A 1995 letter shows Courtney Love‘s lawyer asked Seattle police for Kurt Cobain‘s full case file, while accepting the suicide ruling.
A letter written on behalf of Courtney Love in 1995 asked the Seattle Police Department to give her the complete investigation file on Kurt Cobain‘s death and keep nothing back. The same letter states, in plain terms, that she and the Nirvana frontman’s estate accepted the ruling that he died by suicide.
The document is dated October 20, 1995, roughly 18 months after Cobain was found dead at the couple’s Seattle home in April 1994, aged 27. It was written by attorney Bryan Coluccio of the firm Short Cressman & Burgess and addressed to the city’s then police chief, Norm Stamper.
“This letter is to request that the complete investigation file of the Seattle Police Department pertaining to Mr. Cobain’s death be delivered to me, with no further records or copies to remain with the Department,” Coluccio wrote.
He set out the estate’s position on the cause of death in the same letter.
“I confirm on behalf of Mr. Cobain’s estate and Ms. Love-Cobain that they are satisfied that the Seattle Police Department performed a complete and thorough investigation into Mr. Cobain’s death,” he stated. “Our clients agree with and accept, without any reservation, the Department’s final determination that Mr. Cobain’s death was a suicide. The matter can be closed.”
The stated reason for the request was commercial exploitation. According to the letter, “several persons” had attempted to profit from the sale and distribution of material relating to Cobain‘s death. The file contained undeveloped rolls of 35mm film and Polaroid photographs, copies of personal letters written by Cobain, and financial and other private information.
The department did not comply.
The letter was located by researchers working with “Who Killed Kurt?“, an independent group that has spent around two years examining the case and argues the death was a homicide. It was first reported by the New York Post.
Neil Low, a retired Seattle police captain with 50 years of service, told the paper the department was right to refuse.
“Attorney Bryan Collucio’s request that the SPD give his client all of the police records related to the Cobain investigation is totally absurd,” Low said. “As an ‘officer of the court,’ you would expect Mr. Collucio to know that police agencies are required to document all of their official business and correspondence as a matter of public record.”
“How could there be public record compliance if the police gave everything to this attorney and his law firm? Where would the accountability be?” he continued.
Low conducted an audit of the case in 2005 and supported the suicide finding at that time. He has since come to believe the death was a homicide.
Michelle Wilkins, who leads the “Who Killed Kurt?” investigation, said the request would have damaged any future review.
“Every cold case lives or dies on the evidence that’s preserved,” Wilkins said. “When lawyers are demanding investigative materials be removed from police custody, it doesn’t protect the pursuit of truth—it makes future scrutiny far more difficult.”
This is the second such approach to surface. In May, the same group produced an internal memo dated February 13, 1995, in which Detective Sgt. Don Cameron told Lt. Al Gerdes that Love had asked for all photographs taken at the scene to be destroyed, citing concerns they would leak. Cameron, who has since died, wrote that he refused because destroying them would make the department appear foolish and unprofessional. The department later released 37 images from the scene following its 2014 review.
That review, carried out by cold-case detective Mike Ciesynski ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the death, developed film that had sat undeveloped in an evidence vault and reached the same conclusion as the original investigation.
The official position has not moved since. A Seattle Police Department spokesperson said recently: “Our detective concluded that he died by suicide, and this continues to be the position held by this department.” The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has said it remains willing to look at new material but has “seen nothing to date that would warrant reopening of this case and our previous determination of death.”
The “Who Killed Kurt?” group presented a paper to the department last year, produced with forensic specialist Brian Burnett, arguing the evidence points to homicide. The department declined to reopen the case. The group has not called for arrests and has asked instead for further scrutiny of the evidence.
Love, now 62, and other members of Cobain‘s family have consistently supported the police finding. Representatives for Love, the Seattle Police Department and Coluccio did not respond to requests for comment from the New York Post.
