(5) Kurt is found on friday, April 8, 1994

Seattle, Washington: The Early Morning of April 8, 1994

It's early in the morning when electrician Gary Smith arrives at the Lake Washington home Kurt Cobain shares with his wife Courtney Love. There is no answer at the front door but Smith doesn't expect to encounter anybody in the hour or so it will take to install the security lighting Courtney Love requested. Kurt is a late sleeper and Courtney, well, she's rarely around.

Smith heads towards the Cobain's garage to begin his work. He follows some wires from the roof to the room above the garage. Smith glances through the windows and spots something. What is that? His first reaction is that there is a mannequin lying on the floor. That wouldn't be unlike something you would find here, Kurt was especially fond of collecting strange items like this on the road. Closer inspection, though, reveals a shotgun lying across the figure's chest. Nothing is moving. Slowly Smith makes out that there is blood on the ear of the body and a shotgun lying across it's chest. Gary Smith strains his eyes into focus and he realises what he is looking at. He has just discovered the body of Kurt Cobain. The 27-year-old hadn't been seen for six days. Gary Smith calls his boss who then instead of calling the police calls a local radio station, KXRX-FM, where he speaks to radio DJ Marty Reimer. The station employees believe the call is a hoax; however, and just to be safe, the police are called. Within an hour the news that a body was discovered at the Seattle home of Kurt Cobain spreads around the world.

Gary Smith. The electrician who found Cobain's body on April 8, 1994

Tom Grant (the private investigator) and Dylan Carlson (Kurt's friend) decide to make a daylight attempt to drive to the Carnation property in order to search for Kurt. Along the way the pair stop at a gas station. Dylan leaves to make a phone call and then quickly returns saying that a body was just found at the greenhouse of the Seattle home. Grant turns on the radio and listens to confirmation on the radio. Grant claims there was no reaction in Dylan. Grant then allegedly asks Dylan what the greenhouse was and why didn't he tell him about it. Dylan simply responds that it was a dirty room on top of the garage that the Cobains used to store lumber in.

As the police officer V. Levandowski describes in the police records: "On april, 8 1994, I was working on man marked patrol car in uniform. At about 08:56 hours, I was dispatced to 171 Lake Washinton Blvd. E. to investigate a dead body. On arrival, I was contacted by a white male around the age of 44. I saw his work truck parked in the driveway of the house. The man stated, he had arrived at the house to do some electrial work on contract for dictrograph, the security company for the residence. He stated he had stepped into awest facing deck at the second floor level of the garage as he observed a dead male on the floor. He said he was seeing the body through the french doors, but that the doors were locked. The man took me through the doors, and I observed through the door a white male, with long blonde hair, he was laying on the floor, on his back, A shotgun was laying across the victim's body; the butt of the gun was between the victim's feet. and the muzzle was at about the mid-chest level of the victim. The victim appeared to be Kurt Cobain, who I knew to be the resident of the house, and who I had contacted in the recent past.

Seattle Fire Units arrived, and forced ectry by breaking a pane in the french door.

On entry, SFD announced the white male as dead on arrival, and cleared the scene, leaving Engine Company 34 behind. SFD asked for I.D. from the nearby wallet, and I opened the wallet which was within a couple feet of the victim's body. Inside I found a Washinton state driver's license in the name of Cobain, Kurt Donald.

I had called Sgt. Getchman enroute to the call, and Sgt. Getchman and Sgt. Fewel arrived.

I used Getchman's polaroid to photograph the scene, while Fewel and Getchman used 35mm camera's to document the scene. Lt. Ziminisky arrived, and notified Homicide.

Lt. Marberg stated his document detectives would respond. I maintaied the scene until Homicide's arrivel.

Onces the detectives arrived, Fewel and I checked the interior of the main house.

Nothing appeared to be amiss, and there was nothing of note discovered.

Inside the scene, I had discovered a cigar box lying next to the victim. Inside the box were syringes, a spoon, and other items of narcotics paraphernalia. The pen was stabbed into the note, holding it's place.

I stayed on the scene, until relieved by second watch patrol units, after Cobain's body had been removed by the medical examiner. Then I secured Cobain's main house, responded to the Homocide office to prepare the major report and this statement."

Attachment to Report

"I had been dispatched to the Cobain residence within the last month, to respond to a 911 hang up-call. On arrival, I had contact with Courtney Love, Cobain's wife, who had stated that she had called 911 because she was depressed. I saw no signs of injury to Love. I heard a small child's voice, and asked who was caring for the child. Love replied, "My husband, he is in the next room". I knocked on an adjoining room's door, and Kurt Cobain answered the door. Cobain had just recently recovered from a substance abuse induced coma in Rome. I asked Kurt what as going on, and he stated that there was a lot of stress in their relationship currently. Cobain stated that they should propalby seek counseling, and I advised him to do so. There was nothing apparent need for police intervention, and with Love and Cobain's assurances that they work things out, I left the residence."

Kurt and Courtney's house in Seattle 1993/1994

We saw earlier that the suicide note is believed by some to have been about Kurt’s desire to leave his band. According to Wipers guitarist Greg Sage, Cobain had planned to record some acoustic Lead Belly songs on his own that summer with Sage producing.

Although his words need to be taken with a pinch of salt, some believe in the following comment, Sage was alluding to how much Kurt Cobain (and in turn, Nirvana) would be worth to the record company should he pass away instead of simply going solo.

Sage stated: "Well, I can’t really speculate other than what he said to me, which was, he wasn’t at all happy about succes. Success to him seemed like, I think, a brick wall.

There was nowhere else to go but down, it was too artificial for him, and he wasn’t an artificial person at all. He was actually, two weeks after he died, he was supposed to come here and he wanted to record a bunch of Leadbelly covers. It was kind of in secret, because, I mean, people would definitely not allow him to do that. You also have to wonder, he was a billion-dollar industry at the time, and if the industry had any idea at all of him wishing or wanting to get out, they couldn’t have allowed that, you know, in life, because if he was just to get out of the scene, he’d be totally forgotten, but if he was to die, he’d be immortalized."