A.J. Castellitto
If you kill free speech you kill justice (a closer look at the Cobain case and the quest for truth!)
By A.J. Castellitto
Back in 1994, the news was all over the media. Kurt Cobain, the man who singlehandedly altered the musical landscape when he and Nirvana arrived on the scene just three years prior, was found dead in his Seattle home.
The case was open and shut. The death was quickly ruled a suicide. After all, Cobain grew up in a broken home and eventually turned to heroin, hoping to find relief from a mysterious stomach ailment.
After the initial shock, the whole idea of Kurt Cobain, king of the aggressively dark and brooding Seattle grunge movement, killing himself was not too difficult to comprehend. Based on his image and public persona, it seemed like a foregone conclusion.
It had been determined by the police department (and widely reported throughout the world) that Kurt Cobain, under the influence of heroin, had shot himself in the head with his own shotgun. Case closed. And so it would have remained if not for the efforts of one man (as depicted in the highly anticipated film, "Soaked in Bleach":www.soakedinbleach.com ).
I became acquainted with Tom Grant a few years back. Grant is a private investigator and former LASD detective who was hired back in April of 1994 to locate Cobain. Grant had previously assisted with Paula Jones' pretrial investigation of then-president Bill Clinton and more recently by the attorney of Mrs. Katherine Jackson, mother of the King of Pop.
Foul Play in Death of a Musical Icon?
Throughout his musical career, right up to the time of his disappearance Cobain was mired in all of the worst cultural, behavior, and ideological elements. However, if we take a closer look at the interviews and some firsthand accounts, we get a picture of a young man who, prior to his disappearance, was finally getting his act together. (Most notable was the fact that Cobain was discovered in the summer of 1993 to be suffering from a pinched nerve, which had contributed to his stomach ailment. After treatment, he no longer relied on heavy doses of heroin to kill the pain.)
Kurt became a new person after that. He stopped retreating into the dark side that everybody came to associate with him and actually seemed cheerful. ... [T]he stomach thing was the most important. – close friend Dylan Carson
We start to get a glimpse of a man who became serious about leaving a dark and depraved corporate music scene. We also get a clear indication that Cobain wanted to do better – not only to set a better example to his fans, but to serve as a responsible and loving father figure to his young daughter.
I'm not in any way afraid of death... I'm afraid of dying now, I don't want to leave behind my wife and child, so I don't do things that would jeopardize my life. I try to do as little things as I can to jeopardize it. I don't want to die.
– Kurt Cobain, Sept. 1993
This was a guy who was looking in the mirror, and at those around him whom he couldn't push away, and realizing that if he didn't make a change, he was finished.
Cobain was finished...but did he truly want to be? Enter Tom Grant.
It's easy for those unfamiliar with the case to assume that Cobain's death was exactly what it was reported to be, and how it's been depicted by those in the mainstream without question ever since. However, it is worth taking a moment to check out, without preconceptions, some of the information that has been exposed by the man personally hired by Cobain's widow to locate the then-missing Kurt Cobain, who was eventually "found with ... a suicide note discovered nearby."
Mr. Grant has soundly concluded the suicide ruling an utter impossibility. Toxicology tests revealed the level of heroin in Cobain's bloodstream to be 1.52 milligrams per liter (three times the lethal dose, and a daunting amount even for a hardcore heroin addict), which rendered him completely incapacitated. Mr. Grant explains the significance of these test results:
Don't get confused by that 1.52 mgs per liter figure. That's simply the amount of morphine, (heroin becomes morphine as it passes through the brain), that was found during the autopsy. It means Cobain would have had to have been injected with approximately 225 mgs of heroin to reach that 1.52 Heroin (Morphine) blood level during the autopsy.
Grant also reveals that Cobain was planning a divorce and that there was a prenuptial agreement in place.
In the over 20 years since Mr. Grant went public with his findings, he has been much maligned and ultimately written off as an opportunist. However, his story is a fascinating, sobering, and highly disturbing true tale that reveals the evils and trappings of corporate fame and the drug culture.
Cobain was reduced to a mere commodity – a golden ticket for the record label, the industry, and most of all, his wife. It has been theorized that at the height of success –
when he declared he was going to leave it all – he became expendable, while the powers-that-be protected the prime suspect, who would use her various connections to make it all go away.
The whole tragic episode is just another sobering reminder of a prevailing perversion of justice and truth, and how, all too often, evil acts are simply tolerated and overlooked when big money is involved.
Regardless of our increasingly divided secular culture, all lives matter – even the lives of recovering drug addicts. When one becomes disposable, we all do!
*Latest Update on upcoming 'Cobain true crime drama' Soaked In Bleach :
http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/berlin/news/vmis-kurt-cobain-drama-sells-to-germany-japan/5083376.article
© A.J. Castellitto
Back in 1994, the news was all over the media. Kurt Cobain, the man who singlehandedly altered the musical landscape when he and Nirvana arrived on the scene just three years prior, was found dead in his Seattle home.
The case was open and shut. The death was quickly ruled a suicide. After all, Cobain grew up in a broken home and eventually turned to heroin, hoping to find relief from a mysterious stomach ailment.
After the initial shock, the whole idea of Kurt Cobain, king of the aggressively dark and brooding Seattle grunge movement, killing himself was not too difficult to comprehend. Based on his image and public persona, it seemed like a foregone conclusion.It had been determined by the police department (and widely reported throughout the world) that Kurt Cobain, under the influence of heroin, had shot himself in the head with his own shotgun. Case closed. And so it would have remained if not for the efforts of one man (as depicted in the highly anticipated film, "Soaked in Bleach":www.soakedinbleach.com ).
I became acquainted with Tom Grant a few years back. Grant is a private investigator and former LASD detective who was hired back in April of 1994 to locate Cobain. Grant had previously assisted with Paula Jones' pretrial investigation of then-president Bill Clinton and more recently by the attorney of Mrs. Katherine Jackson, mother of the King of Pop.
Foul Play in Death of a Musical Icon?
Throughout his musical career, right up to the time of his disappearance Cobain was mired in all of the worst cultural, behavior, and ideological elements. However, if we take a closer look at the interviews and some firsthand accounts, we get a picture of a young man who, prior to his disappearance, was finally getting his act together. (Most notable was the fact that Cobain was discovered in the summer of 1993 to be suffering from a pinched nerve, which had contributed to his stomach ailment. After treatment, he no longer relied on heavy doses of heroin to kill the pain.)
Kurt became a new person after that. He stopped retreating into the dark side that everybody came to associate with him and actually seemed cheerful. ... [T]he stomach thing was the most important. – close friend Dylan Carson
We start to get a glimpse of a man who became serious about leaving a dark and depraved corporate music scene. We also get a clear indication that Cobain wanted to do better – not only to set a better example to his fans, but to serve as a responsible and loving father figure to his young daughter.
I'm not in any way afraid of death... I'm afraid of dying now, I don't want to leave behind my wife and child, so I don't do things that would jeopardize my life. I try to do as little things as I can to jeopardize it. I don't want to die.
– Kurt Cobain, Sept. 1993
This was a guy who was looking in the mirror, and at those around him whom he couldn't push away, and realizing that if he didn't make a change, he was finished.
Cobain was finished...but did he truly want to be? Enter Tom Grant.
It's easy for those unfamiliar with the case to assume that Cobain's death was exactly what it was reported to be, and how it's been depicted by those in the mainstream without question ever since. However, it is worth taking a moment to check out, without preconceptions, some of the information that has been exposed by the man personally hired by Cobain's widow to locate the then-missing Kurt Cobain, who was eventually "found with ... a suicide note discovered nearby."
Mr. Grant has soundly concluded the suicide ruling an utter impossibility. Toxicology tests revealed the level of heroin in Cobain's bloodstream to be 1.52 milligrams per liter (three times the lethal dose, and a daunting amount even for a hardcore heroin addict), which rendered him completely incapacitated. Mr. Grant explains the significance of these test results:
Don't get confused by that 1.52 mgs per liter figure. That's simply the amount of morphine, (heroin becomes morphine as it passes through the brain), that was found during the autopsy. It means Cobain would have had to have been injected with approximately 225 mgs of heroin to reach that 1.52 Heroin (Morphine) blood level during the autopsy.
Grant also reveals that Cobain was planning a divorce and that there was a prenuptial agreement in place.
In the over 20 years since Mr. Grant went public with his findings, he has been much maligned and ultimately written off as an opportunist. However, his story is a fascinating, sobering, and highly disturbing true tale that reveals the evils and trappings of corporate fame and the drug culture.
Cobain was reduced to a mere commodity – a golden ticket for the record label, the industry, and most of all, his wife. It has been theorized that at the height of success –
when he declared he was going to leave it all – he became expendable, while the powers-that-be protected the prime suspect, who would use her various connections to make it all go away.
The whole tragic episode is just another sobering reminder of a prevailing perversion of justice and truth, and how, all too often, evil acts are simply tolerated and overlooked when big money is involved.
Regardless of our increasingly divided secular culture, all lives matter – even the lives of recovering drug addicts. When one becomes disposable, we all do!
*Latest Update on upcoming 'Cobain true crime drama' Soaked In Bleach :
http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/berlin/news/vmis-kurt-cobain-drama-sells-to-germany-japan/5083376.article
© A.J. Castellitto
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
