Monday 5 October 2015

Why Kurt Cobain’s death scene photos should not be released to the public


A new lawsuit is urging the release of Kurt Cobain’s death-scene photos. Richard Lee, who runs a public-access show, sued Seattle Police Department to release the never-before-seen images. This has stirred up a chain of reaction amongst Cobain’s family, friends and not to mention his fans.

A week after Cobain’s death, Richard Lee hosted ‘Now See it Person to Person: Kurt Cobain was Murdered’. He claimed there were several discrepancies in the police reports, such as multiple changes in the nature behind the gunshot blast. Since then, Lee has maintained that Cobain was murdered through a conspiracy involving government officials.

So why now, over 20 years after his death, are people demanding the case to be reopened? In 2014, four previously undeveloped rolls of 35mm film from the 1994 crime scene were analysed by Seattle Police in advance of the 20th anniversary of Cobain’s suicide. According to the department the pictures were “underwhelming”. However, in light of this news, Lee took it upon himself to try to get the pictures released to the public for further investigations.

Of course this meant other conspirators, or fans as they like to call themselves, decided to join in and campaign for the release through social media, showing #justiceforkurt. All the while Cobain’s widow Courtney Love and his daughter Frances Bean fought against the lawsuit because the pictures would arguably make their lives pretty miserable (as if losing their husband/dad wasn’t bad enough).
Nirvana fans claim they have some sort of right to see these pictures, because they want to know the truth about his death (suggesting that Seattle Police Department weren’t capable of doing their job 20 years ago, and they’re still not capable of doing it). Fans also want to nail Love down for the murder because apparently he was leaving her, and she’d be left with no money (none of these theories have of course been confirmed or proved).

Here’s what fans need to realise - none of them were there. None of them are sitting on any real evidence that would suggest Cobain didn’t kill himself. Some people claim they do, like Lee’s video footage shot from a tree in Cobain’s back garden. According to Lee (who, by the way, is no forensic scientist) there was not enough blood at the crime scene. For the purpose of this feature I have watched this footage and you can’t even see Cobain’s body in it, yet he claims he can see so much in it.

Lee has also suggested in one of the episodes of his show that Cobain’s head was intact (he of course knows this without seeing the body himself), meaning there was no way Cobain could’ve shot himself with a shotgun because his head would’ve been destroyed...whereas police reports (written by police officers who were at the scene) say that Cobain could only be identified through his fingerprints. What is more likely - that a person who climbs trees on private properties to film a dead person through his window, then distributes the footage to profit off of it, would be more capable of concluding the cause of death, rather than all the trained professionals who were actually involved in the investigation?

None of the fans have any clear evidence suggesting that Love had anything to do with it. They have theories that are fuelled by their hate for her. “Hey Courtney, how come you NEVER allow a full investigation on Kurt’s death? How can you be satisfied that he committed suicide? What a wife! Stop spreading your legs you are not Sharon Stone, bitch! #FuckYouCourtneyLove,” Sandra Alberqueque wrote on Facebook. Well, there was an investigation, and it was concluded that Cobain committed suicide. What more is needed? And a woman’s right to spread her legs is none of your business and is of very little relevance to this case.

Fans need to get over it; all these theories will not bring the singer back to life, and if there was any doubt that he had killed himself Seattle Police Department would not have released his body after the autopsy, and then declared it as suicide. What makes the fans think they have any kind of right to see the crime scene photos anyway? Is it normal for the police to release pictures of other suicide cases? “What are people going to gain from seeing pictures of Kurt Cobain lying on the ground with his hair blown back, with blood coming out of his nose and trauma to his eyes from a penetrating shotgun wound,” Detective Mike Ciesynski said. And I add to this quote, how come people don’t take into consideration the horror his wife and daughter must be going through in all this?

Then ask yourself this; a close family member of yours blasts his head off after struggling with drug abuse and depression for years. You put him to rest and try to move on with your life. At the same time fanatics constantly remind you of his tragic death, and often blame you for it. What good would images of his brains spread out over the floor and walls in the home you once shared together do to you?