Jennifer Chiba, who was present in the house when Elliott Smith died of two stab wounds in the heart on October 21 2003, is currently doing a fundraising for the Los Angeles Community Walk, benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
And what's wrong with this picture you're gonna say? The problem is that Elliott Smith’s case was never closed by the LAPD and a veil of suspicious has always been on Chiba’s head despite the fact that she definitely has loyal supporters.
For having looked at the case closely, I can say that lots of people who were close to Elliott have suspicions. Autumn De Wilde told me in 2007 during a signing of her book, that only one person knew the truth and that this person was not talking, after I asked her about Elliott’s death.
Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, during a concert at the Hollywood cemetery last year, dedicated a song to Elliott and stammered out a few words as an introduction to the song, saying that ‘whatever the reason, we don’t really know what happened, whether he has taken his own life or what happened,…’ leaving us to believe he had serious doubts about what happened.
His band mate, Steven Drozd, was Elliott’s friend and he questioned the method of suicide when he declared: ‘In my mind, I could totally see it being like, 'Hey I'm outta here, I'm gonna do a shot and OD – game over, see ya'. But it's another thing to actually pierce yourself in the heart with a fucking knife. And that's what we've all been talking about. It's really weird that he would do it that way – or could do it that way.’
A close friend to Elliott, who prefers to stay anonymous, wrote to me in an email: ‘Even as a counselor, knowing this and knowing that Elliott could be grievously depressed, I do not think he killed himself. I do not rule out that there could have been a fight between the two of them, him and Jennifer’. Another person close to the family told me he had a gut feeling Elliott was killed.
Should I continue? It will not be necessary, it is clear that suspicions are still hanging over Jennifer Chiba’s head, and I don't understand why she isn't working on that instead of presenting herself as a victim of suicide.
If Elliott committed suicide and Jennifer Chiba is innocent, she should be allowed to have a life free of suspicions. If I were at her place, exculpating myself would be the only goal in my life, I would have been talking to the police nights and days, taking all the polygraph tests that exist until they recognize my innocence and close the case. Instead of this Jennifer Chiba refused to talk to the police as it is clearly stated in the police report:
‘Chiba’s reported removal of the knife and subsequent refusal to speak with detectives are all of concern.’
Nevertheless, she is raising money for a cause linked to Elliott as if she was trying very hard to make us believe she is the giving victim in the story.
If she did it, the story destroyed her life unless she is a psychopath, but since psychopaths often try to present themselves as ‘saviors’, it could fit the picture we have here…
At the end, I don’t pretend to know what happened on October 21st 2003, but Jennifer Chiba should clean up her reputation before posing as the caring victim.
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