Kurt Cobain, 30 years after his death: his last minutes and the place of the tragedy

If the 27 years he lived Kurt Cobain They were a collage of galloping vertigo, the time preceding their tragic outcome passed with the violent speed of a roller coaster.

Everything happened: the disoriented weeks of the farewell tour with Nirvana; the wild days of the last rescue attempt through a failed detox; the uncertain hours behind the whereabouts of a sick musician who had left his family without warning and had the company of a borrowed rifle in the solitude of his home; the devastating minutes in which he wrote a farewell letter and left fingerprints for recognition; the agonizing seconds in which he clung to whatever reserve of courage he had left for the final decision; The moment he pulled the trigger…

And also a blind and deaf eternity ahead, in which he will never again be able to see his daughter grow up or hear his fans complain about his fate while the strings of his music and his rebellion continue to resonate, a legacy he left to a entire generation.

young death

Kurt Cobain He decided that he had already lived, enjoyed and suffered enough 44 days after turning 27. His death joined the list of young rock talents who passed away at that age: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones preceded him. Years later, Britain’s Amy Winehouse joined the roster.

Overwhelmed, aimless, bound by the pressures of a troubled mind when lucid and evaporated under the influence of heroin, the leader of Nirvana He ended up running a marathon with the pace of a Jamaican sprinter. He surrendered several times to the controls that his environment imposed on him, but with the sole and evident reason of generating a screen of presumed normality that allowed him to compose his last act, the escape towards the exit door that would take him far from hell it was living with yourself every day.

Thus, days with different nuances were built until arriving at April 5, 1994when he constructed the suicide scene in the greenhouse of his Seattle home.

His last minutes

The final raid lasted exactly one month. And it started in Rome, in the middle of a break, to cut the 38 dates that Nirvana had planned the European tour. The first 15 shows had passed and there was still a lot to do on tour.

The last contact with the public took place on March 1st at Terminal Einz in Munich. Cobain lost his voice in the middle of the concert, his last concert, according to the reconstruction made years later by Rolling Stone magazine. He had been advised to take two to four weeks off but instead chose to isolate for a few days at the Exelsior hotel in the Italian capital.

On the morning of March 5, his wife, Courtney Lovefound him unconscious. He had consumed 50 Rohypnol pills, which he opened one by one because their packaging was individual, and wrote a suicide letter. The tour was cancelled.

On March 8 he was discharged in Rome and the couple immediately returned to Seattle together with their daughter Frances Bean (just over a year old); Due to the length of the tour, the band members traveled with family.

On March 18, back in the United States, Cobain and his wife had a violent argument. He He locked himself in the bathroom of his Seattle home with a .38 caliber revolver and screamed that he was going to kill himself.; Courtney Love called 911 and quick police action thwarted her fatal attempt; It was the second time in 13 days that she had flirted with the drastic decision.

A week later, the family and friends of the Nirvana leader decided to end his deadly career. They confronted him and talked to him about going through a detox process, which his wife would also undergo, since they both shared a life, a daughter, passions, demons and addictions.

Cobain he listened and accepted the advice, albeit reluctantly. Like a Jekyll and Hyde undermined by drugs and depression, he began to show encouraging signs as he continued his journey of the cross within himself. In fact, he told the police officers who detained him on the day of the clash with his wife that he had no intention of committing suicide.

It is said that at that time Cobain even talked about construction plans Michael Stipe, the leader of REM, with whom he also had a good relationship. It was, in a way, his way of expressing his tiredness with Nirvana, with the tsunami the band had brought him into since the explosion of It does not matterthe group’s second studio album, the catapult that began a journey difficult to assimilate for an introspective personality like his.

The relationship with the rest of the band was in constant tension. The bass player Krist Novoselichis friend since adolescence and with whom he co-founded Nirvana In 1987 he was not in Italy when Cobain wanted to commit suicide. And after the tour was canceled, drummer Dave Grohl remained in Europe due to personal commitments.

At that time, Kurt’s demons within the group could only coexist with guitarist Pat Smear, who had just joined; Today Smear is a stable member of the Foo Fighters, the group founded by Grohl after Cobain’s death.

Courtney Love He first traveled to Los Angeles, where he began the outpatient “tranquilizer detox” program on Saturday, March 26. The next day, the babysitter (named Cali) arrived in Los Angeles along with Frances Bean. Cobain remained in Seattle.

On Wednesday the 30th he stopped at the home of Dylan Carlson, one of the friends who had invited him to undergo treatment, to ask for a gun because, according to him, there were intruders wandering around his property. Together they went to a gun shop and Carlson bought a 20-gauge Remington rifle and ammunition; Cobain didn’t pay because, given his origins, he didn’t want the police to confiscate his gun..

Carlson accompanied him confidently because, he said some time later, he seemed “normal”, focused on the process he would have to face with his wife. Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Cobain left the gun at home and traveled to Los Angeles the same day. He was received by Smear, who accompanied him to the Exodus Recovery Center, at the Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital, in Marina del Rey, California. He had been there less than two days.

On Friday 1 April he called Love, who was still in his hotel waiting to finish rehabilitation for the release of the new album by Hole, the band he leads.

She recounted the tenor of that speech some time later. “She said, ‘Courtney, whatever happens, I want you to know that you made a really good album.’ “I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he replied: “Just remember, no matter what happens, I love you.”. They didn’t speak anymore.

They say Cobain escaped from the clinic by jumping over a wall about two meters high. He had asked permission to go out on the patio to smoke. He flew to Seattle shortly before Love reported his situationcancel his credit cards and hire detectives to track him down.

The last person in the environment who claimed to have seen him alive was the babysitter Cali, who however was unable to approach him. It was Saturday the 2nd. On Monday the 4th, Wendy O’Connor, Cobain’s mother, officially reported him missing.

Washington state police believe Cobain may have been wandering around Seattle in the days before returning homemaking use of the testimonies of neighbors who claim to have seen him wearing a green jacket and a hunter’s cap, walking aimlessly in a nearby park.

The suicide scene

At a certain point on Tuesday the 5th he locked himself in the greenhouse of his house. He blocked the doors with a stool. Investigations show that the man bent over a cigarette case believed to contain drugs.

He wrote the farewell letter with a red pen. She said, “I love you, I love you.” He threw his wallet containing his driving license on the ground. The stage was set.

Love reconstructed the rest of the tragedy in an interview with MTV: Cobain dragged a chair to the window, sat down, took some drugs, put the barrel of the 20-gauge shotgun he’d bought with Dylan Carlson to his head, and pulled the trigger.. It was Tuesday the 5th. It is surprising that no one heard the detonation.

On Thursday the 7th, the Los Angeles Police received a report about a possible overdose victim in the hotel where Courtney Love was staying. She and Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson were found by officers in their room (her daughter and her nanny were in the adjacent room).

She was first hospitalized and then arrested for “possession of drug paraphernalia.” She posted $10,000 bail and was released. She immediately went to Seattle.

On Friday 8 April, just before nine in the morning, Kurt Cobain’s body was found in the greenhouse of his home. This was discovered by an electrician who went to install a security system and notified the police.

The rifle lay on his chest. Forensics were only able to recognize his identity from his fingerprints.. Traces of heroin and Valium were found in his blood.

The record was played on the home sound system. Automatic for the peopleof REM