More than three decades after Kurt Cobain’s death stunned the music world, a group of independent forensic scientists is urging authorities to take another look at the case.
According to the New York Post, the team says an “exhaustive” review of the late Nirvana frontman’s autopsy led them to conclude that one or more people may have been involved in his death.
Cobain died in 1994 at age 27, at the height of the Seattle grunge movement. The King County Medical Examiner ruled at the time that the rock icon died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
But independent researcher Michelle Wilkins and forensic specialist Brian Burnett spent three days reexamining the case and produced a peer-reviewed document concluding the death was a homicide, according to Complex.
Their claims revisit long-debated theories that have circulated among fans for years, including allegations that Cobain was forced to take a massive dose of heroin before he was shot and that two suicide notes attributed to him showed different handwriting styles.
Despite those assertions, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office said its original findings remain unchanged.
“King County Medical Examiner’s Office worked with the local law enforcement agency, conducted a full autopsy, and followed all of its procedures in coming to the determination of the manner of death as a suicide,” the agency said in a statement.
Officials added they would consider reopening the case if new evidence emerged, but said they have “seen nothing to date that would warrant re-opening of this case and our previous determination of death.”
A month before he died, Cobain was hospitalized in Rome after overdosing on Rohypnol and champagne. His then-spouse, Courtney Love, described the incident as a suicide attempt.
Cobain had long struggled with depression and drug addiction, issues that were widely documented before his death.
His passing placed him in the so-called “27 Club,” a group of influential artists who died at the same age, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, and Amy Winehouse.
