of woe! We’ve had Carter banging on about the stress of growing up in public and then making a record about it. We’ve had The Wonder Stuff talking about their self-respect in an imbecilic industry and then making a record about that. We’ve had Evan Dando whetting our appetite for the new lemonheads album with a few “I take drugs me and I don’t know if I can control it”-type confessions. We’ve had Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins titillating up the sales of the ‘Siamese dream’ album by talking about it in terms of brutal group therapy…The list goes on and on. Where’s all the dignity? Where’s all the mystery? Where’s all the FUN?

Looked at cynically, this tendency towards publicly confessing those private appointments with the shrink can be seen as smart marketing. After all, everyone knows the old joke about record companies cheering celebrity deaths because nothing sells the back catalogue like a good, preferably scandalous stiff. Well, maybe the artists have cottoned on. Maybe crying wolf while you’re still alive might not be such a bad way of pumping up the public interest. Maybe talking about suicide and threatening to become addicted to smack is nearly as good as the real thing when it comes to boosting those sales. Talk is cheap and so is crack and, hey, there’s nothing like a few self-perpetuated rumours to distract the critics from that writer’s block or the fact that your last three albums have all sounded exactly the same.

A more generous explanation of this current rage for screaming at the top is that our stars really are helpless. Whereas the graft against poverty and anonymity translates neatly into romance and heroics on record, a useful mirror to our own frustrations and under-achievements, the tearing of hair over riches and fame seldom sounds like anything but bad grace. And the natural reaction is, y’know, if Kurt doesn’t want his millions, they’re welcome up here on the 25th Floor.

But Kurt can’t help it because he’s a punk. And fame is the great punk betrayal. Most of those afflicted seem to have gained an acclaim which they feel is entirely inappropriate to the music they make. In short, they feel guilty. Take The Levellers. Where once they were happy to speak out on behalf of a disenfranchised generation, they’re now getting rich pretty d**n quick and growing away from the audience they once purported to represent.. How can you be a dole class hero when you’re quids in? Answer: you can’t. Hence all the bitter nonsense The Levs have been spouting lately about how the press misinterprets their motives. It’s not the press that’s to blame. Nobody is. It’s just that they can’t live with themselves, with what they’ve inevitably become. Their very success is symbolic of betrayal.

Nirvana are in the same predicament. Punk-rockers at heart and by habit, they are now faced with the impossible task of being established anti establishmentarians. They make small, hard, petty, griping music –punk rock- and, because it strikes a chord with so many millions of other small, hard, petty, griping lives, it grew big. Bigger than it should ever be. So Kurt Cobain must face up to his biggest fear, the thing he lashed out against in the first place, the thing that made him famous – fame.

Billy Corgan recently said: “You stand through a thousand photo shoots, do a few thousand interviews, play in front of people who expect you to be something you’re not, and it eats away at your soul. It’s so easy to become a cliché. It’s an old problem and yet the brightest musical talents of our generation are losing their minds because they can’t handle it.”

What Billy Corgan means is that, since punk, there’s no way you can become rich and famous and remain credible. In effect, you become the thing you set out to destroy.

So what’s the cure? I don’t know if it’s true that, “the brightest musical talents of our generation are losing their minds”, but it’s d**n certain that they’re doing a lot of whingeing about it. And, with few exceptions, they’re so hung up on their anti celebrity guilt trips that they’re making navel-gazing soap operas instead of records; ephemeral works that will scarcely outlast their traumas. I mean, will the new Pearl Jam record really be a punk rock mess because Eddie Vedder doesn’t wanna be the great rock messiah that he seems to have convinced himself we want him to be? Or is that just his way of ducking out of the responsibility of producing a worthy follow up to ‘Ten’? We’d better buy it to find out just as we bought ‘In Utero’ because we’d read about all the grief that surrounded it. I doubt we’ll be playing either in a few months time. They’re too inward-looking, too self-pitying to outlive their own scandal. They’re not records. They’re diaries. Their attraction for us is voyeuristic. They are not art. They will not last.

As Billy Corgan suggests, the dilemma fame presents to the would-be artist is nothing new. John Lennon wrote ‘The Ballad Of John and Yoko’ about this very subject and it’s no coincidence that while Kurt and Courtney have acknowledged the parallels, nobody plays “The Ballad Of John & Yoko’ any more. Lennon also went through all that primal therapy stuff and made terrible, embarrassing records about it. Terrible but honest. Perhaps that adds to the problem –the fact that all this self-flagellation and hairshirt wearing has been done before, means that, when Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan suffer, even their pain is robbed of originality. And, by suspicion, authenticity. What a dreadful thought, that those who threaten suicide are merely acting out roles. That their honesty is somehow dishonest.

So is there any way to survive the pain of fame? You can go the Suede route and consider all that punk guilt an old-fashioned hindrance that will doom you to a brief and tawdry career in the indie ghetto. Why not embrace fame and fortune and use it to reach more and more people with your music?

Or you can do the Michael Stipe thing and retreat into your own privacy. That way you become eccentric and, if you’re lucky and you write vaguely enough, untouchable; an artist.

But maybe for Kurt and Billy and Eddie there’s no way back. Once you’ve verbalized your self immolation and mental torture so publicly there are only two routes – OD, which is dumb, or rehab, which is boring. Neither are that dignified, nor particularly interesting. They’re just kinda inevitable.

And that’s the irony. Perhaps completely by accident, Kurt and Billy and Eddie have administered a small wound to the rock’n’roll monster they sought to slay. Perhaps with all their whining and threatening and public soul-baring they have served to demystify the state of stardom to such an extent that they are beginning to render it tedious.

Perhaps if Kurt Cobain ever gets around to making another Nirvana record, we won’t all rush out to buy it because he spent the 12 months leading up to it shouting about how he takes heroin and how pathetic we are to be interested in it (so why is he shouting then?). Perhaps we’ll just ignore him and his record. And then perhaps he might go away. Which is what he really wanted all along. Isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?

NME LETTERS PAGE APRIL 23 1994:

April 8, 1994, 10.40pm: Read your ‘Fame Fatale’ issue (Oct 2, 1993) over again.“‘In Utero’ is a record that screams, ‘You’ve read all the stuff about Courtney and the smack and the pain that I’ve been through. You’ve read all about the way the press tried to crucify me. You’ve read about how I nearly killed myself. It’s a miracle I exist. You better buy me!’”

And again: “When Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan suffer, even their pain is robbed of originality. And, by suspicion, authenticity. What a dreadful thought, that those who threaten suicide are merely acting out roles. That their honesty is somehow dishonest.”

I know it’s only one article and it’s only one journalist’s opinion, but it’s yours Sutherland, so read it you f---er. What do you feel?

Bill Hull, Guildford

Reply to the above letter:

In retrospect, of course what I wrote last year appears callous. Listening to Nirvana records now, in the light of Kurt’s suicide, the songs carry an almost unbearable poignancy. But I stick to my criticism. At the time, ‘In Utero’ was being marketed as ‘Buy my f--- up’. That’s how it was sold. It’s not rock’n’roll that stinks, it’s the music industry. Steve Sutherland

NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS APRIL 8 1995:

Steve Sutherland: Kurt killed himself. He left an alarmingly explicit suicide note. There’s no mystery to it, no conspiracy theories, no phantom sightings in supermarkets, no credible suggestions of foul play. End of story. So why bother if there’s nothing new to add, no untold revelations? Because, at the risk of seeming callous and opportunist (Kurt sells issues, in case you didn’t know), people still care. A glance at this week’s Angst page should be enough to silence the cynics…

Not everyone, though, had a callous attitude to Kurt, some people did question Courtney Love’s behaviour. In NME's November 12 1994 edition, Steve Sutherland interviewed Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes:

Robinson: “It’s so sad, I’m flipping through the channels and they’re selling pictures of Kurt Cobain...on the Home Shopping Network...And he’s got this chick that he married on TV talking about nuts that he’s not here to defend himself against.”

“Y’know, as someone who's very interested in music, she makes me mad. Here’s this woman whose husband is barely in the grave and she’s like, 'Look at ME! Look at ME! All you Nirvana fans should buy my records now'.”

“And she’s on TV saying she's doling out his lost songs." He goes into a squeaky, dumb-ass girly voice. "Y’know, I’m gonna give one to Iggy ’cos it’s a hit and it’s really funny, like a Devo song. And then I’m giving one to the guy in Screaming Trees ’cos it’s really happy like The Beatles White Album.”

“Now, first off, Devo’s a f---in joke and secondly, you’d have to be one ignorant person as far as musical history goes to think that The Beatles' White Album was a happy little Beatles record. It’s very dark and very weird and depressing. Maybe she’s just not very bright.”

“It’s not that she shouldn’t go on and do her thing," says Rich. "She should make records, do whatever she wants. But why cheapen it? Why disgrace your husband? To carry on is great, you should never give up what you do, but why use him and his persona and his death to further her career?”

“She should be careful what she says," says Chris. "She should show some integrity.”

Back to Frances Barnett's In Defence MAIN

[KnowledgeIsPower]

Kurt's so-called Suicide Note

This section posted 7th March 04.

If Kurt had meant the letter only for Courtney and Frances, do you think he would have referred to them throughout in the third person? (Unnamed staff writer for VOX magazine s October 1994 edition).

I don t believe anybody kills himself because he s not as committed to live shows as Freddie Mercury was. Kurt s suicide note gave excuses, not reasons. I couldn t pretend to decipher his motivations (Gavin Edwards, Details magazine, June 1994).

The last four lines of the so called suicide note are written in a completely different style. The formation and spacing of the letters and their relation to the other letters, their slant etc looks like they were written by someone other than Kurt.

NME'S April 8 1995

In April 1993 Hole released the single Beautiful Son. On the back cover there is a handwritten list, scans of the front and back cover of this single to the left.

One of Love's biographers attributed the handwritten lyrics to Hole's first album 'Pretty on the Inside', to Courtney Love. Poppy Z Brite's 'Courtney Love: The Real Story' page 116).

According to Grant, Rosemary Carroll also questioned the terminology of the note claiming that it was of the type used by Courtney, not Kurt, and that Courtney may have helped with the wording of this note. Carroll s belief is substantiated by the line: Frances and Courtney, I ll be at your altar . This terminology doesn t make sense within the context of it being written by someone who plans imminent suicide. However, the phrase is similar to a quote by Courtney when talking about Kim Gordon in an interview for NME s 24th August 1991 edition where Courtney said of Gordon: I worship at her shrine , see a scan of this article below.

The so called suicide note seems to have been written long before Kurt died, when, as he confessed many times, he had been contemplating leaving the music business, when he was suffering from excruciating stomach pains and at a time when he still had positive feelings for Courtney. If this was a retirement letter written by Kurt it could easily have been kept, added to and used later by Courtney.

There are at least three witnesses to the fact that Kurt was trying to leave Courtney in March/
April 1994:

1 In the June 2 1994 edition of Rolling Stone magazine it was reported that Gold Mountain employee Janet Billig stated of the note Kurt wrote in Rome, just before he suffered a near fatal overdose, that: Kurt insisted it was not a suicide note. He just took all of his and Courtney s money and was going to run away and disappear .

2 The nanny interviewed by Nick Broomfield stated that Kurt wanted "to get away from
Courtney" and that Courtney was preoccupied by the fact Kurt wanted to change his Will. This is supported by Rosemary Carroll's statements as mentioned on Grant's website and in W & H's book 'Who Killed Kurt Cobain?'

3 Courtney told Grant that the note Kurt wrote in Rome in March 1994 "wasn't really nice and that it "talked about getting a divorce". She also told Grant that the SPD s Sgt Don Cameron advised her to get rid of the note.

So again the main section of the so called suicide note which refers to his wife in favourable terms isn't consistent with what we know were Kurt's intentions of changing his Will, leaving Courtney and getting a divorce in March/April 1994.

If the note is viewed as a retirement note written long before April 1994 it begins to make more sense.

The so called "suicide" note:

The handwritten list on the back cover of Hole's single 'Beautiful Son':

Article from NME's August 24 1991 edition:

Back to Frances Barnett In Defence MAIN

[KnowledgeIsPower]

THE EVENTS COVERING THE DATES APRIL 1-7th 1994

Sources:
Seattle police reports.
Seattle Times, April 8 1994 edition.
Los Angeles Times, April 10 1994 edition.
‘Kurt Cobain’ by Christopher Sandford, 1996 edition.
1998 printout of Grant’s website.
‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ (‘WKKC?’) by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin, published 1998.

171 Lake Washington Blvd is the house owned by Kurt and Courtney, to which Kurt returned on 2nd April 1994. In the yard is the greenhouse where Kurt’s body was found.

FRIDAY 1st April:

On the evening of Friday 1st April Kurt left the rehab centre and bought a flight back to Seattle, he paid by credit card. (Sandford p 325).

According to Grant, at 8.47 pm Kurt phoned Courtney at the Peninsula Hotel and left a message for her. Grant said it doesn’t sound like a message from a person who is suicidal. (Grant website).

Kurt had, earlier that day, received a visit from Joe Mama at Exodus rehab, Joe said, “I was ready to see him look like nuts and depressed. He looked f**king great!” He went on to say: “After Kurt left I was on the phone to Courtney all the time. She was really freaked out, so we drove around looking for him at all the places he might have gone. She was really scared from the beginning. I guess she could tell.” (‘Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone’ p 83.)

If Kurt looked so great surely he would have conveyed this to Courtney. Why, then, was she so “freaked out, really scared”? Could it be that she now had no control over the situation, Kurt had become a loose cannon and she feared he would proceed with signing his will? After all, once this was signed Courtney would lose her power. Divorce would follow and Kurt, his fame and fortune would be lost to her.

Courtney Love: “I love attention, I love the trappings of it all. To say you hate the trappings, you’re an not a very nice person and a liar”.

Kurt did hate the trappings of it. He wanted out of it. Suddenly Courtney’s speech at the memorial for Kurt takes on sinister perspective.

SATURDAY 2nd April:

Kurt arrived back in Seattle at appx 12.45am. Linda Walker of Seattle Limousines saw Kurt speaking normally to other passengers and he approached her with a “thin smile” (Sandford p 325).

She then drove Kurt back to his house at 171 Lke Wash Blvd and he arrived early am, see police report above.

Kurt spoke to Michael DeWitt at the house (Seattle Police report).

According to Grant, DeWitt informed Courtney later that day that he had seen and spoken to Kurt at the Lke Wash Blvd house, (Grant website).

At 7.30am a driver for Gray Top Cabs picked up a man from the 171 Lke Wash Blvd, Address. Here is what the superintendent of Gray Top Cabs told the Seattle police on 19 April 1994:

“The driver picked up a person who he thought did not match with the residence. He drove around looking for a place to buy bullets, but was unable to find one. This male told the driver that he recently been burgled and needed bullets. At 8.30am the driver dropped the man off in the area of 145th and Aurora because he said he was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. The man’s fare was $27” (Seattle police report).

SUNDAY 3rd April:

Courtney hired Grant. She had by now cancelled Kurt’s credit card and she told Grant when they met that Kurt had no access to money through friends or by credit card. When Grant questioned this she said, “This guy can’t even catch a f**king cab by himself.”

Strange, he had just managed to successfully leave a place he didn’t want to be, purchase a plane ticket and arranged to be picked up at the airport and driven home. He seemed to me to be perfectly capable.

Could Courtney’s reason for cancelling this credit card have been an attempt to prevent Kurt from successfully achieving anything else he might have chosen to do? Someone attempted to charge $1,100 to this card at 3pm on this day, but the charge was rejected. If this was Kurt, whatever his intentions, they would have been blocked.

During this meeting with Grant, Courtney:

1 Admitted that the previous evening she had planted a story with the associated press that she had suffered an overdose.(Grant website).

2 Ranted about how Kurt had turned down Lollapalooza and thereby kissed goodbye to millions of dollars. (Grant website).

3 Told Grant she wasn’t sure where Kurt was, that he might be in Seattle or he could have flown back east to stay with Michael Stipe. She did not tell him that Kurt was in Seattle and had been back to the Lke Wash Blvd house. (Grant website).

4 Told him she thought Kurt wanted a divorce (Grant website).

John Silva told MTV that he saw Kurt on this day (Seattle Times, April 8 1994 edition).

Christopher Sandford reported that a woman called Sara Hoehn saw Kurt on this day.

According to Grant, DeWitt told him a few weeks after Kurt had died that he had checked the greenhouse on the 3rd April but didn’t check it again, (Grant website).

MONDAY 4th April:

At 9am Courtney, claiming to be Wendy O’Conner, filed a missing person report with the Seattle Police Dept. Nowhere on this report does it say Kurt had been seen at his own home, (Grant’s website).

Here we have examples of Courtney:

1 Impersonating someone else.

2 Withholding relevant information.

Today Courtney told Grant: “Everyone thinks he’s going to die”. (Grant website).

Joe Mama, Dylan Carlson, Rosemary Carroll, Peter Cleary, Novoselic, Grohl and several Exodus psychiatrists didn’t think Kurt was going to die. None of these people thought of Kurt as suicidal.

Also today Courtney was interviewed by Robert Hilburn of the LA Times during which she burst into tears and did a u-turn by saying she didn’t care about Kurt pulling out of Lollapalooza, and that she just never wanted to see Kurt on the floor like that again, referring to the Rome incident:

When Hilburn asked about the lyrics “I lie, and lie, and lie,” Courtney she replied teasingly (Hilburn’s words,) ‘It’s just admitting that I can be dishonest, that I can be a liar.'
Elsewhere in the article Hilburn wrote:
‘She clearly enjoys being a star’
Courtney to Hilburn; “Everyone likes to gossip about me,” She said, pointing to a Macintosh computer that sits across the room in its packing container. ‘One of the reasons I got that is so I can read all the gossip about me on America Online.’ (Los Angeles Times April 10 1994).

So Courtney didn’t seem too preoccupied about her suicidal husband being missing. She hinted at him, Rome and the overdose, and then moved on to more important subjects.... herself!

In Wallace and Halperin’s book ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ they reported on a man called Brad Barnett who claimed to have seen Kurt in a park near his house on this day. Brad Barnett claims to have gone back to the greenhouse on Kurt’s property and spent a while talking with him. (‘WKKC?’ p 95-97).

See my interview with Guitar Part magazine, part two, for more on the Brad Barnett hoax. On November 4 1999, Grant left a message on my message board regarding Brad Barnett, see a scan of this message in my 29th December 1999 update.

TUESDAY 5th April:

At 4pm on this day Gillian Gaar, a journalist for the Seattle Rocket magazine called Courtney at the Beverly Hills Peninsula Hotel. Gaar was unable to talk to Courtney so she spoke to Eric Erlandson for an hour. The Rocket hoped to have Hole on its cover for the next edition. They continued to hope that the Courtney interview would take place because Erlandson promised Gaar he’d try and get Courtney to do the interview, but after Courtney hadn’t contacted the Rocket by noon on April 6 the Rocket gave the cover story to someone else. See a scan of the original magazine article to the right.

In 2001 Charles R Cross reported that Courtney sent Eric Erlandson to Seattle on April 5th to look for Kurt.

In order to place Erlandson in Seattle on that date, Cross changed the timeline (and circumstances) as given by Gaar, above, to:

On Tuesday afternoon (of April 5) Courtney sent Hole’s Eric Erlandson to the Lake Washington home to look for Kurt.... Courtney had been scheduled to do a phone interview with The Rocket on Tuesday morning. Erlandson phoned the magazine and said it would have to be postponed...(‘Heavier Than Heaven’ page 335).

In the Seattle police report below, dated April 8 1994, it is clear that Courtney arranged for Grant to go to Seattle. There was no mention in this report that Courtney had sent Eric Erlandson to Seattle on April 5th. Cross simply accepted misinformation given to him by Love, as fact, even though it contradicts the above mentioned Gaar and police reports.

Courtney was so desperate for the publication of the misinformative Charles R Cross book, ‘Heavier Than Heaven’, that she was hyping/describing it as:“the definitive book about Kurt” almost a whole year before it was published!

The above was a quote from a speech of Courtney’s, posted on the official news section at holemusic.com. The news section was eventually removed, but archive.org have it stored, so you can check for yourselves using the following links:
web.archive.org/web/20011211171502/kittyradio.com/news/index.html
web.archive.org/web/20001213000800/holemusic.com/news/index.html
scroll down to the September 10 2000 news, then it’s the 13th paragraph down.

I provide the screenshot below for proof that this news was reported on holemusic.com and was archived on a website independent of holemusic.com

Describing a book as “definitive” almost a whole year before it was published indicates that Courtney was very confident Charles R Cross wouldn’t rock the boat by asking awkward questions, but would stick to her story.

I think April 5 was also the day the electrical contractors were approached to work on security for the house.

WEDNESDAY 6TH APRIL:

Courtney phoned the electrical contractors who were working at the house at 171 Lke Wash Blvd property and instructed them to start work on the lights and motion detector on the greenhouse, (Grant website.) In hindsight Grant asked himself if she knew Kurt’s body was there and was trying to get him discovered? Grant met Courtney at the Peninsula Hotel and offered to go to Seattle. Up until now he had had a subcontractor (Seattle PI Ernest Barth) working for him there. Someone asked Courtney if she would go to Seattle, she replied that she had business in LA. (Grant website).

What could be more important than searching for the husband you claim to be desperately concerned about, and who you claim is suicidal?

According to Grant, Rosemary Carroll told him that Courtney had no business in LA. (Grant website).

Sandford, p 329, reported that Courtney’s last words to Grant, before he flew to Seattle, were: “Save the American Icon Tom”.

What a disgusting thing to say. What a flippant remark, coming from someone who was supposedly concerned about her supposedly suicidal husband.

Michael DeWitt was seen coming and going from 171 Lke Washington Blvd, along with the electrical contractors (Sandford p 329).

Dylan Carlson stated that DeWitt called him asking him if he had seen Kurt. (See scan below for Carlson’s interview with the Seattle police on 12 April 1994).

Grant arrived in Seattle at 11.30 pm and met up with Dylan Carlson. By this stage Courtney had finally informed Grant that Kurt was seen at the house on 2nd April. (Grant website).

A bit late really.

THURSDAY 7th April:

At 2.15am Carlson and Grant drove to the house (171), Carlson spent about five minutes checking to see if Kurt was there, he saw no sign of Kurt. According to Grant they then went to a pay phone and called Courtney who was now staying at Rosemary Carroll’s house in LA, and asked her to call the alarm co and turn off the alarm so they could enter the house. According to Grant, during this call Carroll overheard Courtney telling Carlson to check the greenhouse. Shortly after this call Courtney returned to the Peninsula Hotel and promptly overdosed. From her hotel room a call was made to 911, she was arrested and taken to hospital. (Grant website).

Meanwhile at around 2.45am Grant and Carlson went back to 171 Lke Washington Blvd and entered via an unlocked kitchen window. They searched the house not only for Kurt, but also for clues that he had been there, their search included looking under the mattress and pillows of Kurt’s bed in their search for drugs and drug paraphernalia. They found no heroin or works, they did find a packet of Rohypnol. (Grant website).

There was a bedroom which had a TV on, in which the bed was unmade. Carlson told Grant that this was DeWitt’s bedroom. (Grant website).

Strange, looks like DeWitt left in a hurry, could it be that he fled the house because he was trying to avoid meeting Carlson and Grant?

Carlson did not mention searching the greenhouse and as it was dark and raining Grant said he was not aware that it existed, so it wasn’t searched (Grant website. See also Broomfield’s film ‘Kurt and Courtney’).

It looks like there was surveillance on 171 Lake Washington Blvd at this time, due to Ernest Barth taking the initiative and setting it up. From the police report below, it can be seen that Ben Klugman, who worked for Grant, ordered the removal of surveillance from 171, this would unfortunately have meant that DeWitt’s activity at 171, after this time, would have been missed.

It is known, however, that DeWitt was at 171 on this day and that he left at around 4pm, see police report below.

Later that afternoon (April 7) DeWitt, indignant that ‘Courtney [had] accused me of hiding Kurt’, flew to Los Angeles to protest his innocence. (Sandford p 329).

The story was that Courtney needed reassuring, she claimed to Grant that she thought DeWitt had been shielding Kurt from her. This interaction between Courtney and DeWitt would imply they had been in regular contact since his call to her on April 2nd.

Just consider the scenario if Courtney and DeWitt really did conspire to murder Kurt. By now they know he is dead and the discovery of his body imminent because Courtney specifically instructed the electrical contractors to work on the greenhouse, and for good measure asked Carlson to check it. Wouldn’t it be better if they, as conspirators were distanced from the scene? Be it by geographical location or by a drug induced haze. They must have been apprehensive.

Below are the police reports regarding Michael DeWitt being picked up from 171 on April 7 1994:

Dylan also spoke to Courtney again on this day while she was in hospital and now she requested they look for the gun which could be in a closet. Grant wondered why Courtney hadn’t asked DeWitt to check this and also the greenhouse days before. (Grant website).

And wouldn’t that have made sense.

At 9.45 pm, Carlson and Grant again checked the house, this time they found a note on the stairs addressed to Kurt from DeWitt. This note expressed surprise on the part of DeWitt that Kurt had been at the house but managed to evade him, it also lambasted Kurt for his disappearance. This note is found on the stairway and Grant believes it was phoney, a tactic to make out DeWitt had been trying to contact/locate Kurt, when really by all sense of reasoning it looks like Courtney and DeWitt were in cahoots in obstructing efforts to find him. (Grant website).

QUESTIONS RELEVANT TO THIS

1:
Why did Courtney not tell Grant that Kurt had been seen at the Lke Wash Blvd address by DeWitt on April 2nd?

When she filed the missing persons report under the name of Wendy O’Connor on April 4th she made the same omission, but she did stress Kurt was suicidal, and had a gun. Grant believes Kurt was quite probably dead by the time this report was filed, so Courtney could state these things in the confidence that when his body was found, the police would use her suggestions to support the suicide verdict.

On April 4th she also told Grant: “everyone thinks Kurt will die”.

She also referred to Rome, death and Kurt in her interview with Robert Hilburn.

April 4th was a day Courtney was planting the idea that Kurt would die.

2:
Courtney was obviously in regular contact with Michael DeWitt, why didn’t she convey the extent of her fears for Kurt to him and get him to check for the gun, and the greenhouse, and constantly monitor the proceedings at 171 Lke Wash Blvd?

There are two possible scenarios, either she genuinely thought DeWitt was shielding Kurt, in which case the most logical action she could take was to inform Grant and Carlson of this situation, she didn’t do this. Or her above claim was a smokescreen to cover up the fact that she was conspiring with DeWitt to keep Kurt’s whereabouts unknown, at least until April 6th, giving ample time to plant false leads and alibis.

DeWitt had been conspicuous by his absence in the search for Kurt, between April 2-5th.

On April 6th he became eager to emphasise he was trying to locate/contact Kurt by:

1: Phoning Dylan on April 6th to ask him if he had seen Kurt (see police report below).

2: Leaving the note to Kurt on the stairs of the Lke Washington Blvd house (April 7th.) Scan of this note below (from Wallace and Halperin’s book ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’)

Could it be that Courtney and DeWitt were trying to merge his actions to supposedly “find” Kurt in with the false alibis discussed in the unnamed sources section?

On April 18th Courtney told the police that she knew Kurt’s death was a suicide and that DeWitt told her he had last seen Kurt on April 2nd. She then told the police that she wanted to know his whereabouts during the days he was missing, but nowhere on this report did she voice any suspicion to the police that she thought DeWitt had been shielding Kurt during this time. On the same report emphasis is given to the note DeWitt left on the stairs.

If Grant was correct in believing this note was a ploy, this ploy was now being used for the purpose intended, to establish, by implication, that DeWitt at that time believed Kurt to be alive and was trying to locate/contact him. See police reports.

None of the people who knew Kurt were aware of the danger, according to Courtney, of Kurt’s potential for suicide at this time. Not Dylan Carlson, Charles Peterson, Rosemary Carroll, Mark Lanegan. If it was true why didn’t Courtney phone all of these people and arrange for them to work together to find him? If Courtney was so worried, why didn’t she drop any business and fly back to Seattle to look for him?

Courtney can’t expect her declarations of concern to be believed when all her actions are to the contrary.

From which ever angle I look at Courtney and DeWitt’s actions, they only really make sense when I reject her claims and seriously consider her actions within the context of a premeditated murder.

That is the only way they make sense.

Nick Broomfield's interview with Dylan Carlson

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TRANSCRIPT OF BROOMFIELD INTERVIEW WITH DYLAN CARLSON IN "KURT AND COURTNEY"

In the film Kurt and Courtney Nick Broomfield interviewed Dylan Carlson. His introduction to this interview is as follows:
“I found Dylan to be evasive and in a very defensive position. As Kurt’s best friend it was crazy for him to have bought the gun if he thought Kurt was suicidal. At the same time he didn’t want to appear to be supporting Tom Grant’s murder theory.....”

Broomfield: And what about his relationship with Courtney?

Carlson: Um, obviously it was going through a turbulence, some turbulence. Whether it was going to end or not we don’t know. I don’t think we ever will, I mean, you know, but I mean all marriages go through their ups and downs.

Broomfield: Did he ever say anything to you about, I mean, he did say it to plenty of other people...

Carlson: Said what?

Broomfield: That he was going to finish the relationship.

Carlson: Divorce? I mean, he never, he never flat out said anything like that or any implication about it to me, you know. I mean, he didn’t even make any hints as far as I know about any kind of divorce or anything like that.

Broomfield: I mean, if you are his best friend and he didn’t say anything about being depressed or suicidal, he just wanted the gun for prowlers, and that Rome was just an accident, you know, maybe you would think also he could have been murdered?

Carlson: Mmm, why? I mean, who? I mean, it’s like.....

Broomfield: Well if you were his best friend and he never said anything about anything being wrong, and he’d seen you just before- you know, maybe Tom Grant is right, maybe he was murdered.

Carlson: But I mean he doesn’t have to say anything about it being wrong. I mean, it’s like, you know, when you are friends with someone there is like subtler forms of information transfer than just flat out, you know...

Broomfield: So what did he subtly communicate to you?.

Carlson: I mean, it’s like, I’m just saying it’s like, why?...

Broomfield: I’m just trying to get a sense of what he did communicate to you. What you understood.

Carlson: I mean, the thing is it’s like, the time he would have been communicating any sort of, you know, sense that he wanted to kill himself was already....was when he came back from Exodus, when I didn’t see him, you know.

Broomfield: But if you bought the gun before he went and you think he was now suicidal...

Carlson: I don’t think he was necessarily like planning to kill himself at that point necessarily, I mean, I don’t know though...I mean...

Broomfield: It was just a coincidence.

Carlson: I mean, it’s like if he had been totally like suicidal from the outset he would have used the gun that day probably, you know what I mean, why did he like try to go down and go through treatment?

Broomfield: Why do you think?

Carlson: You know, well ’cos there was all the f**king pressure on him to go through treatment. His wife is telling him he needs to go through treatment, his record company, his management, you know. So he goes and he tries to get off drugs and he can’t or he doesn’t want to. I mean it’s like basically he doesn’t want to cos it’s like, you know, there is no reason for him to get off drugs. You know, it’s not like he’s poverty stricken and robbing grocery stores to supply his habit.

Broomfield: But how was Courtney telling him to be off drugs when she was on them anyway?

Carlson: I dunno, ’cos she was the one who was all gung-ho for him to quit. I mean, they were both constantly like, I mean, trying to hide it from one another. I mean, the most ridiculous example was one time Kurt called me up to get some speed and then the other line rang and I answered the other line and it was Courtney asking me to get her dope, and both of them were like, “Oh, don’t let the other one know (smiles), I mean....

Broomfield: I don’t know what I think about the whole murder conspiracy.

Carlson: Put it this way, if I seriously thought Kurt had been murdered, the people... if I thought Courtney was involved or if I thought, they would be dead now, flat out( small laugh.) I would kill them. If I thought that was the case, I mean,....

Broomfield: Ummm.

Carlson: I mean....

Broomfield: But don’t you think it’s curious that if Courtney as you said loved Kurt so much, and she was really so worried about him, she knew he had a gun and thought he was suicidal. That she didn’t come up to Seattle to look for him?

At this point Carlson looks thoughtful but says nothing.

END OF INTERVIEW


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ELDON HOKE AKA EL DUCE

This section was originally uploaded on October 8 1999 and extensively updated on March 22 2005.
References:

1. High Times April 1996 article by Steve Bloom and Tim Kenneally.
2. Seattle police reports.
3. Two articles from the Edmonton Journal, dated March 12 and March 14 1996 by Mark Lepage.
4. ‘Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story’ by Clark Humphrey, published by Feral House.
5. Nick Broomfield’s film ‘Kurt & Courtney’.
6. Wallace and Halperin’s book ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ (‘WKKC?’) Published by Birch Lane Press 1998.

The April 1996 edition of High Times featured an article called “Who Killed Kurt Cobain?” written by Tim Kenneally and Steve Bloom. In this article the authors reported the views of Tom Grant, El Duce and Courtney Love’s father, Hank Harrison.

El Duce was the singer for a notorious band called the Mentors, who, strangely enough, played their debut gig at a club called The Bird in Spring Street, Seattle, on March 4 1978. Courtney met El Duce in the late 80s. A founder member of her band Hole, Caroline Rue who went out with Eric Carlson, aka Sickie Wifebeater, who was the Mentors guitarist. (‘Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story’ by Clark Humphrey).

The fact that El Duce had some knowledge of/connection with Seattle would be useful.

In the High Times interview El Duce claimed that in the last days of December 1993, Courtney Love pulled up outside The Rock Shop, a Hollywood record shop, at 1644 Wilcox Ave, Hollywood, and spoke to him. The conversation went:

Courtney Love: El, I need a favour of you. My old man’s been a real not a very nice person lately, I need you to blow his f**king head off.

El Duce: Are you serious?

Courtney Love: Yeah, I’ll give you $50,000 to blow his f**king head off.

El Duce: I’m serious if you are.

Courtney Love: Where can I reach you?

El Duce: You can reach me here.

They then went into the store and he handed her a business card. The manager of the shop, Karush Sepedjian remembers the visit. He said:

“El was kicking it out on the bench in front of the store and she came up. I overheard her saying, “Can you handle doing this? Can you get this done? What do you want for it?” They were talking about knocking off Kurt Cobain. Then El brought her inside and said to me quietly, “She offered me $50,000.”

Love then took a business card and left. Sepedjian then went on to say that in March 1994 Love contacted the shop asking for El Duce, who at the time was on tour. Courtney was screaming down the phone at Sepedjian:

“That son of a pregnant dog, we made an agreement. What am I going to do?” Sepedjian replied: “I don’t know, I’ve got a business to run. Goodbye.”

Ten days later Kurt’s body was found. This would imply that she spoke to Sepedjian around March 30th 1994. Could this be the “business” she told Carroll and Grant that she had to attend to, rather than going back to Seattle to look for Kurt?

Sepedjian went on to say: “I was like Whoa! I wonder if she actually did pay some sucker to blow off his head?”

El Duce said: “Maybe she got somebody else. I think Kurt was getting ready to divorce her for adultery charges. She had to have him whacked right away so she could get the money.”

In a Seattle police report dated March 7 1996, Sepedjian was reported as stating that when she called the Rock Shop at the end of March 1994 looking for El Duce, when informed that El Duce was not available, Courtney was “screaming and yelling” and even asked Sepedjian himself if he would be prepared to do “it”, to which Sepedjian reportedly replied:

“I’m not interested. I don’t want to deal with this.” Sepedjian then hung up on her.

From Sepedjian’s above description, Courtney seemed to be scared and panicked, which is in line with Joe Mama’s description of her when, on April 1st 1994, he said of Courtney:

“She was really freaked out, so we drove around looking for him at all the places he might have gone. She was really scared from the beginning. I guess she could tell.” (‘Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone’ p 83).

For reasons given below, it would have been a good idea to have polygraphed Sepedjian on his above claim.

Joe Mama also saw Kurt just before Kurt left the rehab on April 1st and said of Kurt:

“I was ready to see him look like nuts and depressed. He looked f**king great!”

The important question here, in the light of the El Duce and (possibly) Sepedjian information, information Courtney has tried hard to suppress, although not by legal means but by intimidation, is, was she scared and freaked because of her concern for Kurt? Or was she in this state because her plans were in imminent danger of collapsing? And as Kurt was AWOL, she had no control over him; he could sign his new will and file for divorce on the grounds of adultery.

Do I go with Joe Mama’s possible misinterpretation of Courtney’s behaviour, and let’s face it, Joe thought Kurt looked “f**king great!” Or do I go with El Duce who has passed a polygraph test? I have to go with El Duce. It’s not like he gained anything by his claims, he just ended up dead, like Kurt.

And another possibility which springs to mind is that when Courtney and Joe were driving around looking for Kurt, was she actually trying to locate El Duce or maybe find someone else to take care of business, unbeknownst to Joe, who really was trying to find Kurt?

Joe, how do you reconcile your perception of Kurt looking so great, with Courtney’s claims that he was suicidal?

GRANT’S INITIAL REACTIONS TO EL DUCE’S STORY:

In a radio interview of March 1996 Grant made the following comments on El Duce:

“I have mixed feelings about it, I’m a little bit sceptical of this El Duce character. I’ve known about him for quite some time, probably close to a year, and I’ve never mentioned him before. I’ve never written anything about him because for one thing, the way the story was first told to me, was through a phone call from a guy that claimed that he was a reporter from CNN, and within 15-20 minutes of that conversation I discovered that he wasn’t a reporter for CNN, but he was a freelance type person that put together stories and tries to get them on television.

I didn’t like the way the whole thing started and it made me a little bit sceptical to begin with and I have a lot of questions about how this all happened and why he wasn’t told of the police initially and everything. I do think there’s a possibility that he’s telling the truth but at best I give it a 50/50 shot. I’m not ready to just jump into the water with just anybody that wants to go in there and swim around, especially if they are making up stories just to get the case reinvestigated. So I’ve been real cautious when these people first called me and told me about El Duce. And they tried to get me on television with him almost immediately and I said I don’t even want to talk to this guy on the phone until he’s gone to the police and reported it to the police. Let them blow him away - blow him off- I should say. And then we’ll get a polygraph for him. If he passes the polygraph then we’ll take it another step farther and I’ll interrogate him and find out a little bit more and see what comes of it.

But for the next several months I kept getting more phone calls trying to get me on television but practically ignoring everything I’d ever said about wanting to polygraph him first, and everything. So I’ve been very sceptical of him from the beginning and I still am. And I’m very cautious.

Hard Copy, right now, is following up on this and looking into it and polygraphing him and the guy that claims to have overheard part of the conversation so it’s interesting. I do think it’s possible.”

Grant is probably referring to Sepedjian and his claims to have overheard Love’s offer of money to El Duce, to murder Kurt.

EL DUCE’S POLYGRAPH TEST

In March 1996 El Duce was to appear on the Hard Copy show, which commisioned polygraph tests for El Duce and Sepedjian.

On March 6th 1996 El Duce underwent and passed the polygraph test which was administered by Dr Edward Gelb, a leading US polygraph examiner.

Following the polygraph test, someone (referred to from hereon as “X”), contacted the Seattle Police Department on March 7 1996 and spoke to Officer Mike Ciesynski who recorded the conversation.

The result of the polygraph test and subsequent Ciesynski police report looked promising, it was enough to get Seattle Homicide Detective Sgt Cameron to send a memo to Lieutenant Al Gerdes dated March 7th 1996 stating that they would have to look into the matter further and that Gerdes was to make himself familiar with all aspects of this investigation.

The police reports relating to this are provided at the end of this section.

Unfortunately the Santina Leuci/Hard Copy developing story rapidly degenerated into a circus:

On Sunday March 10 1996:

Cameron sent another memo to Detective Kirkland advising him to inform “X” that, as the conspiracy originated in LA and involved LA residents, that he should file a report with the LAPD. Once “X” had completed that, he was to provide the SPD with the resulting case number and name of the detective dealing with the charges in LA, along with supporting copies of any statements and a copy of the polygraph test results. (Scan of this memo is provided at end of this section).

On Monday March 11 1996 at 0955:

Kirkland informed “X” that he should contact the LAPD. Kirkland also requested that “X” supplied copies of the polygraph result charts and statements. (Police report).

On Tuesday March 12 1996 at 1000:

Detective Kirkland received a copy of an article which appeared in the Edmonton Journal of that date (March 12 1996), written by Mark Lepage. The article reported on a forthcoming book by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin. In the article, Ian Halperin spoke about El Duce’s claims that Courtney had offered him $50,000 to murder Kurt. Halperin also said that El Duce had passed a polygraph test. Halperin claimed that sources in the Seattle police had indicated they were going to reopen the case and file charges of murder-conspiracy against someone within a week. (See scan of this police report at the end of this section).

A copy of this article, see scan above, was supplied amongst the Seattle police reports which I obtained in 2004.

March 12th 1996 (continued) at 1320:

Detective Kirkland received a phone call from Santina Leuci of the Hard Copy show, asking questions about Kurt. When Kirkland informed her that he had just read a copy of the Edmonton Journal article, Leuci became very irate and informed Kirkland that Hard Copy, who had scheduled to run a segment on Kurt could now not run it. She provided Kirkland with phone numbers for Dr Gelb, Steve Bloom of High Times (who had just co-written an article on Kurt’s death with Tim Kenneally), and Max Wallace. Leuci then told Kirkland she’d send him a copy of the High Times article. (See scan of this police report at the end of this section).

It looks to me like Wallace and Halperin took Hard Copy’s developing story for the purpose of publicising their “forthcoming” book, which wasn’t published until almost two years later in 1998. Maybe that’s why Leuci was irate.

On Wednesday March 13th 1996 at 1035:

Detective Kirkland received a phone call from Max Wallace, who asked if Kirkland had referred “X” to the LAPD. Kirkland confirmed this. When Kirkland questioned Wallace about Halperin’s claims that said he had sources in the SPD, in the Edmonton Journal dated March 12 1996, Wallace replied that Halperin had been misquoted. (Police report).

March 13 1996 (continued) at 1215:

Mark Lepage, author of the Edmonton Journal article dated March 12 1996 called Kirkland and asked why Kirkland would refer “X” to the LAPD. Kirkland informed Lepage that if a crime had been committed in Los Angeles, then it wasn’t in the jurisdiction of the Seattle police and that charges would have to be filed in LA. Lepage then informed Kirkland that Ian Halperin had told him that he (Halperin) had sources in the Seattle Police Department. (Police report).

March 13 1996 (continued) at 1425:

Ian Halperin called Kirkland demanding to know why Kirkland had referred “X” to the LAPD. According to Kirkland, Halperin was argumentative over this matter. (Police report).

On Thursday March 14 1996 0800:

D’Arcy Butler of CBC 6 Montreal called Kirkland asking him to confirm the information in Lepage’s second article (on W & H’s book, dated March 14 1996), that Kirkland had told Lepage that the SPD were not reopening the Cobain case. Kirkland confirmed that and requested Butler FAX him a copy of the article. Butler said he’d send it. (Police report).

On Thursday March 14 1996 (continued) at 1055:

Included amongst the SPD reports obtained is the above mentioned Edmonton Journal article, which was faxed to the SPD at 1055. This article, by Mark Lepage, reported on the conversation he had with Detective Kirkland on March 13 as follows:

“Our investigation showed that it was a self-inflicted death. We don’t have any plans to arrest or charge anyone.” He also called a report that Seattle police are preparing to file murder-conspiracy charges against someone as “a bald faced lie.” Yesterday, Halperin said that on Monday he was emphasizing that he had a secret source in the Seattle police, that the information was garbled in the telling, but that charges are forth-coming, maybe from the FBI maybe from a joint Seattle-LAPD effort. In any event, the scene has shifted to Los Angeles, where Halperin said a man called Il Duce is going to be contacting police to tell them Courtney Love offered him $50,000 to kill her husband.
Kirkland of the Seattle police says “As you well know, if Courtney Love offered $50,000 to somebody in Los Angeles to kill somebody, then that is a crime which took place in Los Angeles and the Seattle Police Department has no jurisdiction there.” The story leaks on, while Halperin and Wallace keep crucial sources to themselves until the book comes out...................

The article also reported that: The Wallace and Halperin book has yet to be published and nobody around here has read it yet. It may contain compelling evidence. We’d better see some soon. It makes perfect sense for two guys who’ve written a contentious book to stir-craze interest in it with radio segments that leak tantalizing bits of info....

In W & H’s second book on the subject, published in 2004, the above timeline of events following El Duce’s polygraph test, was reported as:

The results of Hoke’s polygraph exam were too compelling to ignore. On March 6 1996 one of Hoke’s friends took it upon himself to call the Seattle Police Department and report the test’s findings. For once, it seems, the SPD paid attention. We received a call a few days later from a source in the Seattle Police Department telling us that the Cobain case had been reopened for the first time in two years. Hoke’s claim had caused a “flurry of activity,” our source said, adding that if the story could be proven, it might be enough to have Courtney charged with conspiracy to commit murder - the usual charge for attempting to hire a hitman. Curiously enough, Sergeant Cameron denied the Cobain case had been reopened when a reporter asked him about it the same week, (page 254).

As can be seen from cross-referencing with the above articles and police reports, it is obvious that it wasn’t Cameron who denied the case was going to be reopened, it was Kirkland. When Kirkland asked Max Wallace about Ian Halperin’s claims to have sources in the SPD, he was told by Wallace that Halperin had been misquoted. However, the author of both articles, Mark Lepage, clearly stated to Detective Kirkland that Halperin had told him that he (Halperin) had sources in the SPD. Scans of Kirkland’s two page report on his communication with “X,” Santina Leuci, Mark Lepage, Max Wallace and Ian Halperin, are provided at the end of this section.

In the above Edmonton Journal article dated March 12 1996, Halperin was claiming that sources in the Seattle Police Department:

“indicated they will reopen the case and file murder-conspiracy charges against someone within a week.”

Strange a Seattle cop said that, given the issue of jurisdiction.

In Cameron’s memo to Kirkland of March 10, Cameron was very specific in requesting that Kirkland advise “X” to go to the LAPD and request “X” to supply the SPD with subsequent case number and the name of the Los Angeles detective who was dealing with the case, along with a copy of the polygraph chart and any supporting statements“X” could provide. See scan at the end of this section.

It seems that El Duce’s polygraph test and Hard Copy’s development of this story was in vain because after the above fiasco the SPD and LAPD seemed to lose interest in it. Leuci’s above comment to Kirkland regarding the withdrawal of the story from the Hard Copy show also seemed to have occurred because POV’s March 1997 edition reported that Hard Copy didn’t run the story. All of which was an unfortunate turn of events, leaving El Duce to deal with the consequences as best he could.

Of Karush Sepedjian’s polygraph test, Max Wallace and Ian Halperin reported:

In fact, Sepedjian, an admitted junkie, took a polygraph as well but, according to Gelb’s office, he kept dozing off -a common symptom of heroin addiction- and the results were dismissed as “inconclusive”. (‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ page 133).

In June 2004 I called Dr Gelb to question Wallace and Halperin’s above report and was informed that Sepedjian had been questioned twice, once on March 1st 1996, and once after El Duce had completed his polygraph test. Dr Gelb informed me that the questionaire Sepedjian had filled in was written in a firm hand, and that Sepedjian had stated that he’d had 10 hours sleep and hadn’t used drugs or medication for 12 hours prior to the test.

When I asked Dr Gelb if Sepedjian’s results would be classified as “inconclusive” or “deceptive” he replied that they were, in fact, “deceptive.” This deception specifically relates to the question as to whether Sepedjian was in earshot when Courtney Love made the offer of money to El Duce, to murder Kurt. Dr Gelb stressed, though, that El Duce’s test results were without deception, the only caveat being that El Duce thought Love may have been joking.

Wallace and Halperin reported: Love and her legal representative’s refused to confirm or deny whether she was in Los Angeles during this period, (the end of December 1993 when El Duce claimed she approached him at the Rock Shop on Wilcox Ave, Hollywood), despite Wallace and Halperin’s repeated requests. W & H told them that if they could provide concrete evidence that she wasn’t in LA at the time of El Duce’s claim, they would dismiss the story as a fabrication. (‘WKKC?’ p 133).

W & H reported that: Love’s lawyers refused to provide information on her whereabouts at this time but have tried to discredit other parts of El Duce’s claims. Her attorney Seth Lichtenstein pointed out El Duce said in one interview that he was seated on a bench outside the Rock Shop when Courtney approached to make the offer. Lichtenstein correctly asserts that there was no bench outside the store and concludes that El Duce must therefore be lying.

Wallace and Halperin failed to report that Nirvana did a gig at The Great Western Forum Inglewood, CA on December 30 1993 (‘Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone’ p 142). The distance between the Great Western Forum and The Rock Shop on Wilcox Ave, Hollywood, is approx 17.3 miles (using mapquest.com). It’s well known that Courtney travelled with Kurt, so the chances are pretty high that she was in LA on December 30th 1993, which would support El Duce’s claims. The LA Times’s Jan 1 1994 edition reported that the Western Forum December 30 1993 gig was a benefit for FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting).

Note: Several months after I uploaded this section Borzillo reported that Courtney Love was backstage after the above mentioned Great Western Forum show, (‘Eyewitness Nirvana’ by Borzillo, p 166).

To summarise:

1. In spite of Seth Lichtenstein’s reluctance to confirm to Wallace and Halperin Love’s whereabouts in December 1993, and in spite of Wallace and Halperin’s inability to place Love in LA/proximity to El Duce in December 1993 -Courtney was in LA at the time stated by El Duce.
2. El Duce passed a polygraph test proving he wasn’t lying.
3. It’s undeniable that Courtney knew El Duce quite well.
4. The overall description of both El Duce’s and (possibly) Sepedjian’s claims fit into the framework of a planned murder, and they go a long way in explaining Courtney’s otherwise illogical and contrary behaviour during the time Kurt was missing.

NICK BROOMFIELD’S INTERVIEW WITH EL DUCE

Source: Broomfield’s film ‘Kurt and Courtney’ as shown on BBC 2 October 31 1998.

Scene, Broomfield is taken to meet El Duce at his abode in Riverside, LA, by Divine Brown’s pimp, who is a close personal friend of El Duce.

Pimp: There he is, El Duce.

Broomfield: Where? Oh yes.

Pimp: There he is right there. This is him, El Duce.

El Duce: Yaaargh. Where’s the booze?

Pimp: He’s just perverted!

El Duce: Yeah, a warped er, intoxicator, most of the time.

Broomfield: So you er, did some deal with Courtney right?

El Duce: Yes.

Here Broomfield interjected the interview explaining that under British libel laws he was forced to cut these allegations. It was impossible to substantiate any of El Duce’s allegations.

Broomfield: That’s a fact is it?

El Duce: (laughs).

Broomfield: People might think that you are not the most reliable witness.

El Duce: Well, that’s too bad. You may not be the reliable witness your own self, now think about that! (laughs.)

Broomfield again interjected with:

“El Duce, I found out was well known in the LA music scene. A wild man with a strong following. He claims to have known Courtney over the years and that she came to the Rock Shop and made him an offer. Unfortunately it is this offer we were unable to substantiate. An offer that El Duce claims was very extreme. And that there was no way that it could be reproduced without having hard evidence that it was true. And under British libel laws as they stand today, that would be impossible.”

El Duce: I just didn’t think she was serious, (laughing.)

Broomfield jumps in with:

Unfortunately he was just a bit too wild and brilliant for the English libel laws. But she didn’t say anything about making...

El Duce cuts Broomfield off with: Make it look like a suicide.

Broomfield: Well, yeah, but if you just blew his brains out like you said, it wouldn’t look like a suicide, it would look like you blew his brains out.

Come on Nick! It was widely and hastily reported that this was a suicide. It has been widely accepted by the press and Seattle Police Dept that it was a suicide. All this acceptance whose foundations are built on a flawed investigation and dubious information supplied by none other than Courtney Love and unnamed sources.

There are at least two photographs published of Kurt holding a gun to his head, one of which was taken by Youri Lenquette in a February 1994 session in Paris.

Although Wallace and Halperin reported that Lenquette later admitted asking Kurt to strike that pose (‘WKKC?’ p 87), this doesn’t seem to be the case. In an interview published in Loaded’s June 1994 edition, Youri Lenquette stated that Kurt insisted on posing with the gun:

I’m looking at the contact sheet of Kurt Cobain’s last photo session. There he is, larger than life, grinning like a manic child, a deranged look in his mascara-ed eyes, a pistol nozzle pushed against his temple. In another pose he takes aim at the viewer, one eye closed, the other looking down the barrel of his gun. Then there’s the final sequence which Yuri Lenquette, the photographer, has refused to leak to the press. Here Cobain seems to be rehearsing his own death in some detail, posing with the gun in his mouth, then widening his eyes in pretend horror as he mimes the shock of impact. Throughout, and this is the scary thing, he looks like he’s having a good time. Which, as it happens, he was. “Kurt was like a child playing with a new toy,” Lenquette says as we peruse the photos together. “He wasn’t in a bad mood or feeling depressed when we did those photo sessions.” At one point the Nirvana singer even agreed to don a ridiculously large feathery hat. He refused, however, to pose for a single photo without the gun. (Loaded, June 1994).

So, according to Lenquette, Kurt was just fooling around, playing with the gun. In one of the photos taken, Kurt pointed the gun at Grohl’s head, but it didn’t mean that he was literally going to kill Grohl, any more than, when he held the gun to his own head it meant he was intending to kill himself.

Kurt has been in print saying about blowing his brains out. It wouldn’t be difficult for a determined and manipulative person to abuse and twist it to make out that Kurt was “suicidal.” The photos and quotes could easily have been used as the blueprint for murder.

How many times have I/You held two fingers to my/your heads pretending it was a gun and that I/You were going to pull the trigger? As a joke!

Unfortunately for Kurt these actions appeared in print and were later used as examples of his suicidal nature, used one must add, by a widow who stood to inherit a fortune from his death by “suicide”. And remember, Kurt was in the process of writing a new will which was to exclude Courtney, and he was going to leave her, divorce her.

Many people contemplate and talk about suicide, but that doesn’t make it inevitable that they will die by suicide.

After the above mentioned photo session: Kurt subsequently rang Lenquette from the south of France where “he sounded very bored” and from Munich where “he seemed really depressed. He complained of stomach pains and a sore throat and told me he didn’t want to finish the tour”. They talked to each other two days before the singer overdosed in Rome. (Loaded June 1994).

In the September 1996 edition of Photostory (a French publication, see cover, left) Youri Lenquette said that when he showed Kurt pictures of Cambodia, Kurt had been very interested and that Lenquette asked Kurt if he would like to go to Cambodia when the In Utero European tour of Feb/March 1994 ended. Kurt had been very enthusiastic and even asked Lenquette as to how he would go about getting a visa. Lenquette said that people shouldn’t believe that Kurt was always sad, because he had a lot of humour and that he didn’t talk of suicide to Lenquette. Thanks to Karim, Romuald and Olivier for the translation.

NICK BROOMFIELD’S INTERVIEW WITH EL DUCE, CONTINUED:

El Duce: Right, but er, I told Alan, (looks up sheepishly towards Divine Brown’s pimp)- I mean er, my friend who (starts laughing) aah, I’ll let the FBI catch him, but er, (laughs, that's just the way it’s done. End of Story (laughs again). Hey 50 grand does a lot of talking. You buy me a beer I might do some more talking, (laughs, looks into the camera, and after a short pause-) Yaaaaargh!

Broomfield: And that seemed to be the end of the interview. I didn’t know quite what to think. El Duce had passed a polygraph test, even though his main witness (Sepedjian,) had nodded off before its completion.

The polygraph was completed almost a year before Broomfield started making the film, so Broomfield could have treated the interview from the standpoint of an informed documentor, rather than the slightly bungling fool.

Nick, why didn’t you follow up on why the LAPD and SPD didn’t pursue the investigation further?

W & H reported:About a week after El Duce’s interview with Broomfield, on April 19, 1997 El Duce was killed by a train in Riverside, LA. The events surrounding his death are murky, rather like the events surrounding Kurt’s death.

W & H reported that at 5 pm Duce arrived at his house with a man he said he had just met. He introduced this man to his roommates. After a while they left the house to go to the liquor store saying that they would be back shortly. They never returned. At 9pm Duce was hit by a train and died instantly. There were no witnesses. Police were unable to locate the man seen with Duce that afternoon. (‘WKKC?’ p 134).

Wallace and Halperin reported that music journalist and friend of El Duce, Al Bowman, said:

“There is something very, very strange about his death. Anybody who knew El knew that you could make friends with him by offering to buy him a drink. He had a problem with alcohol,” (‘WKKC?’ p 134).

When asked if he thought El Duce was suicidal Bowman replied:

“No way. He was all exited about his upcoming tour. He was in good spirits. He didn’t kill himself. I’m convinced this has something to do with Kurt Cobain.”

Note: This Al Bowman appeared in Broomfield’s film as one of the “stalkerazzi.”

There are remarkable similarities between the way Kurt died and the way El Duce died. Bowman did not think El Duce was suicidal, look at his above quote again, it sounds remarkably like what Dylan Carlson, Kurt’s best friend, said when he was asked if he thought Kurt was suicidal:

“Kurt was facing lots of pretty heavy things, but he was actually pretty upbeat. He was prepared to deal with things facing him. He was making all kinds of plans for when he got back from rehab.”

Kurt and El Duce shared several constants in their lives:

1. Both of them got on the wrong side of Courtney Love.
2. Both of them were a threat to her.
3. Both died under mysterious circumstances.
4. Neither of them was suicidal.

Why did El Duce die when he did? He had already performed the polygraph test, his claims were out in the open for a while before he died. At the time this whole murder was beginning to be widely accepted, it was, and still is, gaining strength and credibility. El Duce died shortly after his interview with Broomfield. During that interview he mentioned someone called Alan and immediately after he said that name, he said:

“We’ll let the FBI catch him.”

The interview ended fairly abruptly thereafter. That is something to think about.

Note: I first wrote this article back in June 1999. At that time I thought El Duce’s name dropping could be important. However, once I started focusing on who was behind the unnamed sources which plagued this case and researched Kurt’s overdose in Rome, including Michael DeWitt’s presence in Rome, something Wallace and Halperin had failed to report in their first book on this case (and which they failed to show any interest in once I uploaded my article on the Rome incident onto this website in October 1999 -neither contacted me, year in, year out), armed with this previously missing information and context I concluded that El Duce’s name dropping was a false lead.

“Another one is that professional journalism has always feared any sort of context. Because if you provide context and background to stories, it’s impossible to do that without coming to a conclusion, usually.” Robert McChesney, author of “The Problem of the Media”. Interview here.

From July 1999 I was encouraging people to print copies of the articles I was sending out by email and which I uploaded to this website in October 1999. Thanks to those people and also the people who took the time to distribute the flyer made available from this website from September 2000- it meant that this information was being released, proving that the corporate media had failed to do its job of providing accurate, analytical and timely reporting of this case and that the job was being done by people who actually care about exposing that negligent reporting provided by the media, regarding this case.

Given the fiasco that developed over El Duce passing the polygraph test and the way in which El Duce was left to face the consequences, it’s possible that it was made worth his while to help create a false lead, (it’s highly unlikely that El Duce would have been receiving any kind of witness protection) or that someone told him that “Alan/Allen” did it, and El Duce simply believed them.

The police can no longer substantiate the theory that Kurt’s death was a suicide. It is becoming increasingly obvious that this verdict was contrived. Until there is a new independent investigation, possible witnesses will appear “evasive”, “reluctant”. They don’t want to wind up dead, like El Duce, Kristen Pfaff and Detective Antonio Terry. It’s up to the police to investigate suspicious deaths, not a private investigator.

There is too much evidence of foul play. This case must be reopened/investigated. Public opinion is not illegal, and it can pressure to this end. Most importantly, though, is that justice is done for Kurt Cobain.

Scan of memo sent from Sgt Cameron to Steve Kirkland dated 10th march 1996:
Two page report by Detective Kirkland documenting his communications with “X”, Santina Leuci, Max Wallace, Mark Lepage, Ian Halperin and D’Arcy Butler:

Back to Frances Barnett In Defence MAIN

[KnowledgeIsPower]

UNNAMED SOURCES AND KURT COBAIN’S LAST DAYS

References:

1 ‘Kurt Cobain’ by Christopher Sandford. Published 1995.
2 ‘Queen of Noise’ by Melissa Rossi. Published 1996.
3 ‘Courtney Love: The Real Story’ by Poppy Z Brite. Published 1997.
4 ‘Cobain by the Editors of Rolling Stone’.
5 ‘Nirvana, Teen Spirit, A Tribute to Kurt Cobain’, Video copyright Crystal Alpha.
6 ‘Never Fade Away:The Kurt Cobain Story’ by Dave Thompson. Published 1994.
7 1998 printout of Grant’s website.
8 ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ (WKKC?) by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin. Published 1998.

The way in which Kurt’s mental state in his last days is portrayed in mainstream publications is suspect. But these examples are raked up time and again to emphasise the fact that Kurt was mentally unstable and that suicide was clearly on the cards. I provide the following examples. As this section progressed the ramifications seem to support the fact that Kurt had been murdered. Please read this carefully, all of it, and seriously consider the evidence as to who the real source behind the myth of “Kurt the suicide candidate” was.

1:
At 7.30am (April 2nd,) Cobain took a taxi into town for bullets...after a desultory breakfast and a visit to his heroin dealer, Cobain spent 6 minutes vainly trying to contact Love at the Beverly Hills Peninsula (Sandford p 325-326).

A police report mentions this cab ride. In this report is the following information supplied to the police by the superintendent of the Gray Top Cab company:

The driver went to Lake Washington Blvd on April 2nd at 7.30 am. He picked up a person who he thought did not match the residence. He drove around looking for a place to find bullets, but was unable to find one. This male told the driver that he had recently been burgled and needed bullets. At 8.30 am, the driver dropped the man off in the area of 145 th and Aurora because he said he was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. The man’s fare was $27.

Sandford therefore omitted the vital fact that the driver mentioned a burglary. Kurt told Dylan Carlson he wanted the gun for protection against prowlers, this police report actually reinforces that on April 2nd Kurt was concerned about personal safety/security.

The police report this comes from makes it clear that Courtney herself contacted Gray Top Cabs requesting this information, so Courtney was aware of the details/time of this journey, see scan below:

How does Sandford know Kurt went to his dealers? Which dealer?

Could it be that Sandford only got certain bits of information on this cab journey? Could it be that “unnamed sources” gave him this incomplete information?

Maybe Kurt had a really nice breakfast, why always impose negative overtones to what Kurt was doing? If Kurt was in the state we are led to believe it is unlikely he would have been thinking about food at all.

With regards to Kurt trying to reach Courtney at the Peninsula Hotel, according to W & H, an article appeared in Spin in 1995, in which the Peninsula denied that this call ever took place. (‘WKKC?’ p 94).

Who are Sandford’s sources? Why is no identity offered to them?

2:
Later that afternoon (of April 2nd) he met a friend on Capitol Hill, gave her the keys to his Volvo and made a sign to her with his hand signifying a gun held to his head (Sandford p 326.)

Here we have an unnamed friend and Kurt’s mental state highlighted. The police report indicates that Kurt used the services of a cab co on the morning of April 2nd. Why did Kurt use a cab in the morning yet supposedly drive his own car in the afternoon?

When the police arrived at his house on April 8th it is specifically mentioned in their report that a Volvo registration WA lic 175 EYA is in the garage and that all 4 tyres are flat. See the police report at end of this section.

On the assumption that this is Kurt’s car and according to Sandford p 306 Kurt’s car did have that registration, then I have to ask myself why all the tyres were flat? Could it have been a tactic by would be murderer/s to ensure Kurt’s mobility was hindered?

If the tyres were flat on April 2nd and this was Kurt’s car, that would explain why he used a cab that morning. It would also mean that the story reported in Sandford’s book could not be true.

In the April 16th 1994 edition of ‘Melody Maker’ it was reported that the police were said to have had their last contact with Kurt on April 2nd but that any report of that incident was not among files supplied.

If this is correct, then the Seattle police are withholding an incident report for April 2nd. Could this be a report where Kurt contacted them complaining that his car had been vandalised (tyres were flat,) and that he believed there were prowlers/burglars? which he had told the taxi driver about that very morning.

The fact that the police have not made this report available indicates, to me, that it contains evidence that Kurt filed a complaint to them in which he expressed concern over a personal safety matter. Could the since murdered Detective Terry have been involved with this report?

3:
April 3rd, Charles Peterson saw Kurt in downtown Seattle and thought him ‘gone’. (Sandford p 326.)

But is this really what Peterson thought. Here are Peterson’s own words remembering Kurt, after his death:
“What sticks in my mind is actually running into him on the street about two weeks before he, before he killed himself. And it was just, you know, I guess in relation to events, I’m glad that I did. I’m glad that I saw him. We talked and he, we exchanged phone numbers and he was really happy about the book, my book of photographs that I’m doing. He was like, ‘Alright, at last, get the real thing’. And he was, we chatted and he was concerned about my wife’s illness and just really, you know....that sticks in my mind.” (Source, ‘Nirvana, Teen Spirit, A Tribute to Kurt Cobain’ Video.)

So Kurt didn’t seem depressed and suicidal here, then. Also see Sandford p 315, where Sandford wrote:

Like many of his close friends, Peterson regrets that neither Cobain nor his family told him that he had already tried to kill himself.

4:
Nobody -at least nobody who is talking officially--saw Kurt after April 2nd, when neighbours spotted him in the adjacent park, looking forlorn as he sat on a bench. It was a warm day, but he was dressed in many layers of clothing, as if to blanket himself against the bitter cold of his reality (M. Rossi, p 198.)

Again stress given to Kurt’s miserable state of mind because he was dressed inappropriately for the weather. This is Kurt we are talking about! The guy who wore a t-shirt, shirt and cardigan when he performed Unplugged under studio lights, while Dave and Krist wore t-shirts only. Also see Broomfield’s interview with Tracy Marander, where she talks about Kurt’s habit of wearing layers of clothing. To try and use his choice of clothing to show Kurt’s state of mind is ridiculous.

5:
On April 3rd Cobain met a woman named Sara Hoehn on Broadway. He was in a foul temper about a report that 40,000 fans had lined the street that morning to buy tickets for an Eagles concert in LA ‘We might as well not have happened’, is Hoehn’s memory of his words. (Sandford p 326.)

Here we finally have a named witness who testifies that Kurt was in a foul mood. But she went on to give reason, and nowhere does it imply that his mood is due to anything other than that he was pissed off about ticket sales for an Eagle’s concert. No mention here about him looking dangerously drugged or unbalanced.

Would a man purported to be in such a mentally fragile state be concerned about how many tickets were sold for an Eagles concert? Wouldn’t he have been more likely to have railed about his own problems? Note, alongside a sighting of Kurt by John Silva on this day, these are the last sightings of Kurt alive by people who knew him.

6:
What didn’t make the media was the multitude of rumours that trickled up from the junkie world that Kurt was buying rounds from the drug dealers -putting up money for everyone present and that he was horribly depressed: that he was clearly trying to overdose; that while dealers would sell him as much as he wanted, they didn’t want him hanging around and dying on them, leaving a star corpse to dispose of, that he said Courtney was having an affair with Billy Corgan and had told him about it in Rome, and that this confession was what had lead to the overdose there. “Where are my friends when I need them?” he lamented to one dealer. (Rossi p 198).

No names for these people who saw Kurt. Of course this could be because drugs were involved and they wanted to remain anonymous. OK, I could buy that reason, except I don’t, because Dylan Carlson was not only Kurt’s best friend, but also one of his drug suppliers, and Dylan told police that he did not hear from or see Kurt after March 30th.

Further, when Grant arrived in Seattle on April 6th and met up with Dylan, Dylan took him to all of Kurt’s traditional hangouts but nobody had seen him (WKKC? p 99).

Further, Grant had subcontracted Ernie Barth to keep watch on a dealers (Caitlin Moore,) house on Capitol Hill. Courtney had emphasised to Grant that Moore’s house should be checked out, so Barth had video surveillance there, but Kurt didn’t appear on the footage once. Courtney never requested to view this film, which seems odd, unless of course, Courtney knew that Kurt would not turn up there (Grant website).

(Barth also had the presence of mind to set up surveillance on 171, but unfortunately, Grant informed Courtney, who then ordered the surveillance to be removed. See the police report in my ‘Events’ section).

This emphasis on Moore by Courtney, which ultimately lead nowhere was another attempt by her to provide a false lead, to take attention off 171 Lke Washington Blvd.

As a junkie himself, Dylan would be familiar with any drug connections Kurt may have had. It just isn’t possible to believe that Kurt was doing all this drug taking and that Dylan was unaware of it. If Kurt was binging on heroin to the extent claimed, Dylan would have heard about it, of that I have no doubt.

So who to believe? A whole bunch of unnamed sources, or Dylan Carlson and Grant? I have to go with Dylan and Grant because as we will see, Mark Lanegan offers information which completely supports them (see example 7).

It is not inconceivable that these unnamed sources were planted. They don’t make sense, they contradict what information we do have from reliable named witnesses.

They appear to be a concerted attempt to provide false trails. All of Kurt’s friends expressed shock when after Kurt died, Courtney came out and said that Rome was a suicide attempt. Without exception, Courtney had told none of them. They were angry about this, they said that had they been told they would have kept an eye on him. Dylan said that had he known, he would never have bought the gun. We must conclude from this that Kurt never told Dylan that Rome was a suicide attempt.

This is because Rome never was a suicide attempt.

Now we have suspicious unnamed sources talking about Rome and an affair Courtney had with Billy Corgan in an attempt to explain why Kurt was depressed and trying to overdose, both in Rome and whilst he was missing in early April.

Maybe the authors were fed false information. Maybe they were set up. In the acknowledgements of Rossi’s book, after the named people, Rossi included:

“a whole bunch of “Deep Throats” who don’t want their names mentioned”.

Who would have been able to manipulate the planting of these stories? It would need to be someone who knew how to play the media game, and who had access to journalists/authors. Obviously it needed to be someone with an understanding of the drug scene of Seattle. It needed to be someone who was around at the time, who could assess the best people for the job, be it those gullible enough to believe false information, or those who would do it for payment. Who would be the best candidate for this? Probably a junkie, someone who had access to the drug underground, someone who had something to gain from false information leaking out, someone who was involved in some way with the murder. The only person who fits all this, that I am aware of, is Michael DeWitt.

DeWitt and Courtney have acted suspiciously throughout, and both are eminently qualified to manipulate the leaking of false information.

7:
The coroners report would list April 5th as Cobain’s estimated date of death, but this was refuted by friends who claimed Cobain placed calls to them on April 6th. (Rossi p 199).

Again, no names for these friends. Just who were they? Dylan didn’t receive a call, he said:

“I talked to Cali, who said he had seen Kurt on Saturday (April 2nd,) but I couldn’t get hold of him myself”. (‘Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone’ p 83).

Charles Peterson didn’t.

Mark Lanegan said he didn’t hear from Kurt in that last week:

“Kurt hadn’t called me. He hadn’t called some other people. He hadn’t called his family. He hadn’t called anybody”.

Lanegan went on to say that he had been looking for Kurt for about a week before he was found:

“I had a feeling something real bad had happened“. (‘Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone’ p 83).

Most people assume Kurt died either on April 5th, or the 6th. Grant believes Kurt was murdered April 3rd/early 4th. If Grant is right then that would explain why none of his friends saw him, heard from him, were able to contact him or were aware of the drug binge that he was supposedly on.

What are we to make of these calls? What possible reason for their existence? Could they be an attempt to mislead people into believing Kurt died on or around April 6th? That can be the only logical conclusion. If Kurt was murdered, then whoever was responsible would gain by disseminating as much misinformation as possible, to blur the edges, to provide false leads and alibis.

The last reliable witnesses to see Kurt alive were Sara Hoehn and John Silva, on April 3rd. Because no one else saw Kurt after this it is possible that Kurt died on April 3rd.

Grant states that a few weeks after Kurt’s death he eventually managed to speak to DeWitt,who admitted to Grant that he did check the greenhouse on the Sunday, which was April 3rd. I would like to know if this was before or after the Hoehn/Silva sightings. Because if it was after, then that would mean DeWitt admits to being in the very place Kurt died, on the very day Kurt went missing from the radar. Maybe now we see the reason for those phone calls and unnamed sources who claimed to have seen Kurt.

8:
Mrs O’Connor insisted that though the papers suggested Kurt had shot himself on April 5th, she believed it had happened the following day. “I felt it almost the moment he had gone,” she explained, suggesting he’d called her at 5.30 pm on April 6th, even though he didn’t say anything. (‘Kurt Cobain’, published by Oliver books).

This could have been someone who merely mis-dialled and hung up, or it could have been an attempt by the people who murdered Kurt to lead O’Connor into thinking that this was Kurt. This would tie in with the false information and claims that Kurt called friends on April 6th. The timing, 5.30pm, is interesting. Grant wondered if Courtney had attempted to get Kurt’s body discovered on April 6th by requesting the electricians worked on light monitors for the greenhouse.

If these workers finished work before 5.30 Courtney would know that they had made no such discovery, and proceeded to use the 6th as an extra day in which to plant false leads. The important thing to remember is that whoever it was, they did not speak.

CAITLIN MOORE AND THE VISIT TO CARNATION

In the days before his death Kurt is said to have spent at least one night at the property at Carnation, with an unknown woman. It is widely believed this woman was Caitlin Moore. According to Courtney, Moore had been having an affair with Kurt, she was also, according to Courtney, one of his dealers.

OK, Kurt was drug clean on the European tour, he was clean at the time of the Rome overdose. Kurt was not using heroin. The overdose in Rome occurred on March 4th, no heroin was found in his system at the time of this overdose. Kurt did not return to Seattle until March 12th.

So between that date and March 25th when the intervention took place, Courtney would have us believe that Kurt developed a massive heroin habit and became involved in/resumed an affair with, Caitlin Moore.

All this within the space of 13 days, at a time when Kurt was physically depleted due to illness/recovering from a near fatal overdose.

I don’t believe Courtney. It was Courtney who emphasised to Grant that Caitlin was having an affair with Kurt. Courtney specifically requested that Grant kept an eye on Moore’s house, even though she knew Kurt had been back to 171 Lke Wash Blvd, a fact she didn’t tell Grant.

The fact that Grant had video surveillance on Moore’s house and Kurt didn’t appear on the footage once, and also that Courtney showed no interest in viewing this film, indicate, to me, that Courtney knew full well that this would lead nowhere. Further, she knew it would divert attention away from 171.

I have not found one reference to Caitlin that didn’t originate from Courtney. I therefore believe that Courtney purposefully made up her claims about Caitlin. Caitlin may well have been a dealer, but that she played such a big role in Kurt’s life is highly questionable.

In ‘Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone’, p 86, it was reported that: the police reported that two people say that Cobain’s Capitol Hill heroin dealer told them Cobain had come by her apartment the night of April 5th. The dealer denied this.

If this dealer was Caitlin, then she herself denies seeing Kurt. The people who initially made this claim to the police could be anyone, could be people trying to add confusion to the situation. These very people are suspicious, they made false and misleading claims to the police. They should be investigated.

She (Courtney) suspected that he'd been with a female dealer, but when Courtney and Kat turned up at the dealers apartment, screaming and all but knocking the door down, the dealer swore Kurt hadn”t been there during that week. “And I believed her”, said Courtney. (Rossi p 210).

If Courtney was using Caitlin as a smokescreen, it was in Courtney’s interests to make out she believed her own story, so this episode was put up to imply Courtney was trying to find out where Kurt had been. But then this female dealer has now twice denied seeing Kurt.

Poor Caitlin, I bet she wondered what the hell was going on. She found herself an unwitting participant in one of Courtney’s attempts to mislead.

Moving on to the supposed visit by Kurt to Carnation with unnamed woman who I would now assume was not Caitlin. The Seattle Post Intelligencer, dated Monday April 11th 1994, reported:

According to Love; he (Cobain) apparently spent one night with unknown guest at a home the couple owns in Carnation. Kurt Trabout who lives nearby, said he had not seen Kurt since before Thanksgiving, when he saw Cobain drive past in his gray Volvo. However, Trabout said he noticed fresh tyre tracks leading to Cobain’s house last monday.

Last Monday would have been April 4th. Grant believed Kurt died April 3rd/early 4th. He believes this on the foundation that Courtney filed the missing persons report at approx 9am April 4th. In this report she stressed that Kurt was missing, possibly using heroin, suicidal and had a gun. Grant believes that Kurt was already dead by the time Courtney filed this, and that she knew the method - gunshot wound and heroin use - by which he died, hence her emphasis on suicide and the gun/heroin, which ultimately the police accepted as proof that Kurt was suicidal and was likely to have used the gun to kill himself.

If Grant is right, then Kurt could not have been at Carnation on April 4th. And let’s not forget that the last reliable witnesses to see Kurt alive were John Silva and Sara Hoehn on April 3rd. Let us also not forget that Michael DeWitt was roaming around Seattle possibly planting false leads. He could have driven to Carnation just as easily as anyone else. Tyre tracks are just that, they are not proof that Kurt was at Carnation.

On p 326 Sandford reported:
The police believe he was driven by a woman to Carnation. According to Love, a blue sleeping bag she had never seen before was found in the house, along with cigarette butts, some smudged with lipstick, a drawing of a sun with the words “cheer up”.

What does “the police believe” imply? It implies that they don’t actually know, they just believe. Could this be because they didn’t actually investigate it themselves but once again took Courtney’s statements as absolute proof that it did happen? Of Course! The Seattle police have persistently refused to investigate this crime, they are an absolute disgrace.

I haven’t seen mention on any Seattle police report evidence that they investigated this visit. Could it be that the only information on this visit comes from Courtney?

Not entirely. Grant visited this property with Courtney shortly after Kurt’s death. He had some very interesting things to say on the matter, as follows:

We made plans to go to the Carnation property. Eric Erlandson was supposed to come with us, but Courtney took him aside to talk to him in private and Eric left the house alone in his van.

Grant then said to Courtney: “I thought Eric was coming with us”. Courtney replied: “He’ll meet us there”. Grant, Courtney and Kat Bjelland then drove to Carnation. During this journey, Courtney made him stop twice for snacks, and misdirected him, thereby delaying the journey.

When they arrived they went to the older barn type property first. Courtney and Kat went upstairs, Grant checked out downstairs. He found five dead rats in the toilet, he said they had been there for some time, and that it was obvious no one had stayed at the property for some while. Courtney told Grant that she had found a pouch with a syringe in it, she showed him this. Grant was suspicious.

In the newer building on the property they found a sleeping bag, some cigarette butts and some soda cans. Grant mentioned that Eric never did turn up. He asked himself if Eric had come and gone before they arrived. (Grant website).

Needless to say, none what Grant had to say on the matter ever made it into the mainstream press/media. So it looks from all this that Carnation and Caitlin were another attempt to distract us from the fact that Kurt was murdered April 3rd/early 4th.

It comes down to the basic question of whether to believe Courtney her highly suspicious unnamed sources and the incompetent and bungling Seattle police? I know I don’t believe her/them.

How difficult would it have been for Eric, or DeWitt for that matter, to have planted several items at Carnation? We are intelligent people. We are not the Seattle Police Dept! We can and do differentiate between evidence that is a set-up and evidence that is not.

When information comes from Courtney, it must be dissected/interrogated/ seriously questioned. The Seattle police won’t do it. The mainstream press (Time Warner owned CNN, Entertainment Weekly and People and Viacom’s VH1/MTV, National Enquirer etc won’t do it, so called biographers such as Sandford and Charles R Cross, author of 'Heavier Than Heaven', published by Disney owned Hyperion, won’t do it.

We must do it.

Kurt deserves that these questions are asked on his behalf.

Now I want to focus solely on Melissa Rossi. Her book was the first to really bring these unnamed sources to power. Until her book, we had the likes of:

1 Dave Thompson’s, ‘Never Fade Away:The Kurt Cobain Story’ published in 1994. Thompson mentioned Kurt’s partiality for/preoccupation with.......milkshakes.

2 Sandford’s ‘Kurt Cobain’ published 1995. Sandford mentioned Kurt’s memory loss and possible impairment of judgment, after Rome. He even commented on the differing accounts between the official (named,) and unofficial (unnamed) sources, it’s a shame that these discrepancies were allowed to go unchallenged.

On p 379 Sandford wrote:

Where sources asked for anonymity -usually citing friendship with Cobain’s widow - every effort was made to persuade them to go on the record. Where this was not possible I have used the phrase ‘a witness’ or ‘a colleague’ as appropriate.

3 Nick Wise’s ‘Courtney Love’, published 1995. Wise voiced the question as to Courtney’s whereabouts at the time of his “suicide”.

4 Susan Wilson’s ‘Hole: Look Through This’ published 1995. Here it was written the prescription for Rohypnol was Courtney’s.

In short, there were loose ends and room for nagging doubts everywhere. Rossi was to consolidate and empower the mighty unnamed sources.

Rossi seemed to know her sources, she answered nagging questions, she provided the most in depth picture available, which left no room to doubt Kurt was suicidal and taking drugs to excess after Rome.

I fell for it, for a while. She was Courtney’s “information conduit” but not in the way she believed.

Here are a few examples, all of which refer to the days after the Rome incident. Grant believes the Rome overdose was attempted murder, so I am keeping this in mind.

Kurt’s response to the increasing likelihood of a break up (at Courtney’s wishes,) was to dull his pain with more heroin; before he left Rome, he’d made arrangements for a dealer to hide some in the bushes near the Seattle house. (Rossi, p 190).

No name for the source of this information. Emphasis on heroin, see my section on the Rome incident. Emphasis on Courtney leaving Kurt, not Kurt leaving Courtney, which is opposite to what was the truth.

Melissa, you say (pages 184-185) that Kurt was depressed after the concert on Feb 22, even though you admit Kurt’s performance was good. You say that Kurt was alone in Rome and that his birthday had passed with no cards/words from his parents, and what with Courtney being in London with Corgan etc, this added to Kurt’s depression.

I say that on Feb 21st, (the day after his birthday,) at the concert at Modena, Kurt was joking and talking to the crowd, albeit in a subdued manner. He did look unwell, that’s because physically, he was. But he made a reference to his future grandchildren, he laughed at something, and then said:

“Isn’t that great! I will tell my grandchildren that story”.

This isn’t the comment of a depressed/suicidal man, the tone of his voice was happy. This is on the bootleg video of Nirvana’s Feb 21 1994 concert in Modena, Italy.

Also, on the mainstream media in general, why does MTV only show the cut version of Unplugged? At least here in England. Could it be because on this version Kurt looks a little ill-at-ease? and that this helps to perpetuate the moody guy image mainstream media want us to believe?

I have the uncut version of this where Kurt is joking about playing Nine Inch Nails songs. Where he is recalling a cartoon and he puts on a cartoon voice and jokes around, where he is seen laughing and joking, singing in a daft voice, and sitting back reading a magazine called ‘WFMU’s First Catalog of Curiosities’ and signing autographs at the end of the set.

Kurt is constantly suffering the injustice of the media not wanting us to see anyone but a moody, depressed individual. And also I have on video an interview with Kurt dating to Dec 1993, where Kurt is mellow/comfortable, this was just 4 months before he died.

To everyone reading this I say: Don’t buy the rubbish MTV/VH1 and the mainstream media/press offer. It is false/distorted/biased in Courtney’s favour.

Do Kurt a favour and demand the truth.

The mainstream press seem to be guilty of conspiring to show Kurt in a false light. And more seriously, conspiring to cover-up/distort/withhold evidence.

I have seen more truth on bootleg material than I ever saw on Viacom owned MTV, VH1’s ‘Driven: The Secret Life of Kurt Cobain’, books by Rossi and Brite (published by Simon and Schuster and Pocket books, both owned by Viacom), magazines such as Select, Melody Maker, Spin, Circus etc. And it’s a sorry state of affairs when, to find the truth, one has to resort to the internet and bootlegs.

A dealer called from Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Kurt was at his place, buying too much heroin, acting like he was trying to overdose; the dealer wanted him out. Courtney told Krist who drove over to pick up Kurt, who willingly got in the car.(Rossi p 191).

Emphasis on heroin, see section on Rome incident. Novoselic’s initial response to Kurt’s death was:

“Smack was just a small part of his life” And:

Novoselic said he did not understand his friend’s behavior. “I don’t have it all figured out right now”, he said. (Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 14 1994).

If Kurt was obviously suicidal Novoselic would not have said: “I don’t have it all figured out right now”. The above response is of someone who didn’t consider Kurt to be suicidal or out of control in his drug use:

“smack was just a small part of his life”.

After the Rome overdose the distinction between being high and out of it on drugs to being ill and confused must be drawn. Kurt must be given the benefit of the doubt.

Questions MUST be asked on his behalf and in his interests, even if Courtney doesn’t like it.

He was extremely depressed, an obvious clue that the overdose in Italy wasn’t accidental. Anyone who had nearly died accidentally would have been happy to be with the living. A suicidal person, who awakens after attempting to die is depressed at having failed at death too. (Rossi, p 192).

Melissa, who are the unnamed sources that told you he was so depressed? Because they weren’t the people who knew him, Carlson, Lanegan, Peterson, doctors, lawyer et al.

I say that anyone who had nearly died after attempted murder and who didn’t have his memory back as to what had occurred would be expected to be confused and distressed, on top of this possibility, Kurt had been physically ill.

This possible attempted murder must be taken into consideration when Kurt’s physical and mental appearances after Rome are brought up. This mustn’t be mistaken for suicidal depression/proof of drug taking, allowances must be made for this possibility.

Melissa, you say that a person who intentionally tried to commit suicide would obviously be depressed on failing.

I say: would their first thought be to ask for a milkshake? I doubt it. And wouldn’t they remember it if they had tried to end it all?

Kurt didn’t know what had happened to him when he came out of the coma, he did know that he hadn’t tried to commit suicide though.

While waiting for them (the police,) to arrive, she attempted to break down the door with a fire extinguisher. Finally he opened it. She grabbed the gun from him and pointed it at her own head. “I am going to pull this right now, I cannot see you die! I can’t see you die again“. (Rossi p 191).

This is supposed to have occurred in March after Rome, whilst the police were on their way, after Courtney had called them because Kurt was locked in a room, and she told the police he was suicidal. When the police arrived, Kurt told them he was not suicidal, he was just trying to keep away from Courtney. Courtney’s bold and brave attempt to take the gun was not mentioned in the police report, why? Surely if she had been breaking the door in with a fire extinguisher there would have been damage to the door that the police would have noticed? There was never any mention of this in the report. Because it was a fabrication, one of Courtney’s melodramatic stories, another lie in her defence.

This looks to me like a case of hounding Kurt and not leaving him in peace. Maybe not wanting him to have the peace he would need to remember the Rome incident?

When he later went out for dinner he didn’t look the waiter in the eye, had a companion order for him, and all but hid under the table at the scene his presence was creating. (Rossi p 192).

So? Are we supposed to believe that because of this he was suicidal/ unstable/high? Kurt didn’t like a fuss, this is well known. I can’t accept that because this is the case it automatically becomes translated in a negative sense.

Everything Kurt did has been bent to fit the rubbish that unnamed sources/ Courtney want us to believe, it looks like a systematic character assassination to me. Kurt has been so maligned by these unnamed sources, and people have believed them for too long.
Immediately on Courtney joining him, unnamed sources lead us to believe that Kurt became a rampant heroin user who used Rohypnol and champagne to boot, who was clearly suicidal, and who was so incapable he “can’t even catch a f**king cab by himself”, we know this just isn’t true.

On MTV’s tribute to Kurt, Kurt Loder said:

“With In Utero out and the tour in progress Kurt Cobain seemed finally to have found an accommodation with rock stardom. Friends remember him at this point as genuinely happy. But then Nirvana went to Europe and somehow everything went wrong. Cobain got the flu, dates were cancelled. Recuperating in Rome he drank alcohol on top of a prescription sedative and collapsed in a coma. It was said to have been an accident, but behind press releases and doctors reports Kurt Cobain’s life was apparently spiraling out of control”.

Well the fact is that Kurt’s life started to spiral out of control immediately upon Courtney/her Rohypnols and Michael DeWitt joining him in Rome.

I don’t believe these unnamed sources, I question them, and where they don’t tally with reliable witnesses, I refute them, and there is so much to refute. In Rossi’s book there is over emphasis on his “huge drug habit”, his “suicidal/overdosing tendencies”, his “mental instability”, all of which are at odds with what his friends/doctors/evidence report/ suggest. It reached fever pitch in Rossi’s book, why? We will see soon.

Here is what Kurt had to say on unnamed/inside sources when referring to Hirschberg:

“No names were made. So it was obviously just a crucifixion piece. But I understand that a lot of people have been really affected by that, they believe it, I’m really surprised”.

(See my November 1999 update for more on the Vanity Fair/Hirschberg article).

There is a definite line between the truth and outright lies in this, and the very existence of all these lies is proof that a cover-up is warranted.

Grant initially put forward a very convincing theory, and circumstantial evidence and his recorded conversations with Courtney and Carroll indicate that he is right. Courtney had a duty to herself to defend her reputation against Grant’s claims, she didn’t do this.

Courtney, it is no use saying Grant has no money and is therefore not worth suing. Money is not the issue. If Grant was lying then money would be the least consideration of a genuine persons concern, by suing him and winning you would have ensured those claims were discredited.

So, on the assumption that it is permitted not to be legally bound to agree with/believe Courtney, I find myself asking questions, the answers to which are not very nice. Many people have legitimate reasons for their concerns over this and to that end this case must be reopened, and an independent investigation into Kurt’s death must happen.

Courtney, if you have nothing to hide it would be totally in your interests to have a new investigation.

A LESSON IN HOW TO PLANT A STORY

Scenario: in an attempt to get a story accepted, “C” provides information pertaining to that story through the intermediaries “B” & “D”. This information is false, it offers, at best, a twisted version of the truth.

“A” picks up on this information and thinks he has a scoop. He writes an article which is published in a widely read magazine.

“C” now knows that “A” has taken the bait.

“C” contacts “A” under the premise that “A” has unearthed hitherto unknown information.

“C” then informs “A” that by using his own sources he has verified that the information “A” uncovered is correct.

“C” flatters “A” by admiring “A’s” ability to make such discoveries. By this flattery “C” is reinforcing “A’s” confidence in his sources.

“C“ asks “A” to continue this investigation in order to discover more facts, and specifically points “A” towards various leads.

“A” now thinks he is really onto something and is flattered that “C” is requesting more research.

The reality is that “C” is “A’s” sources, using “B”, “D”, and any others he requires. All the strings are pulled by “C”.

Eventually “A” offers to introduce “C” to “B” and “D”, in an attempt to help “C”.

“C” does not bother to pursue “B” & “D”, because he already knows them. “A” is puzzled by this, but doesn’t really question it.

That is how easily a story can be planted. It is just a matter of having reliable intermediaries, and knowing who to set up. Could this happen in the “Real World”?

In Rossi’s book, ‘Queen of Noise’, pages 221-222 the following events occurred in June 1994, after the publication in Esquire’s July 1994 edition of an article on Kurt Cobain, co written by Melissa Rossi:

Rossi received a phone call from Courtney. Courtney asked Rossi where she got her information. Courtney then told Rossi that her own sources had confirmed that Rossi’s information was correct. Courtney then asked Rossi to help by investigating Kurt’s whereabouts whilst he was “missing”, and she gave Rossi the name of a hotel where she thought Kurt might have stayed. Courtney asked Rossi to investigate this, and to act as her “information conduit”, (Courtney’s/Rossi’s choice of wording,) and also mentioned what a scoop it would be for Rossi to uncover such information. Rossi then offered to introduce Courtney to one of her sources, but Courtney never bothered to contact him.

I find myself wondering why Courtney would need Rossi to do this when Courtney had her own sources who had already confirmed Rossi’s findings. If Courtney believed she knew where Kurt had been staying, why didn’t she get her own sources to investigate? Could it be that Courtney wanted Rossi to elaborate on her findings? Could it be that Courtney’s sources were one and thensame with Rossi’s? Of course it was.

I am right, and I feel sorry for Rossi. She could not have been aware that she was being played to the extent that she was. On page 11 of the introduction to her book, she writes about her feelings towards Courtney. One of the things she wrote are:

“I can clearly see her manipulative ness, and how easy it seems for her to use people”.

On reading the introduction to her book, it is obvious that Rossi was manipulated right from the start to write her biography. In February 1995 Rossi was approached by Rozz Rezabek (an old flame of Courtney’s) to collaborate in writing a book about Courtney. Once the idea was planted, Rezabek pulled out, after an offer of cash by Courtney. Rossi then decided to drop the book, but several months later Pocket Books approached her and she decided to continue. Rossi said that she got the initial OK from Courtney, and then wrote:

“As it turned out, she didn’t give me an interview at all, but at least she didn’t interfere”

Really?

By December 1994, Grant had begun to release relevant, (and from where Courtney and Rosemary Carroll were standing, it seems, undeniably true) information to the public. He received a letter from Rosemary Carroll threatening him with a law suit if he did not retract his claims.

On December 29th 1994 Grant sent Carroll a response saying that he would make no such retraction. Rosemary Carroll never did sue him.

Within two months however, the manipulation of the press by Courtney had been stepped up with the approach by Rezabek to Rossi.

I would never have questioned Rossi’s sources but for the fact that on close inspection they were so at odds with the accounts of Carlson, Lanegan, Rosemary Carroll, et al. If there is any doubt that it was indeed Kurt who was leaving Courtney, and not the other way around, I only have to look at the conclusions of Rossi. She thought Courtney was leaving Kurt, and that Kurt committed suicide. She formed her conclusions on the foundations of her sources. She just didn’t know that her sources were......Courtney Love!

Rossi was Courtney’s “information conduit“, therefore her perceptions of Courtney’s actions/motives are highly questionable. Her objective information seems to be reliable, especially where there are independent witnesses that support it.

This is not an attack on Melissa Rossi, she wasn’t the only journalist to be duped, although she did fall big time and unfortunately her work is probably used as a point of reference by other journalists/fans researching Kurt Cobain and Hence the reason most of them trot out the same “Kurt was suicidal” myth.

When John Aizlewood reviewed Rossi's book for ‘Q’ magazine’s September 1996 edition he wrote:
“Rossi gives short shrift to the silly theory that Love had Cobain murdered...”

And Nick Broomfield consulted Rossi for his film ‘Kurt and Courtney’, check the credits at the end of his film, her name is there.

When we look at Brite’s introduction to her book, it is obvious that Courtney approached Brite with the intention of getting her to write a biography, Brite wrote on page 15:

Courtney Love calls me one night. I don’t question how she got my unlisted number; people like her have ways.

Courtney is adept at managing to ensure publicity bends in her favour, and at the times she needs it most. Sloppy journalism is unacceptable but rife as seen in the Seattle Times April 10 1994 edition which reported that:

DJ Marco Collins broadcast unsubstantiated reports about Cobain’s last days, bolstered only by the admonishment that “this is only what we’re hearing”.

Which sums up the willingness of people in the media to report anything they were fed, without any attempt to discern genuine fact from the lies Courtney and her unnamed sources were spreading.

The interesting thing about Brite’s book (published by Simon and Schuster 1997) is that on close inspection it is clear that it is an attempt to cleanse Courtney’s stories still further.

There are several bits of previously unheard information which make it into Brite’s book which weren't in Rossi’s, and some incriminating information in Rossi’s book which become lost from Brite’s.

Both the Rossi/Brite books show the real Courtney, but only when they are read with the knowledge that she manipulated the contents.

Both of these books are proof that the circumstances surrounding Kurt’s death warrant considerable effort, through manipulation, for a cover up.

For example, and this is probably the most important, in Rossi’s book (published 1996 p 187) it is said that the nanny who accompanied Courtney to Rome in March 1994, was a male nanny. In Brite’s book (published 1997 p 163) this nanny has now become Jackie. In ‘Cobain by the Editors of Rolling Stone’ p 90, (published 1994,) it is said the nanny was Cali who is of course, Michael DeWitt.

“...but she was obsessed with media and how she’s perceived. What I didn’t realise was that 95 percent of it was her directly calling editors. She’s got a full media network going on....I thought I was around someone who was a victim and somebody who could use a friend, and what I was around was a very good manipulator and a careerist, someone not to be underestimated“.
(Trent Reznor talking about Courtney Love. ‘Nine Inch Nails’ by Martin Huxley).

Thanks Trent.

Over the years the facts are being overwhelmed by incorrect information. I have noticed that information which appeared at the time has since become lost. There are precious few examples of Kurt’s references to events, we must not let them be lost, they are Kurt’s defence.


The Rome incident

Back to Frances Barnett In Defence MAIN

[KnowledgeIsPower]

THE ROME INCIDENT MARCH 4th 1994

Kurt Cobain lived for twenty seven years, some of which were blighted by excruciating stomach pains that sometimes drove him to consider suicide. But he survived. He managed to get treatment for that problem. He survived.

Within hours of Courtney Love and Michael DeWitt joining Kurt in Rome, hours in which Kurt argued with Courtney and finally decided to leave her, Kurt was fighting for his life in a hospital in Rome.

Courtney’s response to this was to tell Select magazine: “If he thinks he can get away from me that easily, he can forget it. I’ll follow him through hell.”

She said this not within the context of a failed suicide, but within the context of an argument in which he told her he was leaving her. It is reminiscent of a recorded threat by Courtney to Victoria Clarke, “I will haunt you to f**king hell, for the rest of your life.”

Grant believes that this overdose was an attempt by Courtney to murder Kurt. The overdose was due to his ingesting Rohypnol and champagne, which Grant believed Courtney administered to Kurt without his knowledge.

Wallace and Halperin mention this in their book and then ask why Courtney would have called the ambulance whilst Kurt was unconscious, rather than leaving him to die?

In an interview with Robert Hillburn on April 4th 1994, Courtney talked about the overdose in Rome. Hilburn reported:

Love had flown to Rome early last month to spend a few days with Cobain after he cancelled part of a European concert tour, caused by illness. She woke in the hotel room to find him unconscious, having taken some of her prescription tranquilizers and alcohol, she says; “He was dead......legally dead, he was in a coma for 20 hours...on life support. They thought he was never going to come out of it.” (LA Times April 10th 1994).

Maybe Courtney did leave him until she thought he was dead. Her above statement looks to me like amazed disbelief that he was not dead. Maybe the answer is that obvious.

Reports came through that Cobain had been moved from the Umberto Prima Hospital--allegedly at Courtney Love’s insistence--to the American Hospital... Many thought that, in the state he was in, Cobain would not be moved anywhere unless doctors at the Umberto had said they could do nothing more for him. A doctor at the Umberto Prima said: “Cobain was in a grave condition when he left here.” (Melody Maker’s March 12th 1994 edition).

How wise was it to have Kurt transferred at this point? Could this have been a desperate attempt to set-back/prevent his recovery? I know it was claimed to be for security reasons, but I question this excuse.

On March 3rd, just a few hours before she met Kurt in Rome, Courtney did an interview with Select magazine, the writer said that during this interview Love was popping Rohypnol:

There is a box of Rohypnol on the big mahogony table in the middle of Courtney Love’s London hotel room, among the scattered papers and cigarette boxes. “Look, I know this is a controlled substance,” she smiles as she empties one of those fizzy stomach upset powders into a tumbler of water and washes back a Rohypnol. “I got it from my doctor. It’s like Valium. You know, f**k that Prozac stuff. I’m not a depressive, I tried it for like five or six days, and by the sixth day I started seeing tracers like when you’re on acid...”(Select's May 1994 edition).

In Melody Maker’s March 12th 1994 edition there was a two page article on Kurt’s overdose. Everett True had reviewed that weeks singles with Courtney just prior to her flying to Rome. True reported that during this review, Courtney said:

“This reminds me of when I take those dihydrocodeines I get over here in London, with Rohypnol and champagne.”

Everett True ended his article by saying:

“If Kurt Cobain wants to take Rohypnol, drink champagne and go into a coma, it’s up to him (and his wife, presumably,) and no-one else.”

So, Courtney had the Rohypnol, and experience of that method of using it, at a time that was crucial. Everett, where is your compassion?

But was it up to Kurt? It is possible that he wasn't aware that he had been administered it. Rohypnol is tasteless when dissolved in drink, that is why it is called the date-rape drug. One tablet in a drink is enough to confuse and disorientate a person.

It was claimed that Kurt ordered champagne and requested for a bell boy to fill a prescription for Rohypnol, the prescription was Courtney’s. How do we know Kurt ordered them? Contrary to Brite’s claim that Jackie was the Nanny in Rome, it was reported at the time that Love, Frances Bean and Cali joined Kurt in Rome. If these were ordered by phone, then DeWitt, aka Cali, could have ordered them, and Kurt could have been oblivious to it.

The story as it unfolds in the Rossi/Brite books is that Kurt was acting the romantic, ordering champagne, providing flowers, sending out for a prescription. Courtney fell asleep. She woke up between 3-4 in the morning and found Kurt unconscious, with blood coming from his nose. He had a wad of cash in one hand, and a note he had written in the other, he was wearing a brown corderoy jacket. (Rossi p187/ Brite p 164.)

This does not make sense at all. We know Kurt wrote a note, nearly all sources agree on that. The only example I can find of Kurt’s explanation of this note is in Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone, p90 where a Gold Mountain employee said:

“Kurt insisted it was not a suicide note. He just took all of his and Courtney’s money and was going to run away and disappear.” In the article as it was originally published in Rolling Stone’s June 2 1994 edition it reports that this Gold Mountain employee was Janet Billig

There seems to be a problem here. I will always accept Kurt’s reasons and doubt Courtney's. On that basis then, why would Kurt write a note, prepare to leave, get the cash together, and then take an overdose? The two actions are contradictory. The other point is that Brite wrote that Courtney woke up between 3-4 in the morning and found him unconcious----but the ambulance wasn’t called until 6.30 am.

This incident was described at the time as an accident/mistake/inadvertant overdose. A convenient mistake/accident/etc, which just happened when Kurt was leaving, running away. A mistake which involved Rohypnol and champagne, substances Kurt did not use but that Courtney was in the habit of using in combination and had at her disposal, substances notorious for their use to incapacitate victims. I don’t believe this was a mistake for one minute. And I believe Kurt’s reasons, so I can only consider the possibility that Grant is right, and that it was attempted murder. It was only after Kurt’s death that it was claimed this was a suicide attempt.

The accounts are a mess, we only have slivers of information which come from reliable sources. Courtney and DeWitt’s can be discarded.

All I can do is try to piece together what might have happened using the facts I have. So the following is hypothetical, a possibility, an opinion. Are opinions banned under the British libel laws, Nick? Well, I’ll take my chances.

Kurt wasn’t attempting suicide. The note Kurt wrote was a note saying he was leaving Courtney, running away. On these foundations Kurt didn’t take any Rohypnol that he was aware of.

1 Kurt argued with Courtney, he told her he was leaving, both her, and the tour he was on.

2 Someone ordered champagne and for the prescription to be delivered. But this might not have been Kurt. Kurt might not have known about this.

3 Kurt didn’t drink alcohol, this is witnessed by people who toured with him. Just one Rohypnol was dissolved in a small amount of champagne, which was then diluted with water, maybe in Kurt’s famous bottle of Evian water.

The perpetrators of this act have enough experience of using Rohypnol to know what they are doing. They provide just enough of the drug to render him incapable of leaving. Safe in the knowledge that Kurt won’t get very far, they leave the room, possibly to decide what to do next.

According to Rossi p 186 the suite Kurt had in the Excelsior Hotel had an extra bedroom for the nanny. Maybe they go there.

4 Because Courtney wasn’t in the room, Kurt wrote a note saying that he was leaving. He got ready to leave.

5 The drug took effect before he could get away.

6 The perpetrators then returned.

7 Kurt was incapacitated. Why did he have a bloody nose?

8 The perpetrators forcefully administered Rohypnol and champagne, Kurt struggled, and in the process he injured his nose. When a person is forcefully administered liquid, their noses are pinched to force them to gulp air/liquid to breathe.

“She saw the top of Kurt’s blonde head whipping furiously back and forth”, P. Brite p 169. This was Courtney’s description of Kurt supposedly being man-handled into an ambulance.

Are you sure you aren’t confused, Courtney? You obviously saw this somewhere, are you playing with the truth?

9 The perpetrators wait until 6.30 am before they raise the alarm, by this time they believe that he is dead.

This is hypothetical, but it shows a sequence of events which makes sense. Provides answers to the contradictions that otherwise stand.

Grant doesn’t have the answers to everything. He does have an informed opinion though, and many people believe him. This will not go away. There are serious and legitimate reasons to reopen this case.

Rome was never investigated as attempted murder, it should have been, maybe it still can.

Kurt’s death MUST be re investigated. The patterns evident in Rome/Lke Wash Blvd cannot be ignored.

Kurt survived. Dr Galletta who was responsible for Kurt’s treatment, issued the following statement:

“Cobain doesn’t know what happened to him. He hasn’t gained complete control of his memory. When he emerged from the coma, he was very hungry and asked for a strawberry milkshake!” (Melody Maker March 12th 1994.)

Victims of date-rape/Rohypnol often don’t remember what happened to them, and their memory comes back at different rates, sometimes remaining lost for years.

In Dave Thompson’s book, Never Fade Away, published 1994 ( p 11), Thompson mentioned an internet posting by Kurt, where he said:
“I’m still pretty freaked over the Rome thing, and need some time to rest and get over it. You’d think they could make a good milkshake, but no.”

I would be freaked if my intended plans suddenly came to a halt, and I ended up in hospital for no reason that I could fathom. In Rome, Kurt was on the verge of running away, next thing he finds himself in hospital and he doesn’t know why.

Sandford mentions this same posting (p 323), but he omitted the above section, maybe by 1995 (when Sandford’s book was published) it wasn’t convenient to include the above, Kurt had a healthy propensity for milkshakes and breakfasts, not really in keeping with a suicidal man, a bit inconvenient. The fact is that as time passes certain bits of information which pertain to Kurt are lost whilst facts/evidence supporting Courtney’s claims are constantly evolving, miraculously appearing. These unnamed/Courtney claims are an insult to Kurt Cobain.

Victims (of Rohypnol/date rape,) are usually unconcious for at least 10 hours and may only remember events in flashbacks over the next few days......Last year Rohypnol’s manufacturer introduced an anti abuse mechanism, in which a bright blue liquid is produced once the drug is dissolved. (London Evening Standard, 20th August 1999).

If this was an attempt to murder Kurt, and Kurt survived, what on earth could Kurt be thinking and feeling?

Shocked, confused, scared? Probably not even remembering exactly what had transpired.

He did try to leave Courtney, after his return to Seattle. He certainly contacted his lawyer Rosemary Carroll asking her to write a new will excluding Courtney. He kept several guns for his protection, until the police confiscated them.

The friction within their relationship escalated to intolerable levels in the days proceeding Rome.Why?

If it was just a tiff, as Courtney claimed, well that’s no big deal.

If it was a suicide attempt, and Courtney was concerned, she would have told friends, to ensure they kept an eye on him, she didn’t do this.

Instead Courtney hounded Kurt (see nanny interview. See police report for March 1994, police reports are on the internet.)

Why did he return to Seattle and remain under the same roof as Courtney? There are witnesses to support the fact Kurt was trying to leave, see the Broomfield/Nanny interview. See the police report for March 1994.

But why didn’t he just physically walk?

He’d just come out of a coma, he had been ill and exhausted even before that happened. I don’t know. Maybe he still hadn’t yet gained complete memory of what happened in Rome.

“The last image I have of him, which in the light of the tragedy now seems pathetic, is of a young man playing with the little girl (Frances). He did not seem like a young man who wanted to end it. I had hope for him.” (Dr Galletta, who treated Kurt after his overdose in Rome. Newsweek April 18 1994).

REFERENCES TO THE ROME “SUICIDE” NOTE:

1 “Kurt insisted it was not a suicide note. He just took all of his and Courtney’s money and was going to run away and disappear.” (Gold Mountain employee, Janet Billig, Rolling Stone’s June 2 1994 edition).

2 “It was on hotel stationary, and he’s talking about how I’m not in love with him anymore...and he knows how much I love him...and that like Hamlet, he had to choose between life and death, and he said he was choosing death.” (Courtney Love’s description of the Rome note, Spin Magazine’s Feb 1995 edition).

KURT’S DRUG USE

Courtney has used every opportunity to highlight that Kurt was suicidal and using drugs heavily in the days prior to and after Rome. She has unnamed sources to support her claims!! Melissa Rossi repeatedly accentuated the use of heroin and makes no reference to any possible habitual use, by Kurt, of Rohypnol. The only mention of it is its use at the time of the Rome overdose.

There are witnesses to the fact that Kurt was clean during the tour, see quotes of Tony Barber and Pete Shelley in Kurt wasn’t suicidal section.

In the March 12th edition of Melody Maker, Everett True commented on Kurt’s drug/alcohol consumption as follows:

“Although it’s no secret that in the past Kurt Cobain has taken drugs, sometimes to excess, the last time we met (in Seattle, last December -1993), he seemed completely “clean”. That is, he was clean, optimistic and happier than he’d been for years....I knew that he’d cut down on his drug taking for a while....He hadn’t taken alcohol in any serious quantity for several years, that’s for sure.”

The overdose in Rome was attributed to a combination of champagne and Rohypnol. There has never been any inclusion of heroin in this combination, which implies no heroin was found in Kurt’s system. This supports Barber and Shelley’s claims that Kurt was clean. It would also explain why Kurt denied he had a drug problem when he was faced with the intervention, and Steve Chatoff’s statement: “He was in full denial.” (Cobain by The editors of Rolling Stone p 82).

And Dylan Carlson’s quote: “He felt like he had no habit,” (Sandford p 324).

Chapter 18 of Poppy Z Brite’s book: 'Courtney Love: The Real Story' published 1997 begins:

Conversation overheard on a flight from Rome to Seattle, March 12, 1994:

“Give me a Rohypnol.”

“They’re gone.”

A silence. Five minutes later:

“C’mon, give me a Rohypnol.”

“They’re gone Kurt. They are gone. I dumped them all down the f**kin toilet. It’s over.”

“f**k you, you lying pregnant dog, give me a Rohypnol....Please...”

This is a new progression. Again, no name for the person who overheard this conversation. It wasn’t mentioned in Melissa Rossi’s book 'Courtney Love: Queen of Noise' published in 1996.

Courtney has had a few months to elaborate on her stories, before the “New and Improved” version makes it’s debut, courtesy of Poppy Brite. The above is an attempt to tackle the previous lack of references with regards to Kurt being a familiar user of Rohypnol. It also introduces the notion that Kurt was now using Klonopin, heroin and speed (might as well go the whole gamut, Courtney, cover all possibilities, Kurt’s not here to defend himself.)

There are witnesses to support the fact Courtney was popping pills, and was familiar with the method of mixing them with champagne/drink before and after Rome, see the previously mentioned Everett True comments, and the following:

After their return from Rome Courtney considered administering Valium to Kurt in a drink,secretly, because she claims she was concerned that Kurt was manic and needed to rest (Poppy Z Brite’s 'Courtney Love: The Real Story' p 168).

Are you sure you aren’t confused Courtney? Are you messing with the truth? You obviously thought of this at some point. Anyway, it contradicts Kurt’s posting, where he makes it clear that he is aware he needs rest. I think he could cope without your intervention.

On March 22nd at Kurt’s insistence they returned the Lexus Courtney had bought. Kurt was begining to take the upper hand, getting rid of what he didn’t want, he seemed quite capable of this, and it caused Courtney to panic, behave in an unstable manner. As he took control, she lost it.

Kurt was not the unstable, incapable wreck unnamed sources would have us believe.

See Sandford p 320, where Kenney described Love as unstable at this time:

Four days later (March 22 1994) the Cobain’s appeared at the American Dream car lot, where they struck the owner Joe Kenney as 'upset' and Love as 'unstable', dropping a bottle of pills as she walked towards the bathroom.

Kenney remarked that neither Kurt nor Courtney looked like they would be around much longer because they were so strung out on drugs, but Kenney didn’t mention that he actually saw Kurt taking pills though, and as Kurt had been ill enough to cancel the tour he was on, he had also survived a serious coma where he almost died, his physical appearance could be down this. Because Kurt was clean to other witnesses, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that that is why he looked rough, and perhaps Kenney assumed wrongly that Kurt was strung out on drugs.

No heroin was found in Kurt’s system in the Rome overdose, and witnesses exist to state that Kurt was clean, and above all this Kurt himself denied he had a drug problem. Therefore Kurt could not, at this time, be classified as a heavy drug user who had a high tolerance for heroin. This is important.

When Kurt died, he had 1.52 milligrams of morphine per litre of blood in his system. Dr Cyril Wecht, one of America’s leading forensic pathologists stated:

"With a level of 1.52 millilitres per litre of morphine as found in Kurt’s blood level, for the great percentage of people including addicts, it would induce a state of unconciousness quite quickly, in seconds, not even minutes. It would be virtually impossible for him to have shot himself with that high a level of morphine. It raises a question if he shot that shotgun, a big question." (WKKC? by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin, p 113).

Two Doctors attended Lake Washington Blvd on April 8th, Dr Donald Reay and Dr Nikolas Hartshorne. Hartshorne was a friend of Courtney’s. It was his verdict of suicide that made Kurt a victim for the second time, firstly of murder, then incompetence.

Dr Reay has since justified this verdict by saying that a severe heroin addict has a higher tolerance and that the level of morphine present in Kurt would not exclude him from being able to pull the trigger (not to mention tidying up the works, pulling down his sleeves etc), due to the fact he was a severe heroin addict.

Kurt was clean. So once again the Seattle police and medical examiners prove that shabby incompetence and lack of investigative techniques do not exclude acceptance into their realms. Just accept evidence provided by the most likely suspect of any given crime. Case solved.

How glaringly obvious do the discrepancies need to be, before this case is taken seriously? Before the likes of Caitlin Moran stop offering such inane comments as:

“Nick Broomfield’s persistently uncomprehending film Kurt and Courtney.”

And:

“She seems amazed that she and Kurt hadn’t cast off plaid shirts and decamped to the semi-tropics (of LA)years before.” (Select Magazine September 1999).

Select is a British music publication which refuses to report this case with integrity, it consistently supports the actions of Courtney Love, boycott it, please. Note: Select ceased publication in 2000.

Caitlin, you don’t even get the basic facts right, the Rome overdose was on March 4th, not the 2nd. Courtney was born in 1964, not 1965. Kurt hated LA Courtney loved it. Kurt wanted to live in Seattle, Courtney in LA. Kurt died, Courtney got what she wanted.

You are persistently uncomprehending, Caitlin. You would qualify to work for the Seattle Police Dept.

Additional information. I have now managed to get film of Dr. Galletta, where he said, after the Rome overdose:

“Kurt Cobain is clearly and dramatically improving. Yesterday he was hospitalized at the Rome American Hospital in a state of coma and respiratory failure. Today he is recovering from a pharmacological coma due not to narcotics, but the combined effect of alcohol and tranquillizers that had been medically prescribed by doctor.”

So Kurt definitely had no heroin in his system at the time of the overdose, and therefore he was clean.

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COURTNEY LOVE, AFTER THE ROME INCIDENT

If Rome was a failed murder attempt by Courtney and DeWitt what on earth could they be thinking and feeling? Scared? Worried that Kurt would recover his memory?

Courtney and DeWitt would need to control the situation, see the nanny interview.

The previously mentioned internet posting by Kurt occurred on March 29th. So on that day Kurt was still “freaked” about Rome. I would conclude from this that he still didn’t understand, at that point, exactly what had transpired. He may have had vague, confusing recollections/flashbacks that he couldn’t quite understand.

If Rome was a failed murder attempt by Courtney and DeWitt, there would be no way that Kurt would be allowed to regain his memory.

Courtney traveled to LA just prior to this posting leaving Kurt in Seattle. Her absence would imply that Courtney was willing to leave Kurt to his own devices.

Courtney was absent from the Seattle residence, but conveniently, DeWitt was not.

When Kurt returned to Seattle on April 2nd DeWitt was there, and had been all along. He could have been responsible for deflating the tyres on Kurt’s car.

This is yet another failing on the part of the Seattle Police, why didn’t they investigate the flat tyres? Surely the fact that all 4 tyres were flat was suspicious? I could understand one tyre being flat, but all four? No.

Also, Courtney cancelled Kurt’s credit card once she knew he was back in Seattle. So now Kurt had no car, or use of this card, should he choose to leave Seattle, or do what he wanted to do. What gave Courtney the right to do this? It would be convenient for murderer/s, give them control.

I choose to believe Kurt, when he said Rome wasn’t a suicide attempt. I also believe him when he said he didn’t have a drug problem, (at the time the intervention attempts took place.) I then have to ask myself what really happened in Rome? And I find myself of the opinion that the Rome incident was attempted murder and on this foundation, Kurt could not be allowed to regain his memory.

If Courtney and DeWitt had both been in LA at this time (April 2nd-4th) this scenario wouldn’t exist. But the fact is that Courtney had a nanny travel to LA with Frances, but she chose to leave DeWitt at the house in Seattle, so Kurt was never really free of Courtney and DeWitt’s influence.

Between the dates of March 3rd and April 3rd/early 4th 1994, when I believe Kurt was murdered, Courtney and DeWitt had control over Kurt.

There are a few instances when this control was precarious. Kurt was trying to change his lifestyle, and he didn’t play to Courtney’s rules. These instances were:

1 (4th March,) When in Rome he attempted to leave her/run away. He ended up in hospital fighting for his life, and he didn’t know why.

2 (March 22nd,) When he insisted on returning the Lexus. At this time Kenney described Courtney as popping pills and “unstable”.

3 (around the end of March,) When he refused intervention. At this time Sepedjian described Courtney as “frantic” and “screaming”.

4 (April 1st,) When he chose to leave rehab. At this time Joe Mama described Courtney as “freaked” and “scared”.

5 (After the Rome incident,) When he talked about divorce and requested a new will excluding Courtney. He died before he got the chance to sign it.

Courtney didn’t want Kurt to have control.

It scared her.

Not because he was suicidal, he wasn’t, and not even solely because she stood to lose everything if he signed his will and divorced her.

But because she stood the risk of Kurt remembering that she and DeWitt tried to murder him in Rome.

When David Haig met Kurt (after Rome,) in a downtown hotel he found him tense and emotional, and weeping openly when discussing his marriage. Kurt also complained to him of partial memory loss, insomnia, fatigue and 'a buzzing in the top of my head'. (Sandford p 321.)

It’s interesting that Haig made no mention of Kurt looking drugged up/depressed/ suicidal. His observations of Kurt are more in line with what one would expect of a classic victim of Rohypnol induced assault. This is further substantiated by references to Kurt wearing his hunting hat at seemingly innappropriate places ie, indoors, after Rome.

“One could wonder about impairment of judgement”, (after Rome,) Dr. David Bailey, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California. (Sandford p 321.)

On March 29th 1994, Kurt didn’t have his complete memory back with regards to Rome.

Within 6 days he was dead.

He never got the chance to remember exactly what happened.


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TRANSCRIPT OF BROOMFIELD’S INTERVIEW WITH THE NANNY IN FILM "KURT AND COURTNEY"

Friend (of the nanny): She’s really scared. She’s always been afraid to talk about this.

Broomfield: How long was she the nanny?

Friend: Um, 4 or 5 months. They go through nannies like people go through Kleenex.

Broomfield: Really ?

Friend: Yes.

Broomfield: And she’s really frightened?

Friend: Yes.

Broomfield: What is she frightened of?

Friend: Courtney.

Broomfield now talks about the nanny: She had become very depressed and withdrawn following her time at the house (Kurt’s house at 171 Lake Washington Blvd) just before Kurt died. I asked her what was so strange in those last weeks.

Nanny: There was just way too much will talk. A few different times. Major will talk. Just talking about his will and..."

Broomfield: What kind of points?

Nanny: Courtney talking about his will and... I mean what a thing to talk about (nervous laugh.)

Broomfield: And was this just sort of prior to his....

Nanny: Yeah, I mean the month that I was up there was like, I came home for a what? A week? and then he died. I had quit for, like, a week.

Broomfield: Why did you quit?

Nanny: Because I couldn’t stand it up there (nervous laugh.)

Broomfield: And what did you think of Kurt himself?

Nanny: Ummm...

Broomfield: I heard he was a very caring father.

Nanny: (nodding in agreement): "Yes, more caring than he was let to be (nervous laugh.)

Broomfield: What do you mean?

Nanny: She just totally controlled him... every second that she could.

Broomfield: What do you think he wanted?

Nanny: To get away from Courtney. And I think he just didn’t have a way because..... (trails off).

END

Kurt Cobain was not suicidal

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KURT COBAIN WAS NOT SUICIDAL
When Kurt returned to Seattle after the Rome incident:

“I saw Kurt the day he got back from Rome. He was really upset about all the attention it got in the media.” Carlson didn’t notice anything abnormal about Cobain’s health or behaviour. Like many of Cobain’s friends,he regrets that neither Cobain nor anyone else told him that Rome had been a suicide attempt. (Dylan Carlson talking about Kurt, Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone, p 90).


Dylan Carlson, Kurt’s best friend

Dylan, remembering Kurt on March 30th, when they bought the gun:

“He seemed normal.....we'd been talking”. (Cobain by the Editors of Rolling Stone p 83).

“At the time (they went to buy the gun, 30 March 1994,) Kurt definitely wasn’t suicidal or I would never have bought the gun. He was my best friend. I would have known if Rome was a suicide. No way. A year earlier I would have believed it because of the pain, but he wasn’t talking like that anymore. He was making all kinds of plans for when he got back from rehab.” (Dylan Carlson WKKC? p 91).

“Kurt was facing lots of pretty heavy things but he was actually pretty upbeat. He was prepared to deal with things facing him.“ (Dylan talking to the Seattle Post Intelligencer April 15 1994).


Mark Lanegan

“I never knew (Kurt) to be suicidal, I just knew that he was going through a really tough time.” (Mark Lanegan, Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone p 90)

To Cobain’s friend Mark Lanegan Kurt was “an amazing guy, a complete gentleman”. (Sandford, p 340).

His paternal grandmother, Iris Cobain, said “everything seemed fine“ when she and her husband last talked to Cobain in late March, “We never really asked him about Rome, he said it was just an accident.” In that last conversation, Cobain confirmed plans to go fishing in April with his grandfather. “When he talked to me he seemed happy,” Iris Cobain said. (Seattle Times May 11 1994).

Buzzthingys supported Nirvana in Feb 1994. Bassist Tony Barber told the Maker: “I know he was not taking drugs on that tour. He was walking around drinking Evian water and looking clean every time I saw him. He didn’t seem to consider himself a star...He seemed like a shy bloke who didn’t have many friends. Often when I was talking to him, I felt like saying something like, “Look, if you need a mate just to go for a drink with or anything, I’m here.” And then I came home last night and saw it on the news. I couldn’t believe it. It’s just so sad.” (Melody Maker’s April 16 1994 edition).

Pete Shelley vocalist and guitarist: “He seemed really clean when we were on tour. In some ways it was a bit awkward because he wasn’t really joining in the very mild debauchery that went on.”(Melody Maker, April 16 1994.)

I’m looking at the contact sheet of Kurt Cobain’s last photo session. There he is, larger than life, grinning like a manic child, a deranged look in his mascara-ed eyes, a pistol nozzle pushed against his temple. In another pose he takes aim at the viewer, one eye closed, the other looking down the barrel of his gun. Then there’s the final sequence which Yuri Lenquette, the photographer, has refused to leak to the press. Here Cobain seems to be rehearsing his own death in some detail, posing with the gun in his mouth, then widening his eyes in pretend horror as he mimes the shock of impact. Throughout, and this is the scary thing, he looks like he’s having a good time. Which, as it happens, he was. “Kurt was like a child playing with a new toy,” Lenquette says as we peruse the photos together. “He wasn’t in a bad mood or feeling depressed when we did those photo sessions.” At one point the Nirvana singer even agreed to don a ridiculously large feathery hat. He refused, however, to pose for a single photo without the gun. (Loaded, June 1994).

In the September 1996 edition of Photostory (a French publication, see cover, left) Youri Lenquette said that when he showed Kurt pictures of Cambodia, Kurt had been very interested and that Lenquette asked Kurt if he would like to go to Cambodia when the In Utero European Feb/March 1994 tour ended. Kurt had been very enthusiastic and even asked Lenquette as to how he would go about getting a visa. Lenquette said that people shouldn’t believe that Kurt was always sad, because he had a lot of humour and that he didn’t talk of suicide to Lenquette. (Thanks to Karim Djidjelli, Romuald Olliver and Olivier Roubin for the translation).

Joe Mama visited Kurt at the Exodus rehab on April 1 1994, He said: “I was ready to see him looking like nuts and depressed. He looked so f**king great.” (Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone p 83. Also see M. Rossi’s Queen of Noise p 193)

Rosemary Carroll friend of Kurt and Courtney, and also their lawyer in a conversation with Grant: “Kurt wasn’t suicidal Tom. He wasn’t suicidal”. (Wallace and Halperin’s WKKC? p 119).

Charles Peterson, photographer and associate of Kurt:“What sticks in my mind is actually running into him on the street about 2 weeks um, before he, he killed himself. And it was just, you know, I guess in relation to events, I’m glad that I did, I’m glad that I saw him. We talked and he, we exchanged phone numbers and he was really happy about the fact the book, my book of photographs that I’m doing, he was like; 'Alright, at last,' you know, 'get the real thing.' And he was- we chatted and he was concerned about my wife’s illness and just really, you know, that sticks in my mind.”(From the Nirvana Teen Spirit video).

Dr Osvaldo Galletta who treated Kurt in Rome after the Rome incident: “The last image I have of him, which in the light of the tragedy now seems pathetic, is of a young man playing with the little girl (Frances). He did not seem like a young man who wanted to end it. I had hope for him” (Newsweek April 18 1994).

Cobain spent two days at the 20-bed clinic (Exodus.) He talked to several psychologists there, none of whom considered him suicidal. (Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone p 83).

On Feb 21st 1994, Kurt was thinking in terms of the stories he wanted to tell his grandchildren. He was looking forward to having grandchildren. He wasn’t suicidal. This can be found on the bootleg video of the Feb 21st 1994 concert at Modena, Italy.

Courtney wanted everyone to believe that Kurt was suicidal with an out of control drug dependency in the last days of his life. But when Kurt’s body was found Krist Novoselic responded to the news of Kurt’s supposed suicide as follows:

“smack was just a small part of his life.” (Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 14 1994).

Novoselic said he did not understand his friend’s behavior. “I don’t have it all figured out right now,” he said. (Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 14 1994).

Those aren’t the reactions one would expect if Novoselic believed Kurt was suicidal/drug dependent/planned to kill himself.

Courtney Love’s Modus Operandi

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COURTNEY LOVE’S MODUS OPERANDI
Courtney Love’s Modus Operandi for murder is obviously something to which she has given time and thought to. It favours cunning and violence.

In Melissa Rossi’s book Queen of Noise we read on p 157 that the Boston Phoenix received a letter which Rossi claims was in Courtney’s handwriting, this has been confirmed by Phoenix writer Brett Milano, WKKC? p 174, but which is being passed off as the work of Kurt. This letter brings up the subject of his relationship with Mary Lou Lord where he (in reality Courtney,) says:

“I never took her anywhere except maybe into the backyard to shoot her.”

This statement shows a definite trail of thought i.e., don’t shoot her in the house take her outside and do it there. Not in the house but in the backyard, (maybe in the greenhouse in the backyard). The greenhouse Kurt died in was ordered to be demolished by Courtney, who has since claimed that this was done because the land it was on belonged to the park adjacent to her property, and that this land had to be returned. Poppy Z Brite’s Courtney Love: The Real Story p 225. See note 3)

If Melissa Rossi and Brett Milano are right in claiming the letter was in Courtney’s writing then it shows:

1
That Courtney could and did write things which she then passed off as the work of Kurt with regards to the last 4 lines of the “suicide” note.

Courtney dug through Rozz Rezabek’s notebooks, his journals and the piles of love letters from his former fans - grading them and writing her own comments in his diaries, (Rossi p77).

2
Had a definite preference, location wise, as to where to shoot someone.

Two paragraphs later Rossi stated that Courtney threatened Lord over the phone with: “I'm gonna cut off your head...... and Kurt’s gonna throw you in the oven.” Violence to the victims head and then cremation.

On p 162 of Queen of Noise Courtney gets into full stride:

“Defy, defy. Use your lifetime of suppression and debunk them (men, particularly corporate oppressive ones). Dupe them. Take them in their sleep when they least expect it. Assassination plots never hurt Hitler. The only way he could have been eliminated was by a woman or a sleeper who snuck in a knife, who gained his trust andthen stabbed him as he drowsed off. Defy,defy....” (This was originally from Melody Maker’s July 17th 1993 edition.)

In 1994 the private investigator hired by Courtney to find Kurt, Tom Grant, who had access to Courtney, Rosemary Carroll, Eric Erlandson, and, eventually, Michael DeWitt deduced that Kurt had been murdered and the police investigation bungled.

The theory he proposed has striking similarities to the method and means which as we have seen come directly from Courtney Love, all of which were forming in her mind while Kurt was still alive.

Grant believes that someone, a friend, possibly Michael DeWitt, who was well known to Kurt, shot up heroin with him in the greenhouse. DeWitt, an experienced user of heroin, supplied Kurt with overly pure heroin with the intention of rendering him unconscious and therefore unable to protest. When this happened DeWitt, or someone, shot him.

Now reread paragraph 3 and see with hindsight Courtney’s Modus Operandi unfold in Kurt’s death:

The only way he could be eliminated was by a junkie friend (to replace woman) who had his trust, supplied him with over pure heroin and as he fell unconscious (drowsed off) Shot him.

Add to that the fact the greenhouse in the backyard was the scene of the event and all the prerequisites of Courtney are included, even down to the fact Kurt suffered violent injury to his head and was cremated, or in Courtney’s words, “thrown in the oven.”

It seems too much to believe this is all coincidence. The timing of Kurt’s death is ominous. It was of course beneficial and vital to Courtney:

1
Kurt was in the process of re-writing his will but had not yet signed it. He was going to divorce Courtney. Perhaps these issues would now qualify him in Courtney's mind as an oppressive male. See note 1.

2
Kurt was rearranging his priorities. He pulled out of Lollapalooza and by doing so turned down the chance to earn millions of dollars.

In short, Kurt was beginning to assert his needs and wishes, and this was a big threat to Courtney Love’s professional and financial status.

The time has come for the press to seriously address the incompetent investigation held by the Seattle Police’s Homicide Dept in 1994. The press have a duty to take positive steps to pressure for a new investigation.

Note 1
Wallace & Halperin’s Who Killed Kurt Cobain? p 119 & 120. Also see Broomfield’s film Kurt and Courtney where the Nanny is interviewed.

Note 2
Melissa Rossi’s Queen of Noise p 157, 162 & 208.

Note 3
The greenhouse has been demolished but the site that it stood on is still within the fences of the property of 171 Lke Washington Blvd. It has not become part of the park bordering this property. Fact. I know because I was there on 7 April 1999 and again in 2000.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

How many times did Kurt need to say he was not suicidal, before people would believe him? Kurt was not suicidal. Fact. So why is he dead? And why was the verdict suicide?

He was trying to leave Courtney. He had hopes, he knew how he wanted his life to be. His life was taken because his life, as he intended it to be, did not include Courtney Love.

On April 8th 1994 the Seattle Police were tripping over the evidence in their rush to declare that Kurt had died of a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

The police used the March 1994 police report as evidence to support that Kurt was suicidal. It was Courtney who stressed that Kurt was suicidal in this report, Kurt is specifically mentioned in this report as stating in very simple and easy to understand words that he was not trying to harm or kill himself, but that he was trying to get away from Courtney.

The police also used the missing persons report filed on April 4th to further support the suicide verdict. This report was filed by Courtney.

The Seattle police have therefore relied totally on the statements of the most likely suspect in Kurt’s murder.

Kurt deserves to have his death investigated properly. To declare his death a suicide merely on his wife’s say-so is shoddy and unacceptable, especially when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The patterns which appeared in both the Rome and Lake Washington Blvd events cannot be ignored.

1
Kurt was leaving Courtney.

2
Notes were found on both occasions stating that he was leaving. Leaving Courtney, leaving the music business he had come to despise. Kurt wanted out of a lifestyle he could not stand. He didn’t like the trappings of it.

3
Drugs were involved at both events, Rohypnol and heroin, Kurt wasn’t using drugs/alcohol at this time, there are witnesses to support he was clean. So why were these drugs in his system? They were there to incapacitate him.

4
Courtney Love and Michael DeWitt are a lethal thingytail. Velut inter ignis Luna minor.Both were present in Rome. They seem to have been conspiring together during the days Kurt was missing in April 1994. Both had experience of/access to Rohypnol and heroin, which would qualify them to have carried out the methods evident at both events.

5
There is direct proof that Courtney Love has manipulated the media to mislead/distort/withhold evidence surrounding the circumstances of Kurt’s death.

The verdict of suicide can no longer be substantiated. The investigation which led to this verdict was flawed. There are many obvious reasons to reopen this case. Send letters of protest to:

Chief Norm Stamper, Seattle Police Dept. 610 Third Avenue, Seattle, WA. 98104-1886. USA

From August 2000 the new Seattle Chief of Police is Gil Kerlikowske.


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REASONS WHY THIS CASE MUST BE REOPENED

THE SUICIDE VERDICT

Kurt’s body was found by Gary Smith an employee of Veca Electric on April 8th 1994 at approximately 8.56am.

By mid morning spokeswoman for the Seattle Police Dept, Vinnette Tichi was reporting that a body had been found at the location of 171 Lke Washington Blvd, and that there was a suicide note. So by mid morning the police had already wrapped up the case, before they had even run any forensic/toxicology tests. How many hours investigation was that? Three at most. Upon what information did they draw, to reach that conclusion? Information supplied by Courtney Love.

The Seattle police used the March 18 1994 incident, where Courtney told the police she thought Kurt was going to kill himself as evidence to support their suicide verdict. They also used the missing persons report filed on April 4th to reinforce their verdict, this report was of Courtney claiming to be Wendy O’Connor.

When the police arrived at the house on March 18 1994, Kurt told them, in very plain and easy to understand terms that he was not suicidal, but that he was trying to keep away from Courtney. Courtney then retracted her claim to the police that Kurt had threatened suicide.

The missing persons report filed April 4th was filed by Courtney Love. Filed one must add, at a time when it was scientifically/medically possible that Kurt was already dead.

Therefore the Seattle police totally ignored the fact that Kurt had stated he was not suicidal. The police ignored the fact that none of the people who knew Kurt were aware that he was suicidal. Friends: Dylan Carlson, Mark Lanegan, Peterson. Psychiatrists at Exodus. Dr Galletta, who treated Kurt in Rome. Professional acquaintances: Rosemary Carroll, John Silva, Krist Novoselic.

This means that should anyone of you reading this and having no intention of killing yourselves, be murdered, then the person who murdered you can just say to the police called out to attend your body that you were suicidal and that you killed yourself. And no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, you will stand accused of committing suicide.

Because that is exactly what happened to Kurt. How would you like that to happen to you? I know I wouldn’t, that’s for sure.

For anyone who says “You can't prove Kurt was murdered”, I reply:
I can prove Kurt’s death was never investigated properly. I can also prove that Kurt had no potential for suicide at the time he died. I can also choose to believe the fact that Grant has recorded conversations with Rosemary Carroll, one of Kurt’s lawyers, wherein she voiced her belief that Kurt wasn’t suicidal, but that she thought he might have been murdered.

Grant has this on tape, Wallace and Halperin have heard these tapes and are therefore independent witnesses to this. Rosemary Carroll and Courtney Love refuse to sue Grant over his claims. Why?? Come on!!!!!! They know that if they took him to court, Courtney would lose the argument. Courtney would be in deep trouble.

“If Kurt was murdered, how come Courtney isn’t in jail?”, I reply:
How are the Seattle police going to suddenly backtrack on their verdict of suicide? It’s going to make them look extremely silly. They reached their verdict within a few hours using information supplied by Courtney Love. To retract that verdict would be acknowledging that they acted totally unprofessionally, and they are desperate not to do that. So they prefer to try to sweep it under the carpet. Pretend it isn’t true. But use your own minds, logic and common sense. Think things out for yourselves. See that there has been a gross miscarriage of justice, and then, for Kurt’s sake, do something about it.

Here are some very important reasons why this case needs to be reopened and a new investigation made, but not by the Seattle Police Dept.

1:There is evidence that circumstances were manipulated to prevent Kurt from:

A: Using his own car.

B: Gaining access to his own money in the days leading up to his death.

Would you like it if someone deflated the tyres on your car? Would you like it if someone cancelled your credit card?

2: Kurt was not using heroin. There are witnesses/evidence to the fact that he was clean. So why was there 3 times the lethal amount of morphine in his system at the time of his death? Would you like it if you were clean and then somehow you suddenly stood accused of being a severe heroin addict? Look at the facts. Interrogate the evidence. Do it properly under your own steam, don’t believe what other people say unless it is substantiated, be it by witnesses who are named, medical evidence, or behavioural patterns which support these claims.

3: Kurt was not a user of Rohypnol, he also didn’t drink alcohol. So why, on March 4th, when he was on the verge of running away, did these substances come to be in his body?

4: Kurt was not suicidal, there are many witnesses to support this. His behavioural patterns support this.

5: On April 2nd 1994, Kurt expressed concern for personal safety to a driver at Gray Top Cabs. He told this driver that there had been a burglary at his house and he needed bullets. This is supported by Dylan Carlson’s claim that Kurt wanted the gun for protection.

6: No finger prints were found on the gun. How could that be? And why did it take the Seattle police dept nearly a full month before they tested it for prints? Yes, some good investigative work there, don't you think? How would you like it, to be victim of such incompetent police work?

7: Why did Courtney Love deliberately withhold information as to Kurt’s whereabouts whilst he was missing? She told neither Grant nor the police (when she filed the missing persons report,)that Kurt had been back to 171 Lke Wash Blvd on April 2nd. This withholding of information, and offering up of information with regards to drugs and a gun which ultimately were the means by which Kurt died is highly suspicious. At least to anyone with an ounce of common sense.

8: Kurt was in the process of changing his will to exclude Courtney as a beneficiary, he was trying to leave her, both on March 4th (in Rome,) and by starting divorce proceedings. This gave Courtney ample motive to murder him, millions of dollars worth of reasons. People have attempted to murder/murdered their partners for much less, why should Courtney be different?

9: Because Kurt was not a user of heroin at the time of his death, why did the Seattle police use the argument that, as a severe heroin user, he would have been able to inject that amount of heroin and still have been able to pull the trigger? The Seattle Police have relied on the statements of Courtney Love alone in their belief that Kurt was a severe heroin addict at the time of his death. They have totally chosen to ignore evidence contrary to Courtney’s claims.

10: El Duce passed a polygraph test held by one of America’s leading polygraph examiners, stating that he was asked by Courtney Love to murder Kurt.

Journalists who have failed, be it intentionally or by sheer ignorance to report this case properly are:

Caitlin Moran journalist at EMAP’s Select Magazine.
John Harris editor of EMAP’s Select Magazine.
Mat Snow editor of EMAP’s MOJO.
Steve Sutherland Editorial Director at IPC/TIME WARNER’s NME and one-time editor of the now defunct VOX.
Jerry Thackray aka Everett True journalist at Melody Maker, NME, VOX etc.

Select magazine published an article in the September 1999 edition in praise of Courtney Love. I emailed them to protest their stance on Love, needless to say, it wasn’t printed in the November letters page, the only letters they printed were those in praise of Courtney. One of these letters said something to the effect of:

“Normally articles on Hole come with the pretext of ‘Did she or didn’t she?’ (murder Kurt) no/do we care?”

I CARE. SO DO MANY OTHERS. BUT SELECT WON’T ALLOW US A VOICE. So e-mail Select at, [e-mail] and make them hear your voice. Boycott Select, if you have to read it, do what I do, read it in the shop and don’t buy it! Thanks.

Note: As of December 2000 Select magazine and Melody Maker ceased publication due to falling readership.

Freedom of information. Don’t let the mainstream media get away with this cover-up.

Copyright Frances Barnett, anyone wishing to print out and distribute my work in the interests of getting this case reopened/exposing the negligent reporting of this case in the mainstream media (Time Warner, Viacom, Emap, IPC etc) and of their journalists, does not need my permission. Print it out, copy and distribute it.


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UPDATE OCTOBER 28 1999
MICHAEL DEWITT AKA CALI

In December 1994, after seven months of interviews with Cobain’s friends and family members, I reached the conclusion that Courtney Love and Michael DeWitt, (the male nanny living at the Cobain residence in April 1994,) were involved in a conspiracy that resulted in the murder of Kurt Cobain. (1998 printout of Grant’s website).

“A lot of women are very possessive of other women, but she (Courtney) was possessive about anybody. She didn’t want Kurt to have any friends except for her. Don’t get me wrong, she could be really nice too, but the way she treated him was sad”. (Peter Cleary, ‘WKKC?’ p 85).

Courtney did not, however, have any hesitation about encouraging Kurt to become friends with Michael DeWitt. He was an old friend of Courtney’s before she ever met Kurt. There is a thread running through this that shows that Kurt believed DeWitt was a friend, and whilst Courtney tried as much as possible to prevent Kurt having friends, she made an exception for DeWitt. It is another sign of manipulation on Courtney’s part, and to quite some extent it succeeded. From July 1993 DeWitt played a large part in Kurt’s life.

A few days later (July 1993) Cobain returned to Seattle. One friend said: “He just kept to himself. Every time he came back after a tour, he would get more and more reclusive. The only people that saw him a lot were Courtney, Cali, and Jackie”. (‘Cobain by the editors of Rolling Stone’ p 87.)

Jackie Farry, another of Frances’s nannies, who seems to have been quite tight in this group. It was Farry who went to LA with Frances in March 1994, whilst Cali stayed in Seattle. It was also Jackie that visited Kurt in the Exodus rehab centre.

Frances Bean is also there in her pushchair....she’s with her 21 year old nanny, Cali, who looks as though he should be in the band rather than looking after the baby.(The Face, Sept 1993. This interview was held over 3 days, between July 22-24 1993).

He (Kurt) talks about how important it is to have friends outside the music industry he can trust. “Like Frances’ nanny, he’s become one of my best friends. He’s not at all thrilled by what I do. I totally look forward to seeing him everyday”. (The Face, Sept 1993.)

Kurt Cobain answers the door wearing a black cotton dress: “Can you zip me up?” he says. Courtney’s not home; she’s on a two week tour of Europe with her band Hole. Kurt and Courtney’s year old daughter, Frances Bean, is on tour with her. One of Cobain’s nannies, Cali, has stayed behind. A twenty year old hipster with long dark hair, he has been taking fashion guidance from Kurt: He wanders around the house barefoot, wearing a water melon print dress. Kurt leads me through the house over-looking a lake in northern Seattle. (Details Magazine, November 1993 by Gavin Edwards, the interviews for this article were held in the beginning of July 1993.)

So again DeWitt was left with Kurt whilst Courtney was away. DeWitt went to Rome with Courtney to meet up with Kurt. DeWitt stayed in Seattle with Kurt when he refused the interventions. DeWitt was at Kurt’s house at 171 Lke Wash Blvd when Kurt returned on April 2nd.

In short, it looks like DeWitt was there to keep tabs on/befriend Kurt. There is a pattern of control here. And the fact that DeWitt was ultimately Courtney’s friend before he met Kurt is sinister to me. Why couldn’t Kurt have had Dylan living at the house? Why couldn’t Kurt have his own friends at the house without Courtney causing a scene?

Grant said that after Kurt’s death DeWitt’s father, who owns a construction company in Washington State, was awarded the contract to carry out substantial renovations on Kurt’s house. Grant wondered if this work was in some way a pay- off for DeWitt’s involvement in Kurt’s death.

I saw this house in April 1999, and it was almost completely changed/rebuilt. That is a massive amount of work, very expensive. Why was it done?

That house didn’t just have minor changes, it was dismantled and rebuilt. See the photos below:

Above left, 171 Lake Washington Boulevard in April 1994. Above right, 171 in April 1999. The plastic dome is where the greenhouse once stood.

The most recent mention of Michael DeWitt that I can find was in an article by Everett True in Melody Maker’s Jan 30th 1999 edition:

OK, so her band members may have disappeared to drink at Seattle’s premier hang out, the Cha-Cha Lounge, but she has her former nanny Cali DeWitt and her daughter and the Maker to keep her company....and what could be more fun than that?

Further in this article:

“Hey, where’s Frances gone?” Courtney demanded of her former nanny, as he comes through alone from the other room. “Don’t lose her. I like Her.” Frances reappears.

So Courtney and DeWitt were still on friendly terms nearly five years after Kurt died. That has to be a record. The only people who stay close to Courtney are people who benefit financially from their acquaintance with her. Isn’t that right? Let’s see what Courtney says:

“Was it necessary to use people here and there?” Love was put off at first, then said, “Using, yeah! Mentoring, yeah. Learning craft from some people,learning self-effacement from others. Is it Athena who rises with the stallions and when they get exhausted and they fall down, she just switches and gets another one? Yeah, to win the race, to get through the gates. What did they get out of me? A lot. The men run companies. The men are multi-millionaires. The one man that I loved so much and didn't feel that way about” -she was finally talking about Cobain- “he was crushed and, I believe this, he was crushed for his love of me. They killed him because he loved me. That’s not what the weak, enfeebled, emasculated Dionysian hero is supposed to do. He’s not supposed to love me. But he did. That is a tragedy.” She trails off. “But he was so sensitive... I don’t want to get into this.”

Further in this article Love said:

“OK, let me tell you something about my personal history in terms of men. They have to be butch in the end...They can walk around in f**kin dresses for all I care. It’s a contest. I don’t care what you do for a living. If you can throw me around a room, then you’ve mastered me”. (The Face, Nov 1998. This article originally published in Spin’s October 1998 edition).

Kurt and DeWitt walked around in dresses, was that a contest Courtney? Is DeWitt one of the “two beautiful lions” Courtney gives credit to on Celebrity Skin?

We all know d**n well Courtney didn’t love Kurt. She has done everything in her power to destroy his reputation. She destroyed his house. She and DeWitt tried to murder him, and when that failed, DeWitt finished it off in April 1994, one month later.

Courtney’s references to Athene are the result of her reading an article which appeared in Salon Magazine on Feb 25th 1998 wherein it was written:

I’ve always felt about Kurt Cobain roughly the way Public Enemy feels about Elvis Presley. My heart was always with Courtney Love. Her searing rage burned through me in a way that Cobain’s banal alienation never did.
(Watching Kurt and Courtney, Broomfield’s film) only made me feel more on Love’s side. Rezabek and Cobain were inadequate vessels for her voracious energy: I kept picturing her as a radiant Athena, whipping sluggish horses who refused to take her where she wanted to go.

This commentary spewed forth from a person called Michelle Goldberg, who seems to admire the qualities of a ruthless psychopath.

I see Courtney for the murderer that she is.

It obviously appeals to Courtney to liken herself to the Greek goddess Athene (pretentious or what?) If Courtney chooses to bring up Greek mythology then to the best of our abilities we must be Courtney’s nemesis.

Nemesis{Greek} Sometimes portrayed as a goddess and sometimes as an impersonal cosmic force. Nemesis is the inevitable punishment for hubris or too much arrogance and pride before the gods. Nemesis is a ‘bad fate’ and her punishments always exactly fit precisely the nature of the crime. (Liz Greene).

Kurt is not here to defend himself. We must do it for him, restore his dignity, which Courtney stole from him, so that his daughter will know the truth.

Where Courtney hounded, we in turn must hound her with the truth.

Where Courtney has tried to destroy Kurt’s reputation in her attempt to cover-up her deeds, we must in turn restore that to him, and in the process destroy Courtney’s fake claims and show her for the liar, manipulator and murderer that she is.

Where Courtney plays mind games, we in turn must do that to her.

To the best of our abilities we must meet Courtney on every level that she chooses to function.

Nemesis. Karma. Logic and reasoned opinion based on named witnesses and true evidence. Psychology, mind sets, belief systems and the behavioural patterns of Kurt, Courtney and DeWitt. All these aspects are important.

This is a transcript of between song banter by Courtney Love at the Reading Rock Festival,England on August 25th 1995.

I have this on video, I am not making any of this up.

Courtney Love: This is Melissa, it’s the first anniversary of her joining the band. And she’s got a f**kin needle hanging out her neck."

Sings the song ‘Plump’.

Sings Kurt’s song Miss World. When she’s finished this song, she sings as follows:

“Like a reptile under your skin,
don’t mess with it, I will always win.
Like a snake I am under your skin,
don’t mess with it baby, I will always win”.

I can’t help wondering if she is referring to getting under someone’s skin by using drugs to infiltrate their bloodstream, without their knowledge or consent?

I don’t know if this is one of Courtney’s songs, or if she sang it spontaneously. Was this supposed to be a joke? If this was a joke on Courtney’s part, it is unacceptable, she’s an adult with serious charges hanging over her head. She is accountable for her actions and words. It’s also not acceptable to pass this off as: “Oh, that’s just Courtney.”

Courtney Love: This song is about chickennuts motherf**kers.

Sings the song ‘Gutless’. When she finishes this song she sings:

(?) a rose and the nuts it grows,
I don’t even know the hole that’s supposed to go.
Have you ever seen a cripple dance,
he takes your body (unintelligible.)
Like a reptile I am under your skin,
don’t forget that I will always win.

She just can’t leave this subject alone. See my update for 11 September 2000 for more on this.

Then she talks to the crowd:

Courtney Love: All the celebrities are right there (points,) should I like, pour beer on them?. All you kids paid 30 bucks and all the celebrities got in for free.

Sings the song ‘Asking For It’.

Love then throws bottles of water to the crowd to help them cool down.
Launches into the song Sugar Coma.

Sings Kurt’s song ‘Pennyroyal Tea’. And destroys it.

Gives the one finger salute to the crowd.

Sings ‘Credit in The Straight World’.

Finishes this song, then sings stuff thats unintelligible then: “My fist will be everywhere you turn.”

Then she says to no-one in particular:

“Mum, am I pretty?
Well honey, you have a lot of character.
But mum, am I pretty?
Honey, character’s what counts”.

Then she says to the crowd:

“I hate to piss you off but Blur’s never gonna make it in America. I’m sorry. You guy’s do the trainspotting thing and go down by the river and shoot Bud cans, OK. It’s not gonna happen. I’m sorry to tell you -but since I’m the one that gets picked on all the time I figured I should be the one. It’s gonna be Elastica....Yes Elastica! f**k, yes! If I hear a lack of respect for Elastica I’m walking off the stage now”.

Courtney Love: This song is about getting into a lot of trouble, OK.

Sings ‘Best Sunday Dress’.

Love waffles on about stuff and mentions “Billy Pumpkin”

(someone in the crowd says, “play some music, you silly girl”.)

Courtney Love: Green Day is next, they’re great. Alright -I’m the sleeper, she’s the virgin (points to Melissa Auf der Maur.) The virgin knows. She’s the f**kin Pisces.

Sings ‘Softer Softest’.

Sings ‘She Walks On Me’, during this, she replaces a couple of lines with:

“I want him, he’s all gone”” and

“WE ARE POISON. WE BOTH KILLED HIM.”

I can’t believe her audacity, what was her reason for singing this? Could it be an attempt to down- play Grant’s claims? Whatever reason she has, it’s not acceptable. When someone is accused of murder and they come out publicly with such statements, their motives must be seriously questioned. How many more reasons do the Seattle police/general public need, before this case is re- opened?

Why do the Seattle Police Dept refuse to do anything? It is getting to the point that the whole world knows they messed up. The Seattle police know they fell for Courtney’s lies. Chief Stamper, Det Cameron, why don’t you admit it and at least get back a bit of respect? Courtney has been very vocal in her contempt for your department. Why don’t you just slam her, once and for all?

To any of Courtney’s fans: if you think she's so great, then you are being played by Courtney for the fools that you are. Courtney doesn’t like you, she has only contempt for you, and she openly displays this contempt, and you are so stupid that you can’t see it. You believe that because she invites you on the stage, or gives you a guitar at the end of her gig, that makes her a genuinely decent person.

Well, your gullibility is cheap at half the price.

If you had the misfortune to be associated with her, you would be used, chewed up and spat out. You would be begging for help from the nearest cop, if you weren’t incapacitated before you had the chance.

This is a woman who has openly shown that she has the capacity, both psychologically and physically, to enforce the very methods evident in Kurt’s death. I wouldn’t trust her in anyway, I wouldn’t eat or drink any food or liquid that she had had access to.

She then sings stuff that is unintelligible, then sings:

"And when you take your next breath think about a lovely death you want so bad.
Your mouth is shut.
Your secret’s safe -I’m all shut up.
You are my (?)

Courtney Love: Frances Bean was three years the other day. She looks just like her Daddy, and she could stare down this whole f**kin crowd if you don’t shut up. She hates me.

Courtney Love: Alright, here’s a song about a jerk....I love you too (to the crowd).

Courtney Love: Asks Eric Erlandson: “Are we doing Doll Parts?”

Courtney Love: I love you too, but you gotta love me more than you love Billy Pumpkin, ’cos we're having a contest, OK (laughing).

Then Courtney makes a heart shape with her hands and says:
“It’s a heart, a heart.....Heart. Some people on this festival don’t have them”.

Sings ‘Doll Parts’, then;

Courtney Love: I love Everett True.

Launches into Kurt’s song Violet. She replaces the line: “And the sky was made of Amethyst and all the stars were just like little fish” with “and the sky was made of Amethyst and all the stars were just like my fist”.

Then she sings:

“Just do it baby, ’cos no one cares,
you are nothing but a waste of space,
and a waste of f**kin air.
Just do it baby, or I f**kin will,
you have nothing left but time,
time left to kill.Yeah, yes, No, No.
Just do it baby (unintelligible) or I f**kin will.
You have nothing left but time and you’re the one I killed
NO, NO, NO, No, (keeps shouting this.)
God no. God Knows the truth. The truth is you.”

Knocks over microphone, drums etc, tries to look upset but frankly doesn’t make a good job of it.

THIS IS THE WAY COURTNEY LOVE WANTS KURT TO BE REMEMBERED. THIS IS HOW MUCH SHE EVER CARED FOR KURT COBAIN.

I have seen on various message boards people trying to defend Courtney, people saying that Courtney loved Kurt. The most pathetic message I have seen to date was one which said:

Courtney loved Kurt, why else would she have dedicated ‘My Body The Hand Grenade to him’?

How mentally challenged do you have to be, to use that as your argument for proof that Courtney loved Kurt and therefore did not instigate his murder?

In Melody Maker’s October 18th 1997 the subject of ‘My Body The Hand Grenade’ was brought up:

Interviewer: How did you choose the title?

Courtney Love: We were going to call it ‘Use Once and Destroy’, it was too much of a drug reference, too rock.

Interviewer: The artwork also has a car wreck and a picture of Marie Antoinette. Why did you choose them?

Courtney Love: We actually show Anne Bolyn too. She was Henry 8th’s wife who had her head chopped off.

When I was little, I used to see these pictures of her with this necklace that had B on it. I always had a fascination with ancient history, Roman especially and early English, and I kept imagining her getting her head chopped off, for my whole life. Then I told Joe who did the art. He had an obsession with Marie Antoinette too. She was decapitated. We also thought about Jayne Mansfield, just the idea of a woman having her mouth and eyes and ears taken away from her. And, hand grenades, the top comes off. You just pull out the pin and it explodes. So, if you take away someones mouth and their eyes and their senses and their brain, they explode. I saw a grenade in my head, I saw taking out the clip, and the human body and what happens if you take out the clip.

Head trauma, violence and death. Dedicating an album originally intended to be titled ‘Use Once And Destroy’ to Kurt and Kristen is a small price to pay, if people believe this proves you cared for them. It looks more like another one of your sick admissions to me.

Courtney has dragged Kurt’s name through the mud in her attempt to justify her false claims. I will drag Courtney through the mud in an attempt to redress this.

Here are some of the things Courtney has said about Kurt, which show her inherent capacity for spite:

1:
Courtney, talking to Frances Bean about her father; “Loser, can you say loser?”.(Rossi p 222. Rossi heard this).

Maybe Frances was too young to understand this. But what lies and misinformation has Courtney been telling Frances as she gets older? All the lies that she has been desperately feeding to the media, in her attempt to get her story accepted.

Frances, Kurt loved you. He was not a junkie loser. He did not choose to leave you, he had no say in the matter.

2:
“I used to be able to talk to Kurt, wherever he is. But now he’s really gone. I used to feel like mourning him was really selfish because it would make him feel guilty. And the best thing to do was to pray for him and show him joy, so that he could feel the vibrations of joy. But now I know he’s dissipated, and he’s gone. There’s not anything left. Not even to talk to”. (Courtney Love, Rolling Stone’s December 15th 1994 edition).

Courtney, how did you send out vibrations of joy to him?
How could telling his daughter that her father is a loser be sending joy to him?
How could constantly demeaning his name and lying about Kurt’s drug use, do this?
How could sleeping with Billy Corgan within three weeks of his death be sending out joy to him?
How could sending Trent Reznor letters which made malicious comments about Kurt be conducive to sending out vibrations of joy to Kurt? Trent despises you. You misread him so badly.

With the vibrations of joy that you unleash, I have to send them back to you, unwanted.

3:
David Fricke: “It has been a year almost to the day, since I interviewed Kurt. At the time (Oct 1993,) he told me he was happier than he’d ever been. And frankly, I believed him”.
Courtney replied: “He probably was - at that moment. But his whole thing was “I’m only alive because of Frances and you”. Look at his interviews in your magazine alone. In each and every one he mentions blowing his head off”. (Rolling Stone’s December 15th 1994 edition).

The only time Kurt made reference to blowing his head off and suicide was in the context of his, at the time, undiagnosed stomach problem, and for no other reason.

Courtney, you know what context is, but the truth takes second place to expediency with you. How would you like it to be quoted out of context?

SO DON’T DO IT TO KURT. Here are some things he said about his life:

“I’m not in anyway afraid of death...I’m afraid of dying now, I don’t want to leave behind my wife and child, so I don’t do things that would jeopardise my life. I try to do as little things as I can to jeopardise it. I don’t want to die”. (The Face, Sept 1993.)

“Imagine the worst stomach flu you've ever had, every single day. And it was worse when I ate, because once the meal would touch that red area I would hyperventilate, my arms would turn numb, and I would vomit. I was suicidal on our last tour---I really wanted to blow my head off. And so when we got home I decided to do heroin every day because obviously a heavy narcotic is going to stop the pain. The whole time I was doing drugs I didn’t have stomach pains”.
After trying everything for his stomach from pills to a vegetarian diet to a chanting regime, Kurt is ecstatic to have found a doctor who’s prescribing him an experimental gastrointestinal medicine that works. He says he doesn’t want to give the name because the medicine hasn’t actually been approved by the FDA, but it’s reduced his stomach episodes almost as effectively as heroin. “But now if I take heroin it makes me vomit right away, so that doesn’t do any good”. (Details, November 1993. This interview dates to July 1993.)

Kurt said: “If we weren’t married, just living together, there would have been three or four times when one of us would have walked out on the other. But because we are so committed to each other, we’ve never had a fight last longer than an hour”. (Details, November 1993, this interview dates back to July 1993.)

“I still see stuff, descriptions of rock stars in some magazines -'Sting, the environmental guy', ‘Kurt Cobain, the whiny, complaining neurotic, pregnant dogy guy who hates everything, hates rock stardom, hates his life.’ And I’ve never been happier in my life....I’m a much happier guy than a lot of people think I am...... I don’t want to use this as an excuse, and it’s come up so many times, but my stomach ailment has been one of my biggest barriers that stopped us from touring. I was dealing with it for a long time. But after a person experiences chronic pain for five years, by the time that fifth year ends, you’re literally insane. I couldn’t cope with anything. I was as schizophrenic as a wet cat that’s been beaten....It’s just that my stomach isn’t bothering me anymore. I’m eating, I ate a huge pizza last night, it was so nice to be able to do that. And it just raises my spirits“. (Rolling Stone’s January 27th 1994 edition. This interview dates back to Oct 1993. This is the interview in which Kurt mentioned divorce).

“I was in pain for so long that I didn’t care if I was in a band. I didn’t care if I was alive. And it just so happened that I came to that conclusion at a time when my band became really popular. I mean, it had been going on and building up for so many years that I was suicidal. I mean, I just didn’t want to live. I just thought, if I’m gonna die, I’m gonna kill myself, I should take some drugs, y’ know (laughs). I may as well become a junkie because I felt like a junkie every day. Y’ know, waking up starving, forcing myself to eat, barfing it back up...just imagine trying to eat your three meals a day, and just concentrating, just crying at times. Like, aaahg, I’m in pain all the time. And being on tour it was a lot worse too. It made it worse”. (Transcript from an interview with Kurt in December 1993, shown on MTV’s so called “Tribute” to Kurt after he died).

At a party that night (January 8th, 1994), Cobain spoke about death. Not his own, but those of four just -departed role models: Frank Zappa, River Phoenix, Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster) and the radical, seventies governor of Washington, Dixie Lee Ray. ‘There was nothing morbid about it’, says Mike Collier.
‘Kurt was rueful they'd gone, not aiming to join them.’ (Sandford p 307).

4:
“What kind of mood was he in on the European tour before he overdosed in Rome? Was that a genuine suicide attempt?”.
Courtney replied: “He hated everything, everybody. Hated, hated, hated. He called me from Spain crying. That’s why he would tell people, “No, I’m not on it”. Because he did not want to become a junkie icon. And now he is......”And: “Kurt had gone all out for me when I got there {Rome}. He’d gotten me roses. He’d gotten me a piece of the Colosseum.......I had some champagne, took a valium, we made out, I fell asleep. The rejection he must have felt after all that anticipation...I turned over about 3 or 4 in the morning to make love, and he was gone. He was at the end of the bed with a thousand dollars in his pocket and a note saying, “You don’t love me anymore. I’d rather die than go through a divorce”....I can see how it happened. He took 50 f**king pills. He probably forgot how many he took. But there was a definite suicidal urge to be gobbling and gobbling. d**n, man” (Rolling Stone’s December 15th 1994 edition.)

Dr Galletta denied that so many pills where ingested, he said it didn’t look like a suicide attempt. He also said that Kurt played with Frances and that he didn’t seem like a man who had tried to end it all.

We know Kurt wasn’t suicidal. There are no witnesses to the fact that he was, other than you and your unnamed sources.

You say he didn’t want to be a junkie icon, but you alone have constantly tried to ensure that that is exactly what he has become. With friends like you, who needs enemies?

You stand alone with your allegations that Kurt was a big user of heroin in the last months of his life. There is evidence to suggest you are not telling the truth.

You say Kurt hated everyone and everything whilst he was in Europe on his tour, well, here are a few facts about Kurt on this tour, which I have on film, and which is the truth:

On 21st Feb 1994, at the concert at Modena, Italy. Between singing ‘Serve The Servants’ and ‘Come As You Are’, Novoselic commented on the “cheap seats” in the hall, Kurt looked towards these and laughed, then he said, “I’m sorry, I’ll play this for you personally”, and sang most of ‘Come As You Are’ facing towards them. During this song he struck some arabesque type pose.

Between ‘Breed’ and ‘Serve The Servants’, Novoselic put on a hat someone threw on stage and Kurt shouted “Head lice, head lice!”

Just before he sang Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam Kurt was telling the audience something about what happened on the airplane, then he said:

“Isn’t that great! I will tell my grandchildren that story”. The tone of his voice is upbeat.

At the concert on Feb 22 Kurt told the audience that they were great, beautiful. He was looking unwell, he was constantly sipping Evian water. How difficult would it be to mix Rohypnol with bottled water Courtney? Rohypnol will not dissolve in still water, it will dissolve in fizzy drink. Kurt drank plenty of bottled water, it wouldn’t be difficult to taint this with Rohypnol.

Here’s the score with the concert at the Palatrussardi Milan on Feb 24th 1994: Kurt didn’t talk much between songs, but at one stage Novoselic said, “I’m Billy Pumpkin” Kurt replied: “No you’re not, you’re Meat Loaf!“

Now, if Kurt was in such a depressed state as Rossi would have us believe, due to the fact he knew Courtney was having an affair with Corgan, how likely would it be that Novoselic would have said this? Kurt was joking about Billy Corgan on Feb 24th 1994, he wasn’t depressed over him! It sounded to me like he could have been relieved Courtney and Corgan were having an affair, it got Courtney off his back, so to speak.

At another point in this concert, Kurt was improvising on his guitar, and when he finished, he said:

“You should vote me in your readers polls as musician of the year”.

At the end of the concert, he waved and said good night. This concert was better than the one he did on Feb 21st, it was more lively on Kurt’s part. As with the previous concert, Kurt is constantly sipping bottled water. I have this on film, I only say this, because I want everyone to know that this is how Kurt was and I have proof, and he was not the depressed miserable wreck that Courtney wants us to believe.

5:
“There are 3 completed, finished (un-recorded songs of Kurt’s)....the third one I can’t sing. It’s too f**king good, every part of it is really catchy. He was calling it “Dough, Ray and Me.” I thought it was a little corny. It was the last thing he wrote on our bed. The chorus was “Dough Ray and me/Dough Ray and me,” and then it was “Me and my IV“ (Courtney Love, Rolling Stone’s December 15th 1994 edition.)

Yet again you are compelled to bring up heroin/drugs. Why? Over emphasis from you signifies to me that I should not believe you. I don’t believe you. You are a liar, a vindictive, nasty piece of work.

6:
“Here’s a great story. Kurt didn’t have any real friends. I have a larger group of friends, people that I’ve known for a long time....And Kurt would hear me on the phone, laughing, getting hysterical, talking about designers. So he made this great officious ritual about his friends, and he made a friend in Paris, Yuri. He dared me to say that Yuri was a piece of nuts, which was very obvious to me, a million miles away. I never said a word. He wanted me to be controlling. “OK, say Yuri is a piece of nuts. Say it”. So he makes friends with this Yuri, and he does this photo session with a gun in his mouth”.

Please note that although Max Wallace and Ian Halperin reported in their book ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain?’ that Youri Lenquette admitted asking Kurt to strike that pose, they seem to have this wrong, because in the June 1994 edition of Loaded, Youri Lenquette stated that Kurt insisted on posing with the gun, but that he was playing around, not serious and that he didn’t see Kurt as suicidal.

Love: “..and then Rome happened. I see the British tabloids, and there’s Yuri’s picture on the front page. I hid them. Because to tell Kurt would have hurt him so much. He made Yuri his friend, and this friend f**ked up. I never showed him those papers. I didn’t want him to feel inferior and deficient”. (Courtney Love, Rolling Stone’s December 15th 1994 edition).

How can you boast that Kurt having no friends is a great story? How can you publicly belittle a man you claim to love? How much love does it take to destroy the reputation of such a beautiful man? You have no grace.

Kurt did have friends. But you made it so difficult for him. You caused such a scene when his friends became a threat to you. If you lost control because Kurt saw his friends, you caused a scene.

You made an exception for Michael DeWitt though.

What do you mean - you didn’t want Kurt to feel inferior or deficient? Peter Cleary, one of Kurt’s friends, said you would call Kurt a ----- ------ all the time. (‘WKKC?’ p84.)
Cleary said: “One day he was talking to me and another friend and she thought she was being ignored, so she started calling him a --------- ---------- right in front of Frances Bean”. (‘WKKC?’ p 84. This is in line with what Rossi witnessed when on the phone to Courtney, and Courtney was telling Frances that her father was a “loser”).

With friends like you, who needs enemies? You don’t care that you destroy Kurt’s name in front of Frances. How can you say such things in front of her and then claim that you didn’t want to make Kurt feel inferior or deficient? Don’t come out with your standard "I’m sarcastic" crap, it’s boring and it has no substance. Since Kurt died you have fallen back on such statements to explain yourself. You have shown nothing but a cheap, base mentality.

Things changed after Rome. I have no doubt that Rome was attempted murder. Kurt showed all the signs of someone who was a victim of Rohypnol induced assault -confusion, memory loss, buzzing in the top of his head, distress. And you used this to make out he was back on drugs and then later, that he was suicidal.

You show all the behavioural patterns of someone who was scared. This is because Kurt survived and would eventually regain his memory. You were not completely in control. You were so scared you had to down tranquillisers, your fear was seen by various witnesses who were all independent of each other. You weren’t scared because you believed Kurt was suicidal, that’s for sure.

You impose your false reality on people, and people believe you. More and more people are realising that you can't be believed.

You are a remarkably cruel person and I think that when Kurt returned from Rome you did everything you could to play on his confusion and make his life hell. The nanny is witness to this, see Broomfield’s film.

You say that Kurt dropped Frances on her head because he was out of his head on heroin, I don’t believe you. I think this was another of your lies in your attempt to bolster your false claims. I wouldn’t put it past you to relish showing Kurt the pictures Youri took and belittling his friendships in an attempt to upset him. Kurt had the capacity for emotion, he felt things, and you abused this, used it as a weapon against him for your own selfish ends.

In The Face Nov 1998 You said that Kurt was so sensitive and then you went on to say that at the end of the day your men had to be “butch”. In your speech at the memorial for Kurt, you mocked the line that mentioned his sensitivity. Your overall mind set is cold, at Glastonbury you changed the last line of Northern Star from “feel their hearts they’re cold as ice”, to “feel your hearts, I’m cold as ice, and you will know the truth”.

Another line to this song is: “Oh tear his heart out cold as ice, it’s mine”. (Celebrity Skin lyric sheet).

Yes, more people are beginning to see you for what you are.

You have shown no love in the way you have portrayed him since he died. You have systematically tried to destroy his character.

You are torn between boasting about killing Kurt and not wanting to face the consequences of your actions. You openly admit it in your songs, and then when someone mentions this you say “I’m sarcastic, I’m the queen of irony“. Sarcasm and irony are not acceptable in a court of law.

You took away Kurt’s right to life, fatherhood and happiness at a time when he was finally managing to achieve these things.

I don’t believe a word you say. I don’t trust you. I know you and DeWitt tried to kill Kurt in Rome.

You are a person who physically attacks 14 year old girls (see Amirault update, ‘CL assaults two concert goers’,) you attack people who are physically much smaller than yourself (Victoria Clarke, Mary Lou Lord and countless concert goers.)

In the past you have hired men to beat up people who crossed you. You boasted to your father that you stabbed a girl. You cannot control your anger. You lose control.

Which is probably why you have such a love for Joy Division’s song, ‘She's Lost Control’. You sang this at The Glastonbury Rock Festival England on June 25th 1999, even though you changed the words to suit your purposes.

You mentioned this song in an interview for The Face Feb 1993, this shows that the subject of control, and the loss of it, is something you are acutely concerned with.

“When you hear a great song, it touches your life. It affects you, it’s like a scent, it reminds you of something. You f**k to it, you feel blue to it, you feel great to it. It’s like Joy Division’s ‘She’s Lost Control’- that song meant so much to me when I was younger”. Her frustration at being misunderstood spills over. “We were getting associated with this dark side, with hate mongering, with contrived hostility. The anger’s just something that comes out of me naturally, even when I try to temper it” (The Face, Feb 1993).

The thing that struck me about your show last night was how the songs from “Pretty on the Inside” roared with paralytic anger, whereas the ones from “Live Through This” seemed to be about being stuck in tortured limbo. (David Fricke interviewing Courtney, Rolling Stone’s December 15th 1994 edition).

Fricke is right, paralytic anger, you wrote that one yourself.

‘Live Through This’ is an excellent album, because it was Kurt’s work. Since Kurt died, you have slipped back to singing about ugliness, reptiles and snakes getting under peoples skin, about cripples, and nasty deaths. This is the landscape of your mind, there is no beauty, only anger, death, control and winning. But these songs weren’t considered acceptable for release on an album, so you had to get Corgan to help you with Celebrity Skin, which is a completely inferior record to Kurt’s ‘Live Through This’.

So there we have it, no one can ever argue that you are a nice person who loved Kurt. You only love yourself, and the only people who speak in your defence are those who have received a pay off.

23 November 1999 Update

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