New circumstances have changed the way we look at Kurt Cobain's death. What you need to know

A group of criminologists re-examined the circumstances of the death of musician Kurt Cobain in 1994 and came to the conclusion that he could have been murdered, although it is officially believed that he committed suicide. New circumstances may change the perception of one of the main tragedies in the history of music. At the same time, this story draws attention to other high-profile and controversial celebrity incidents. What tragedies fans are still discussing is in the Izvestia article.

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain was the vocalist and guitarist of the grunge rock band Nirvana, which achieved cult status in the early 1990s. On April 8, 1994, the 27-year-old musician was found in his own home in a Seattle suburb. It was established that he had died three days earlier. A Remington shotgun was found on Cobain's chest, and next to it was a handwritten suicide note on a fully filled A4 sheet.

• The police concluded that the death was a result of suicide, but this version was repeatedly disputed. Several experts claimed that the musician was actually murdered. Usually, such suspicions arose due to the fact that a high concentration of drugs was found in Cobain's body after the autopsy. This becomes a reason to believe that the musician was not in a condition to kill himself on his own. Cobain's wife Courtney Love, with whom he was on the verge of divorce, is often called a suspect.

• In 2026, a group of private forensic experts re-examined the circumstances of Cobain's death and concluded that he had been murdered. It was noted that the musician was forced to take a high dose of heroin, after which he became incapacitated and was shot. Cobain's brain and liver were damaged from oxygen starvation, which contradicts the official version. The criminologists also pointed out that there were no blood splashes where they should have been, and noticed that the syringes and cartridges next to the musician were neatly laid out, as if an outsider had done it. The article about Cobain's death was reviewed in the International Journal of Forensic Science, which gives weight to the newly stated version.

Elvis Presley

The most popular singer and actor, the "king of rock and roll" Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977 at the age of 42. On the day when he was supposed to leave for another tour, his fiancee Ginger Alden found him unconscious in the bathroom of the Graceland estate. The singer was hospitalized, but doctors were unable to save him. Right on the day of his death, even before the autopsy was completed, one of the medical experts announced that Presley had died of cardiac arrest and ruled out the influence of drugs, which the musician was suspected of using in the last years of his life.

However, some time later it was announced that Presley had suffered anaphylactic shock due to the use of a drug to which he was allergic. The cause of death was eventually indicated as polypragmasia, that is, the use of several types of pills at once, including antidepressants. Doctors also noted that Presley had an enlarged heart, and recently he had led an extremely unhealthy lifestyle and gained weight.

Such discrepancies have led to speculation and speculation about Presley's death, giving fans the opportunity to question the experts' conclusions. Many began to completely deny the fact of the singer's death and claim that they had seen him alive in different parts of the United States. The very next day after his death, it was reported that a man named John Burrows boarded an international flight at Memphis Airport, and this was the pseudonym Presley used while traveling. Many investigations have been devoted to the possible staging of death, and opinion polls show that most Americans still believe that Presley is alive.

Michael Jackson

The most popular singer Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 at the age of 50. His death came in the midst of preparations for a world tour that was supposed to bring him back to the big stage. After one of the rehearsals, Jackson arrived at a rented apartment in Los Angeles and couldn't sleep for a long time. His personal doctor, Conrad Murray, gave him several medications, but none of them helped, so the singer remained awake until 10:40 a.m. In the end, Murray injected Jackson with the powerful sleeping pill propofol.

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• Shortly after, Jackson stopped breathing and his pulse weakened. Murray tried to resuscitate the singer and gave him a heart massage, but did not move him from the bed to the floor and used one hand instead of two. The doctor did not call an ambulance for a long time, as he did not know the address of the apartment, and as a result, the dispatcher received the signal only an hour and a half after respiratory arrest. Jackson was taken to the hospital, but resuscitation measures did not help, and he was pronounced dead.

• Jackson's death caused a huge resonance in the world. Two months later, forensic medical experts declared that she had died as a result of manslaughter. Murray, who received $150,000 a month from Jackson, was charged. A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to four years in prison, but he was released two years later. We have written in detail about the controversy surrounding Michael Jackson's legacy and the nature of his relationship with children here.

John Lennon

• The death of John Lennon, one of the members of The Beatles, was also one of the biggest shocks to the music world. He was shot dead on December 8, 1980, when he was 45 years old. The killer turned out to be 25-year-old Mark Chapman, who previously worked as a security guard. He was a fan of The Beatles, but became disillusioned with Lennon and began accusing him of hypocrisy because of how he expressed himself in his work and what kind of lifestyle he really led.

On the day of the murder, Chapman was waiting for Lennon in the morning outside his apartment in New York. He did not notice how the musician arrived in a taxi in the morning and entered the house, having spent almost the whole day there. In the evening, Lennon left the building to go to the recording studio, and that was the first time he ran into Chapman. He asked the singer for an autograph, and he signed the record with his album. The photographer who accompanied Lennon captured this moment on film, thus taking the last picture of the musician.

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• Almost six hours later, Lennon returned home, and then Chapman decided to commit murder. He shot the musician five times in the back with a revolver, hitting him four times. Police quickly arrived at the scene of the shooting, who found Chapman standing quietly nearby and reading his favorite book, The Catcher in the Rye. While some officers detained the killer, others took Lennon to the hospital without waiting for an ambulance. After a short period of intensive care, he was pronounced dead. Further examination showed that the musician had no chance of surviving his injuries.

• Chapman did not deny his guilt in the murder and did not try to make himself look insane. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment with the possibility of applying for release after 20 years. However, since 2000, none of the 14 petitions have been granted, so he continues to serve his sentence. Although Lennon's death has been thoroughly investigated, conspiracy theories have also emerged about it. It is assumed that the American special services could have been involved in the murder, as they established supervision over him due to his adherence to leftist views.

Matthew Perry

• The last controversial incident that happened to celebrities was the death of 54-year-old actor Matthew Perry on October 28, 2023. The star of the TV series "Friends" was found unconscious in the Jacuzzi of his home in Los Angeles and was soon pronounced dead. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was the effects of the drug ketamine. Perry used an officially prescribed medication as part of psychotherapy to treat anxiety, despite the fact that he had previously experienced problems with drug addiction.

• Almost a year later, the Los Angeles Police Department has completed an investigation into the actor's death, and additional circumstances have emerged. As it turned out, doctors Salvador Placencia and Mark Chavez, knowing about Perry's drug addiction, decided to make money on it. During 13 days of treatment, the actor was sold 20 vials of the drug and ketamine tablets worth $ 57 thousand at a market price of ketamine of $ 15 per bottle. The actor was injected by both his assistant Kenneth Iwamasa and Placencia, who was caught trying to falsify medical documents during the investigation.

• Perry's personal assistant, doctors, and two drug dealers were charged with distributing ketamine causing death. The suppliers of the drug turned out to be television director Eric Fleming and Jaswyn Sangha, known in the criminal world as the "queen of ketamine."

• All the accused appeared in court and pleaded guilty. The doctors' licenses were revoked: Placencia was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, and Chavez received eight months of house arrest. After serving a sentence of about two years, the doctors will have to spend time under police supervision. Perry's assistant Kenneth Iwamasa and both drug traffickers have not yet been sentenced, and a court decision is expected in 2026.