Published: 11:22 PM, 11 February 2026
Kurt Cobain may have been murdered, new forensic probe suggests
A new private forensic review has challenged the official ruling that Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died by suicide, according to a report by the Daily Mail.
Cobain was found dead at his Seattle home on Apr 5, 1994, aged 27. The King County Medical Examiner ruled that he died from a self-inflicted shotgun wound using a Remington Model 11 20-gauge shotgun.
More than three decades later, the Daily Mail reports that an unofficial team of private forensic scientists has re-examined Cobain's autopsy and crime scene materials. The group brought in forensic specialist Brian Burnett, who has previously worked on cases involving overdoses followed by gunshot trauma.
Independent researcher Michelle Wilkins, who worked with the team, told the Daily Mail that after reviewing the evidence Burnett concluded: "This is a homicide. We've got to do something about this."
According to the newspaper, the team published a peer-reviewed paper in the International Journal of Forensic Science outlining ten points they say suggest Cobain may have been incapacitated by a heroin overdose before being shot, with the scene staged to resemble a suicide.
Wilkins said autopsy findings pointed to organ damage more commonly associated with oxygen deprivation from overdose than with an instantaneous gunshot death.
"The necrosis of the brain and liver happens in an overdose. It doesn't happen in a shotgun death," she told the Daily Mail.
