Kurt Cobain died in the greenhouse of his Seattle home back in April 1994. Police called it suicide right away. His wife Courtney Love always said the same. Now a letter from her lawyer has turned up showing she wanted the whole police file on his death shipped over to her with zero copies left behind for the department.
The letter went out in October 1995, about a year and a half after they found him. Her attorney Bryan Coluccio wrote straight to then-Police Chief Norm Stamper. He asked for the complete investigation file, crime scene photos included, and told the department to keep no records or copies at all. The letter said the estate and Love were fine with the suicide ruling and the case could be closed.
Cobain was the frontman for Nirvana. That band put Seattle on the map for grunge. The police stuck by their original call. In 2014 they looked at some newly found photos and still said suicide. The file had undeveloped film, Polaroids, personal letters, and money papers. Love’s side worried people were trying to cash in by leaking stuff from it.
Retired Seattle Police Capt. Neil Low worked the case. He called the request absurd. Investigators never handed over the only copy of the file. Low pointed out that giving it all away would wreck any chance of answering public records requests later. He said Love’s people feared leaks for profit.
Love has never pushed against the suicide finding. Still, books and documentaries keep spinning murder theories. Police have shut those down every time. The department has said nothing public about this old letter.
Seattle sits in King County, western Washington. It was the home base for the whole grunge wave that made Nirvana huge in the early nineties. The letter just shows how hard Love worked to lock down every detail of that file once the official word was in.
The request never went through. The file stayed with the cops. Low made clear that was the only way to keep the records honest for anyone who might ask later.
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