Toby Amirault - The Murder of Kurt Cobain
THE MURDER OF KURT COBAIN
BY TOBY AMIRAULT
IVY PRESS IVY COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
PO BOX 800 MELROSE MASSACHUSETTS 02176
This is a Website devoted to the investigation into what I - and a rapidly growing number of people in the mainstream media - believe to be the murder of Kurt Cobain, and a conspiracy by the city of Seattle and many powerful people in the media to try to maintain the idea that Cobain committed suicide. It contains only two scanned images and is designed for one purpose: to inform the public, media and worldwide Internet community about the facts of Cobain's death, so that the case is reopened and those involved ultimately convicted.
CONTENTS:
I. THE MURDER INVESTIGATION - The evidence and the progress being made in getting the case reopened. It contains a section summarizing the most important facts for those who want a quick overview.
II. COURTNEY LOVE - Courtney Love embodies everything Kurt Cobain hated most: greed, hype, image over substance, the Corporate game, and violence. Despite her desperate and very costly efforts to paint a different picture, the public and media have seen her all
anything for fame, money and power. Love's father, Hank Harrison, has said: "I know for a fact that Kurt was trying to divorce her and she didn't want the divorce, so she had him killed. . . There is no doubt in my mind that Kurt Cobain was murdered."
III. KURT COBAIN - What Kurt was like as a person, his life as an artist, and why he affected the lives of so many. (This section contains an important interview with Kurt which, to my knowledge, is new to the Internet.)
IV. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
V. ABOUT THE AUTHOR - A biography - The book I'm writing - Ivy Press.
Thursday, July 25, 1996
"Dear Mr. Amirault, I feel greatly for your enthusiasm toward the reopening of the "Kurt Case." For not only the sake of Kurt Cobain, but the sake of alternative music, and for all of the loyal Nirvana fans who were devastated [by Kurt's] death (me included). Until I read your webpage I believed everything I heard through the media. I thought he had taken his own life, and was disgusted by the fact. I am outraged by what I learned today, and would like to do anything I could to help make Courtney Love pay for her cut in modern rock 'n' roll. I would also like to thank you for putting your webpage out and writing your book. If it's not too much to ask could I please have any information about what I can do to help and about your book. I would like to get my friends together and make a difference in the case. With your help or at least advice I believe we can change the future of alternative music, and that of Courtney Love. For the eternal peace of the dearly beloved, Kurt Cobain: THANKS AGAIN.
Sincerely, (x-Hole fan) KR
please send any information possible!"
In addition to the suggestions I've made at the end of the "Summary of Evidence" section, here are two more ideas about how you can make an important contribution to this case.
1) It would do a great deal in developing a sense of community and strength among those concerned, and be a very important step in pushing it forward, if someone put up a homepage focusing on two areas. One: provide a frequently updated list of addresses (e-mail and snail mail) of anyone who supports this case. This would provide a grapevine through which information about this case could grow. Two: maintain as complete an archive as possible, also frequently updated, of all media coverage this story has received, good, bad or indifferent. The importance of this archive cannot be overestimated. There's been a lot of coverage I'm aware of but there simply hasn't been any concerted effort to collect and study it all. Every piece of media coverage is like a move in an incredibly complex chess game, which, unfortunately, in this case involves many lives. This is a big responsibility and if you're not certain you can do it, it's probably best not to try. But if you feel this is something you want to do, write me and I'll go into it in more detail with you. In the meantime, as always, if you hear of any coverage of this case, please send it to me.
2) You can also raise awareness by acknowledging your support of this investigation with a symbol, like the red ribbon that's been adopted to raise AIDS awareness. I know this might sound corny and goofy; just remember that it represents human lives. I personally think the blue ribbon, like the one you now see all over the Internet symbolizing free speech, would get the point across well, since it's affordable and simple. You could also wear a yellow smiley face (invented in 1967, Kurt's birthyear, by Seattleite David Stern), upside-down. I personally prefer the blue ribbon, but the point is to get people curious about what you're wearing.
In closing for now - I'd love to make the archive I mentioned above, as well as a lot more things in this case, but I'm doing all I can, and I have to work for a living like everyone else. This case needs your help. More people have to get involved if it's is going to get reopened. You can make a difference and you can change the future - yours, that of this case, Courtney Love's, Kurt's memory, anything. You just have to realize that if you want something in life, you have to work to make it happen. Anything that's handed to you soon loses its appeal.
To be quite frank, Courtney Love thinks that teenagers these days are a bunch of dumb losers, including - and maybe most of all - the ones who buy her records. Courtney Love also thinks that you're too powerless and afraid of her to do anything about how Kurt Cobain left this world.
Can what's going on here possibly be any more obvious? It can hardly be more tragic.
Take this personally - and prove her wrong.
"The wicked are snared in the work of their own hands."
-Psalms, 9:15-16
UPDATE: A BREAKING STORY Friday, July 26, 1996
"One change [in the media] is that the tabloids . . . have often set the news agenda while the broadsheets struggle like mad to catch up."
-from "The 175 Anniversary of [Britain's] The Guardian"
From the beginning of my involvement in February, I've done everything possible to avoid misreporting any evidence, or hyping whatever progress was being made in getting the mainstream media to break this story. But my claim in this revised version of my brief original site - that the mainstream media is indeed breaking this story - isn't hype, it's for real.
Although there are millions of people who haven't heard anything about an investigation into Kurt's death, it's no longer categorically dismissed by the media as the obsession of "conspiracy
UFOs and paranormal phenomena. This story is being studied by professional journalists and reporters around the world, and as I've learned, more than a few have been following it for quite some time. Like so many other major news stories of our age, this case has been a vicious power struggle whose fate is being decided - more and more favorably - in corporate media boardrooms. The only reason someone decides to cover a story as volatile as this is that it's their business, and there comes a point when it's clear that by not doing so they will lose value among their competitors. They fear they'll be "scooped." But a story never gets to this point unless there are a few brave souls in the media (e.g., Allan Handelman, Gil Gross) who still believe their profession has something to do with the truth and justice. It's been over two years now since Kurt died, and while the evidence has remained essentially the same, the media's response to it hasn't. The climate has changed. And before long, the law - who has lagged behind the mainstream media, who in turn has lagged behind the tabloids - will stop addressing the issues in this case in double-speak and, for the first time, do something.
RECENT MEDIA COVERAGE
The latest major coup in this investigation occurred last week when The Times, at 200 years old one of Britain's most important newspapers, dispatched a reporter to Seattle for three days (she's there as I write this) to interview Richard Lee and others about this story for a general piece about the city.
This month's (August) issue of SPIN reports: "Forget about murder conspiracies and dream interpretations: The crassest Kurt Cobain obsession to hit the Web has got to be Kurt Cobain's Magic Talking 8-Ball. . . " SPIN, like Rolling Stone, appears to be totally unaware of the serious media coverage of this case, most notably The Boston Globe's subtle but clear validation of the murder theory. For someone hearing about this story for the first time, I'm the first to admit it does sound ridiculous and parasitic. I groaned out loud when I first heard about it and wondered if the friend who'd sent me the article wasn't a lot less together than I'd previously thought. Adding to that the symbiotic relationship between the music industry and the music press - which are always trying to pump up the current music scene to make it appear far more exciting than it actually is -it should come as no surprise that the Big Two have basically ignored this story. But inevitably, they'll come around too.
Partly because the commercial search engines are increasingly backed up, some taking as long as six weeks to include a URL in their database, but also because I'm trying to reach as many people as possible about this story, in the last three weeks I've sent a general e-mail notice about this site to hundreds of addresses - some to website owners, some to editors of online publications, the rest to the worldwide media. The response has already far exceeded my expectations.
I've received many requests for interviews, and passionate, heartfelt e-mail from those who want to add a link to this site on their homepage (which doesn't require my permission) or who want to get involved in any way they can (see below). (Incidentally, I've learned that due to the massive increase in junk e-mail, unless a newspaper or magazine or whatever explicitly states that they accept electronic press releases, don't bother because they will be discarded unread. If you're trying to spread the word about this case, or contact the media for any other reason, the best methods are by phone, fax or letter.) I want to thank everyone who's written for your encouragement and sincere desire for justice.
HELPING OUT
UPDATE: A MESSAGE FROM COURTNEY? Monday, July 29, 1996
This message was forwarded to me on Saturday, July 27, from Jon Schwartz, the designer of my original site.
-----‐------------
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 03:00:26 +0000 From: "Ralph O'Brien" <ralph@eserve.com> Organization: EverNET Services To: hotlink@tiac.net Subject: MEMEMEMEME!!!!!!
Hey, Toby its me, BRRRKNSTOCK. number one, why havent we sued? because tyou people are not fucking worth it, so get off yr high horse. and furthermore dont condescend; Tom Grant is an assholefuck investigator. oj walked didnt he? get a life. if kurt wasnt cremated hed be rolling over in his grave laughing at you anf all yr little followers. leave us the fuk alone. you all think you relate o kurt but how vcould you? you dont love what he did.
-------------------
The first thing everyone asks is: How do you know it's really Courtney?
Without a lot of legwork, there's no way to know that when anyone sends a message it's definitely from that person. Cyberspace is still a lot like the Twilight Zone. Courtney knows this well and has posted many many times (there are lots of her posts on the Net when she was words, "Yeah, it's me, Courtney, what's the big deal? I'm accessible."
However, virtually all I do is study this case, and if you're familiar with her recent posts - e.g., about Tom Grant in that pathetic website by David Perle which attempts debunk this investigation - everything fits.
1-"BRRRKNSTOCK" is a name she uses frequently when posting. Moreover, does Ralph O'Brien sound like a real name?
2-The lazy punctuation, horrible spelling and very askew sense of logic, which betrays an askew mind.
3-The content: "why havent we sued"? . . . "leave us the fuk alone"? . . . And then there's the comment: "oj walked didnt he?" This is Courtney putting her foot in her mouth yet again -bringing up a murderer. With the (unwitting) implication, of course, that Kurt was murdered, but there's nothing anyone can do about it. As for O.J. Simpson, he's walking for now.
There's much more that can be examined to conclusively prove this was from Courtney - for instance, what and where is eserve.com, etc - but encryption is not my area of expertise. (If it's yours and you'd like to get involved, please write.) However, all the people who've been following this very sick person with any degree of depth agree that this post was sent by Courtney Love. As a friend of mine said, "She's really starting to panic, isn't she?"
The bottom line is that if your husband really did commit suicide, why would you bother reading websites about a murder investigation?
Why would you even bother acknowledging Tom Grant or myself, Richard Lee or anyone else? If Kurt really did kill himself, Courtney would simply say something publicly like, "What can you do? There are a lot of sick people in the world, and that's all I'll ever have to say about it." Furthermore, if Tom Grant is such a worthless fool - why on earth did she hire him to try to find her husband?
She doth protest far, far too much.
UPDATE: IMPLOSION Friday, November 30, 1996
On Thursday, September 19, my parents discovered a headless gray squirrel left by someone at the backdoor of their suburban home. That someone acting on behalf of Courtney was trying to send me a message was clear, since it is a symbol of rage taken from my novel, Linus Welch. (One of the characters, a punk, goes to a party with a headless squirrel attached to his leather jacket.)
Moreover, the effort involved was fairly considerable. My name and address are not in the phonebook, so it required a private investigator to find out where I lived - someone had to ensnare a squirrel with a cage, kill it, then remove its head - then prowl around in my parents' very open and well-watched suburban neighborhood (mostly made up of retirees).
Besides being a gardener, I was also a very typical suburban kid, playing outside virtually all day, yet I had never even seen a squirrel without a head. Someone went through a lot of trouble and expense to send this me this message. And I'd already noticed strange vehicles roaming about the neighborhood this summer.
A person doesn't threaten another person with violence unless they have feelings of powerlessness and consider themselves seriously threatened by that person.
As I've said before, if I or Tom Grant or High Times or the countless other people who believe that Kurt Cobain was murdered were telling lies, someone would have been sued by now, most likely Tom Grant, or CBS when Gil Gross decided to air Grant's opinions on this matter. It has never happened. (As Grant relates in his Website, shortly after he started going on the air, he got a message from one of Courtney's attorneys.
A friendly voice said something like, "Hi, Tom!:) Why don't you call us and let's see if we can resolve this matter in your interest." ) Thus, since Courtney has repeatedly demonstrated that she's without legal foundation - the guilty trying to settle out of court with bags of money is the preferred method these days - she can only use threats of violence to try to stop this horrible mess from aggravating.
Threats will not prevent me from continuing with this case, nor the rapidly growing number of people who won't back down either. Indeed, it has just the opposite effect - it inspires us to fight harder and smarter. She also doesn't seem to realize that the minute stuff like this happens, I'm on the phone and writing letters to my contacts in the media, many of whom rub their hands with glee.
Courtney Love is not a well-liked person. Since the week of Kurt's death, the media heard rumors that he was murdered, and many would like nothing more than to see Courtney pay for her crimes. A threat such as I received just makes the media feel more and more just and empowered in breaking this story.
And breaking the story they continue to do, most importantly, in the music media, where previously there had been only loud silences. Roughly a month ago - at 4:45pm, the best time in the day to reach people as they come home from work - the dj at one of the biggest radio stations in the country said something like...
"Okay, the new Nirvana album is out and it really rocks. We're gonna be playing a song from it after the commercial break, but there's a news story I want to read to you. It's about a rumor that we all heard the same week that Cobain was found dead in his Seattle home."
I'd been talking to this station since February and he sounded very serious. My heart was racing and I was shaking. It reminded me of when I heard about things like the Challenger explosion and John Lennon's death.
I thought, What is he talking about?
Has Courtney's play money finally run out and she's confessed?
When he returned after the ads, he played, naturally, "Heart-Shaped Box," - but then read some inconsequential story on Kurt's death. I was disappointed for a minute...
then realized what he was doing. Not unlike the way that people send you a message by talking about someone else in your presence, loud enough so that you can hear every word, he was saying that he knows, that the radio station knows, what you now know about Kurt's death. Kurt was murdered.
Everyone in the music business knows it.
Although they can't, a lot of dj's would like to come right out and say, "What's happening to this country?! What's happened to our justice system?! I'm sick of O.J., and I'm sick of all the silence surrounding this Kurt Cobain suicide bullshit! Just look at Courtney Love! She's deranged! And she had him murdered! Everyone knows!"
The lie is increasingly falling apart. It's only a matter of time. And as for those of you who believe I'm reading too much into headless squirrels and a dj's patter, remember that subtleties are less subtle than you think.
(I had to take this page down briefly because my Internet access was interrupted. I apologize for its absence.)
This Wesbite was originally created in HTML in March, 1996 by Jonathan Schwartz. I want to thank him and the staff at Cybersmith, Cambridge for their support and technical expertise, as well as: The Seattle Times,
MTV, CBS NEWS, The Committee to Protect Journalists, Conde Nast Publications, Tom Grant, High Times and everyone who has supported this investigation. In mid-June I spoke with Jon and, for various amicable reasons, decided to redesign the site in Adobe Pagemill (Version 1.0) on my Macintosh Performa 631CD
(7.5.1 Operating System). You are encouraged to contact me regarding any typos, missing or dead links, or additional information. My address is (I don't have an e-mail address):
Ivy Press Ivy Communications, Inc.
P.O. Box 800 Melrose, Massachusetts 02176
Except where noted, the contents of this site were written by Toby Amirault, Copyright 1996. This material may not be duplicated or published in part or whole by any commercial print or electronic publication
without the expressed written permission of the author. (Please note: Anyone interested in setting up a link to this page from their own may do so, and does not
require the author's permission.)
Comments
Post a Comment