Not With The Band: Why We Should Be Allowed To See Kurt Cobain’s Death Scene Photos

This last lawsuit attempted by journalist and so-called conspiracy theorist Richard Lee against the city of Seattle and the Seattle police department has sure made people react all over the internet. The lawsuit, which was an attempt to release the photographs and police records related to Kurt Cobain’s death, was just dismissed by a judge in Seattle on Friday under the excuse that Lee had ‘improperly served his lawsuit to the city by not delivering it to the mayor, city manager or city clerk, who are the appropriate recipients’. The judge also said ‘he failed to give the city an adequate amount of time to respond to the public-records request before suing.’

Lee is planning to submit another records request, and eventually to file another lawsuit: ‘Of course I will refile’, he said. ‘I’ve never heard of a case where an issue of such public importance was dismissed because of such trivial circumstances.’

A lot of people have a bad opinion of this man, a lot of people think he is a nutcase, a lot of people are arms-in-the-air screaming their disgust at the idea of seeing gruesome pictures,… and of course Frances Bean Cobain and Courtney Love’s statements published a few days ago in the Alternative Press didn’t help. Do we have the right to see these pictures? Will they leak in the press? Obviously they will if they are made public, but, in defense of Lee, I would like to raise the case against the general consensus we should not see them, against the offended feeling I see everywhere. Yes we have the right to see these pictures because there are too many answered questions related to Cobain’s death. Of course, if there was the choice, I would prefer to see the pictures and documents to be only examined by experts, and not thrown away to the hungry press, but this is not how it works. So far, only the SPD has seen the pictures and they are in their possession. If a lawsuit like the one attempted by Lee is successful at one point, the pictures will be available to everyone. It’s a black and white situation, either they are kept private to the SPD, or released to the whole world,… nothing is perfect. But in Cobain’s case, because of the increasing number of questions surrounding the case (and if you want to know more, I would refer you to the movie ‘Soaked in Bleach’ or to Tom Grant’s website), it is very important that these pictures are made available. There are only two possibilities, either Kurt Cobain really committed suicide and in this case keeping the photos secret has only for effect to fuel the so-called conspiracies, or he didn’t kill himself and the photos may reveal things the authorities don’t want us to see? Things like the amount of blood Kurt Cobain really lost, and the amount of damage done by the shotgun, which is at the center of many conversations.

Contrarily to common belief, if you read informed reports about Cobain, the shotgun blast had resulted in very little visible damage, there was no blood or tissue splatter which are typical in most shotgun blasts to the head, there was curiously no exit wound, and if you have seen Cobain’s death scene pictures circulating on the internet in the past, they were false. Cobain was fingerprinted for identification as a matter of procedure, not for necessity, as it was falsely reported in the press. People who saw the body recognized him immediately and the lack of damage is one of the numerous aberrations of the case. Lee even believes there was no shotgun, a theory which would be easily proved or disproved if the photos were released. Other experts think he was already dead when he was shot because of the lack of damage to his head.

S,o if I will leave Frances alone for now, let me not buy Courtney Love’s emotional declaration, mentioning ‘the enormity of the trauma’ the release of these pictures would cause her. First of all these pictures are probably not as gruesome as she wants the public to believe, secondly, she saw the body, she was allowed in the greenhouse, was allowed to touch Kurt’s body, cut his hair and pubic hair (as a souvenir?) and she even climbed on top of his body according to Nirvana’s production manager Jeff Mason.

Then, how does this woman dares to claim she cares about privacy when she has exploited the death of her husband for 21 years? She plays the emotional card and it is always working in people’s minds, she is even exploiting her child, using Frances as a shield at the top of this. Did she care about traumatizing Frances when she threw a suicide-theme birthday party for her daughter when she was just 16?

A few months ago, a few photos were released in the press, these were the safe pictures I presume but they represent just a tiny portion of the photographs taken by the police 21 years ago. But, strangely Courtney and Frances stayed completely silent at the time they popped up on many websites.

Courtney Love has spread so many disinformation all over the internet, and she has often brought up the death of her husband in her interviews as a way to promote herself, ‘When you’ve had your husband’s blood on your face, how can you write about it? When you walk around in the coat that he shot his head off in, how can you write?’ she said in an interview to Rolling Stone. She never had blood in her face, okay, she may have used a sort of bad metaphor, but she always has had horrible taste… this same woman who complains about photos of her dead husband, did spread false and horrible rumors on Hole message boards in 2001, claiming Kurt’s body had been desecrated at the mortuary house! How sick is this? Someone saved her sad rants, and here is an excerpt:

‘i wish i had a xanax i dont have oe and now in oreally fuckeing twisted and sad”’]]okay here we are illlt ellyoumore some little shit worked at the seattle coroners office he “volunteered” to accompany the body to the funeral home’ when he go there he fressed the body had his friends come and videotaped him andhis freinds dab=ncing weith the body the danced with him then one of them cut him- they cut parts of him and they kept them them he somehow go t ahol dof the suicide note and made tshirts of them then i founf out in areallyhorrible way- somneone had taped this tape of themn dancing withhis body after they shaved his head theres( i cantw atchit) girls sittin drinking beer while thyeplay pearl jam music an ddnacew withhis boddy broken and bloody thye shaved his head okay you wantmore this funeral home is oart of a chain( because edward went thought htis eithme when his moim died he founf out the funeral hime was inthe sam echain and hin andhis briher went there and stayed until she was put int heivern and creamted) the chain is a billion dollar a year business based in houston i decided to quietly and without telling wendy and kim- sue them for ALOT as it seemd every emplyee att hehome dabnced with him and cur him someone cut out his HEART- iwas going to take than money front hese fuckers and just out it in wendys account i knw if i publicied this it would disgrace this poor kid even more one of the guys carved words into him. the word i heard they carved was “fag” okayis this great or what?’

I could not correct the typos, may be she was high, may be she had forgotten everything about punctuation, but this is just a tiny part of her long and unreadable rants that she posted on Hole message board back in 2001. Crazy stuff, but now that she is playing a more reasonable character as the emotional widow, she has nevertheless sold what was left of Kurt’s privacy for ‘Montage of Heck’, giving to Brett Morgan total access to Kurt Cobain’s private journal and collection, promoting once again her husband’s suicide. Privacy? Courtney Love is totally foreign to this concept.

And for those who think these pictures would be a terrible trauma for Frances, I will tell them this: is it better to let this girl be a victim of the lies of her mother, is it better for her to continue to think her father killed himself…. or is it better for her to know the truth? What is the worst trauma, believe that your father didn’t care enough for you and committed suicide… or take a risk, see these pictures and learn he loved you too much to have done such a terrible thing?