Kurt Cobain Was Murdered — And Here’s the Proof They Tried to Bury | Redacted News

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Kurt Cobain Was Murdered — And Here’s the Proof They Tried to Bury"

Redacted News | Host: Clayton Morris | Guest: Chris Todd (investigative journalist, co-writer of "To Kurt, I'm Sorry")
Date: October 14, 2025

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Overview

This episode of Redacted News dives into the controversial death of Nirvana’s lead singer, Kurt Cobain. While the official narrative has always been suicide, guest investigative journalist Chris Todd presents an alternative account based on new revelations and confessions in the book "To Kurt, I’m Sorry"—the firsthand story of Joseph Burns, a Seattle musician present during the critical days. The episode explores the events leading up to Cobain’s death, details inconsistencies in the investigation, and discusses why the case remains shrouded in doubt and conspiracy, suggesting Cobain’s death was a murder, not a suicide.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Revisiting the Official Narrative

[01:00–03:03]

• Clayton sets the stage, recalling the widespread shock at Cobain’s death in 1994 and the enduring official story: Cobain died by suicide with a shotgun.
• Chris Todd notes that while the official story was widely accepted, early inconsistencies in the toxicology and forensic evidence raised doubts even in the 90s.

2. The New Testimony: Joseph Burns

[04:40–08:42]

• Joseph Burns, a lesser-known Seattle rocker from bands like Aspirin Feast and Laceration, emerges as a key witness.
• Burns had a history in the local music, drug, and criminal scenes, closely tying him to Kurt and the party circles in which Cobain frequented.
• Chris explains:

  “Basically Joseph is kind of like a smaller rocker than Kurt. Obviously, Kurt was worldwide. But at the time…Kurt wasn’t well known when he met him.” — Chris Todd [07:33]

3. Timeline Leading to Cobain’s Death

[10:28–13:09]

• Shortly before his death, Cobain was involved in an intervention regarding his heroin addiction and faced career stress (cancelled Lollapalooza tour, band tensions).
• After a brief rehab stint in LA, Cobain secretly returned to his Seattle home, with a group of friends and acquaintances present.
• Chris clarifies:

  “He comes back, basically it's late at night on April 1, and then from April 2 to April 5…this is a window of key days where these people are interacting with Kurt Cobain. And eventually he is murdered.” — Chris Todd [10:43–11:56]

4. The Night of the Murder: Key Details from Joseph’s Account

[13:18–25:14]

• Multiple people were present in Cobain’s mansion, many involved in drug use and music.
• In the early morning hours of April 3rd (Easter Sunday, 2:00 AM), three men—Dylan, Mark, and a third unnamed at first—arrived at the house. Joseph recognizes them; they were not there to party.
• According to the book:
  • Kurt was with two women, playing guitar and hanging out when the men entered.
  • Kurt was forcefully "hotshotted" with a lethal dose of heroin and then subsequently shot—all witnessed by Joseph, who was paralyzed with shock and fear.
  • Joseph regrets not intervening, hence the book’s title:

    “And the title is To Kurt. I'm sorry, what is he sorry about? That he didn't stop it.” — Clayton [24:04]
    “Correct. Because…He was good friends with Kurt… And it'd be like you witnessing your friend… be assaulted…So he's got the girls, one of them screams... It's bad, man. It's bad. I feel for the guy.” — Chris Todd [24:09]

5. Staging the Suicide

[33:27–36:55]

• Chris details forensic red flags:
  • No fingerprints on the gun, pen, or shell casings.
  • The shotgun shell was found on the wrong side, suggesting manipulation.
  • The suicide note may have been altered; handwriting experts confirm discrepancies in the last four lines.
  • Key evidence (receipts for gun/ammunition, arrangement of drug paraphernalia) implicate deliberate staging rather than a natural scene.

  “There’s a couple key things that should have set off red flags to the police. They called it a suicide within the same day. That’s a problem.” — Chris Todd [33:48]
  “How many cases have you ever seen where the suicide victim has the receipt to the gun in their pocket and the receipt to the shells in a bag by his foot?…It’s a setup. It’s staged.” — Chris Todd [37:36]

6. The Aftermath: Silence and Suppression

[33:27–34:46; 41:38–42:05]

• No investigation has been undertaken on the named individuals in the book.
• Out of nine people present at the house, three are now dead; none of the others spoke out in three decades.
• Chris speculates that the police had cultural biases and a lack of interest in Cobain and his scene; the case was rapidly closed without proper forensic review.

7. Why Motive is Left Underspecified

[42:05–43:10]

• While jealousy and possible coercion or reward are floated, Chris is careful not to speculate on concrete motive, emphasizing that the confession is focused on “what happened,” not “why.”

8. Will the Case Be Reopened?

[43:10–44:53]

• Chris is doubtful, calling it “closed,” but remains hopeful that the story may prompt further revelations or second looks, as with the re-investigations into cases like Tupac Shakur.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Joseph’s Trauma & Silence:

  “This is traumatic experience that he buried for 30 years…He never told anyone this, ever. I'm the only person he ever told it to.” — Chris Todd [22:22]

• On the Forensics:

  “There’s no fingerprints found on the gun, not even Kurtz. So…whether they’re wearing gloves, whether…wiping it down...The pens wiped down...they’re staging this in more ways than one.” — Chris Todd [37:00]

• On the Suicide Note:

  “We believe Kurt did not write those last four lines…multiple handwriting experts look at it…those last four lines are not Kurt writing.” — Chris Todd [40:00]

• On Joseph’s Regret:

  “He should have helped…He was good friends with Kurt…He hid this for a long time.” — Chris Todd [24:04, 22:22]

• Call for Justice:

  “You violated this guy's civil rights. You dragged this guy's name through the mud for 30 years. You called him the poster boy for suicide…It’s disgraceful.” — Chris Todd [39:31]

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Important Timestamps and Segments

• Official Narrative Outlined & Challenged — [01:00–03:03]
• Who Is Joseph Burns? — [07:18–08:42]
• Timeline of the Days Before Death — [10:28–13:09]
• Eyewitness Account of the Murder — [13:18–25:14]
• Joseph’s Regret & Trauma — [24:04–25:14]
• Staging of the Scene — [33:48–37:36]
• Suicide Note Analysis — [40:00–41:29]
• Why the Case Remains Closed — [43:10–44:53]

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Tone and Style

• The conversation is deeply personal and emotional, especially when describing both Kurt’s fate and Joseph’s long-held trauma.
• The hosts aim for a combination of investigative rigor and advocacy, often calling out alleged law enforcement failures with open disdain.
• The episode blends nostalgia for the 90s with sobering analysis of a potential miscarriage of justice.

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Conclusion

The episode provides an in-depth look at a confession unseen for decades, supported by new forensics and eyewitness testimony. While the official story remains unchanged, Chris Todd’s work in “To Kurt, I’m Sorry,” as relayed in this interview, challenges listeners to reconsider one of rock’s most iconic tragedies and the limitations of the initial investigation. The door remains open for other witnesses to come forward, but as Chris notes, the official case is as good as closed—except, perhaps, in the public consciousness.

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Transcript

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[Clayton]

Well, it's hard to believe it's been 31 years since the death of Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana. I remember it well. Remember where I was standing in school when we got the news about Kurt Cobain's death And many of us who were fans at the time were devastated. Of course, the official story is that he committed suicide. End of story, case closed. And we're all sad about it. What if that is not true at all? What if he didn't commit suicide? What if in fact he was murdered? Well, that is the heart of a new book out now called To Kurt. I'm sorry, Investigative journalist Chris Todd is really behind this book. Really the writer behind this book and the investigator on this book. And he joins us now. Chris, great to have you back on the show. Welcome back.

[Chris Todd]

Yeah, Clayton, good to see you. I hope you've been doing well.

[Clayton]

I've been doing well. I have to admit. When you first reached out to me a number of months ago about this project, something you've been working on for many, many years, that I was blown away.

[Chris Todd]

Wait a minute.

[Clayton]

Kurt Cobain, of course he committed suicide. That's the official narrative, right? I mean, that's the official story we've been told. Maybe you could just sort of set the stage there for us. What is the official story that we've been told all of these years later?

[Chris Todd]

Yeah, and I, I live this too, you know, this is my generation, the 90s. This happened in 1994. Kurt's body was found on April 8th around 8am on that Friday. And I. I was fed the suicide angle also. And I believe that for many years, I knew there were a couple things that were a little strange that had come out right away. Some of the toxicology, some fingerprint results. There was some stuff that it looked a little sketchy, but I never looked into it. I mean, literally, probably for 28 years. So the narrative is that Kurt Cobain took a Remington Model 1120 gauge shotgun and put it inside his mouth and took his own life.

[Clayton]

So that's the official narrative, end of story, case closed, and we're all sad about it. There were some interesting things that sort of unfolded, though, in the weeks and days and months after it as it related to his longtime, I guess, girl. Were they married?

[Chris Todd]

They were married. They were married.

[Clayton]

Courtney Love. And then, of course, David Grohl and all of that. Maybe you can unpack a little bit of that drama that was unfolding in the months afterwards.

[Chris Todd]

Sure. And that drama continued for a year to two years and even almost to this day. And I know that sounds weird, there's some people that still are on the Courtney thing and, and, and Dave and Chris and the Nirvana Geffen records and all that stuff. In the very immediate aftermath, there was a private investigator. I don't want to say his name. I'd rather just people know who he is. He had recorded Courtney, worked for Courtney, he did documentaries, radio interviews. He really kind of spearheaded the theory that he didn't think it was a suicide. Okay. That's encompassed his whole life, even to this day. So he was really pointing a lot of fingers at Courtney. But in, in Joseph's book, we never point at Courtney, and, and in my investigation, I never say her name and never point anything at her. And that's for a few reasons. And, and that can be discussed possibly another time. But Joseph's book is really about his experience, what he witnessed, his journey on, the entire situation.

[Clayton]

All right, so let's talk about this Joseph Burns. So if we look at the COVID of the book, to Kurt. I'm sorry, my 30 year journey of regret, pain and disaster, how did you first learn about Joseph Burns? How did you come to. To make his acquaintance?

[Chris Todd]

Yeah, I, It's. It was an interesting journey. I, I was brought the story by another pretty well known private investigator by the name of Jason Jensen. I can say his name. He's a great guy, does great work. He's helped me out a lot on other cases. You can see him a lot on Fox, and he's in. On Core TV News Nation. Great guy. I Have a lot of respect for Jason. Jason asked me to look at the Kurt Cobain case and story. Someone had reached out to him, I think, through Facebook. And I eventually got to meet these other authors, sleuths, kind of. I won't call them witnesses. Let's call them investigators in their own way. And then we finally met Joseph, and there was another gentleman that we met also who has recently passed on, and that guy is described in the book. And everyone kind of knows who that is. So there were a couple witnesses, but I basically honed in on Joseph and some other people honed in on this other gentleman. And at first, I love the story because it was 94. It's right before O.J. it's. It's the Tupac biggie stuff. It's JonBenet. It's Waco, it's. There's so many River Phoenix. There's so much in the 90s that is really. That are really nostalgic to me. So I immediately said, I'm all in. You know, I'm all in. I will do whatever it takes. If. If Kurt was murdered, I will prove it, and I will do it. You know, what I'm capable of. And he said, absolutely, man. That's why we want you to run, you know? And so I. I spoke to Seattle PD a couple times in the beginning, top detectives from the Cold Case Unit. And I also went to the media, and I was shut down. And I knew that was going to happen. And I said, look, hey, I. I told Jason, I said, here we go again. You know, we've been on through this with these other cases. He goes, I know. Just. Just. Do you just do what you do? And so we're here, and Joseph's been interviewed by some other sleuths and investigators. I wasn't fully a part of that. And I've. I have his real confession now in the book, in his official statement. And there's things that he has never said even to these other people over the last two years. So this book is by Joseph Burns. I just. I published. I helped ghostwrite. But he is the byline. This is his story.

[Clayton]

Right? I mean, he's not a writer, so he needed someone to help put that together.

[Chris Todd]

And there's other moving parts, right? It's not just him. There's nine people at the house that night. Nine minus Kirk.

[Clayton]

Okay, so who is Joseph Burns? Maybe we were getting ahead of ourselves, but who is this guy?

[Chris Todd]

Joseph Burns was a rocker. He was a drummer, singer in Seattle. He was in a band called Aspirin. Feast and a band called Laceration. And he was a. He was a rocker. He was a punk dude. He was a biker at one time, and he had some felonies. He was involved in the drug game, different types of drugs and. But that's part of the story with Kurt Cobain. You know, this is who was at the house. Most of these people were drug users and dealers. Some of them were called nannies that watched Kurt and Courtney's Child, Francis Bean. There's, you know, so basically Joseph is kind of like a smaller rocker than Kurt. Obviously, Kurt was worldwide. But at the time, and Joseph tells us in the book, Kurt wasn't well known when he met him. And. And. And Dylan Carlson, another rocker from a band called Earth. And Kurt's good friend said. Said to Joseph, my friend wants to meet you. He really likes your band. That was Kurt Cobain. And that's how he met him. He met him in about 1989. It was about five years before the actual demise occurred.

[Clayton]

So he's a rocker. He's a Seattle rocker. Not as well known as Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, but they were in that circle. They were sort of in that party circle. And was it normal that they would hang out?

[Chris Todd]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, we talk about the gestures of chaos. We talk about other bands, the punk scene, how grunge kind of, if you want to call it grunge, they like to call it different names and how that the heavy metal and the punk kind of became grunge and grunge had that pop feel to it. And that's what Kurt mastered, right? And Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Allison Chains. And there was a lot. This was a big.

[Clayton]

This was a big Pilots and Stone.

[Chris Todd]

Oh, so many of them, you know, queens of the Stone Age, Screaming Trees. And that's going to be an important thing in this story today is one of the. The lead singer of the Screaming Trees. But they all hung out, they all knew each other. And unfortunately, most of them were addicts, were heroin and cocaine and alcohol abusers.

[Clayton]

Do they share similar, like drug dealers and all of that?

[Chris Todd]

Absolutely, yeah. And some of the stuff in Joseph's book, and we're allowed to say some of these things and. And also some recordings that we have too. You know, the biker mentality was kind of big, too. The biker gang, the drug dealing, protection. A lot of people went down. A lot of soldiers fell of drug overdoses, murders. Even in Seattle and Portland, Louisiana. We know this time in the 90s, this was a crazy time period. So they were all mixed up together. And Joseph and his girlfriend were involved in basically dealing also heroin to Kurt Cobain.

[Clayton]

So maybe, I guess maybe we should just jump to the time period when he dies. What was happening maybe in the days and weeks ahead of time. And how does Joseph relate to that before his death?

[Chris Todd]

Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff going on. We won't be able to cover it all. And I'll just keep it kind of brief. It's 30 years of moving parts, nine separate people squealing on each other loosely in other books. It's a lot of stuff, basically, if we just pick it up from having a lot of people there at the house. There was a intervention done with Kurt a few days before. He had tried to cancel Lollapalooza. They wanted to pay him, like, $9 million. He said, I don't want to do it. Courtney was kind of upset. The band was upset. Geffen Records, Golden Mountain, I think was the name, Gold Mountain one of them. And so there was this intervention, and Kurt had gone down to la, and Courtney went down separately, also with the child. And Kurt was to go to rehab. He lasted about a day and a half there and then came back to Seattle without anybody knowing. And that's when this whole journey was triggered. He comes back, basically, it's late at night on April 1, and then from April 2 to April 5. This is a window of key days where these people are interacting with Kurt Cobain. And eventually he is murdered.

[Clayton]

Okay. So he leaves drug rehab in Southern California, flies back to Seattle. He's back there on April 2nd. He dies on April 1st. Find his body on April 8th.

[Chris Todd]

Yeah. He lands on April 1st, and then he's at the house. It's. This is just one of these magical things. But at 1am he arrives home. It's actually April 2nd. Okay. Just to keep it, because people will pick this stuff apart. So, yeah. Now his body is found on April 8th. The coroner and the investigators, the Seattle PD, say he dies on April 5th. Okay. In our book, in Joseph's statements, his confession, Kurt is killed on Easter Sunday at around 2am That's April 3rd.

[Clayton]

2Am April 3rd. So his body is found five days later?

[Chris Todd]

Yes.

[Clayton]

Okay. So April 2nd, he gets in at around 1 in the morning on April 2nd. What happens after that?

[Chris Todd]

So, I mean, I'll give you kind of the brief version, and then I can not. If you want me to talk about the murder and the staging of the suicide, ask me that separately. I'd like to just. I don't Want to blend them all together, if that's okay?

[Clayton]

Sure.

[Chris Todd]

Okay, so let's just talk about him coming back. There's already people in the house. Joseph's there, his girlfriend, a girl named Jen Adams.

[Clayton]

And I'm sorry if people don't know this. Whose house is this? Does Kurt Cobain own the house?

[Chris Todd]

Kurt's. Kurt's mansion.

[Clayton]

Okay.

[Chris Todd]

On Lake Washington in Seattle. I think the address is 171. Yeah. And so when he comes home at 1, he's tired. There's people there, they're shooting up, they're drinking, they're smoking weed. Some of them are playing music, some of them are doing tattoo work. They're all kind of artists. A lot of these people are very interesting. Someone on to be designers, rock journalists, famous people. A lot of these people are very well known today. And so Kirk comes home and there's people already at his house. They don't really know he's coming. Some do, but some don't. And I, I initially, in my investigation, from what Joseph had told me in the very beginning, that Kurt was murdered right then within hours when he came home. Okay, things have changed a little. He's hidden things, other people, and this was part of an investigation. I'm not always going to have every detail correct. So I'll be the first one to admit in my first interviews and first statements and stuff about the case was that he died on April 2nd. Okay. I'm off by a day. All right. So the next day comes the next morning, whatever some people say, they see Kurt. Oh, he's saying to me in the bed, they're saying he's still alive. We didn't believe them at first through the books. And so some stuff happens. I don't know everything that happens on April 2nd. And then we lead into April, the night of April 2nd. Now we're going to lead into the early morning of April 3rd. And this is when everything goes awry. And three men show up at the house just like barnstormers. And it happens right there.

[Clayton]

So we're like a 24 hour period. He's home at 1 in the morning. Does he go to sleep? Is he awake? There's people in his house kind of the whole time, through a whole 24 hour period. And then into April 3rd. Is it early morning hours? Are we talking like 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning?

[Chris Todd]

We're talking 2am when the deed is done. And these people stay there. This is going to sound crazy. They stay there for another two days while his body's in the greenhouse? Yes.

[Clayton]

So these three individuals show up.

[Chris Todd]

Who?

[Clayton]

So Joseph saw these three people show up.

[Chris Todd]

Oh, he knows two of them very well. The other one is a little gray and hazy, but we do name that person in the book. The third. There's two. There's two main killers. Okay, I can name them because they're in the book. It's up to you if you don't want me to name them. If your lawyers are like, don't let Chris Todd say their names.

[Clayton]

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[Chris Todd]

Yes. And I can say that one of the men, I can say their first names, right? I'll say that Dylan and Mark. And Mark is a. We didn't know this for a long time. And this is really one of the hooks in the book. The, the gotcha moment is this guy Mark, who people will look up, who will know from the grunge scene, he is a famous person. He died a couple years ago. Dylan is still alive and the other third guy has just died this year. So one of them is alive. But it's a fascinating story about Mark and Kurt's relationship as very good friends. And all these guys used to cross dress together. They wore the lipstick, they. These famous pictures. And there's photos of Kurt with these two men. And they're online, they're photographed, they're Wearing dresses. This is what they did. It wasn't like as if they were bisexual. It was more of a punk rock thing. And this shows how ahead of their time these guys really were. This was not really going on in 1994. So.

[Clayton]

All right, so back to the murder. Why did they kill him? What do we know? What unfolded that led them to. To. To kill Kurt Cobain?

[Chris Todd]

There's a lot of different reasons. If we look, was there jealousy between Dylan and Mark and their bands? They were smaller time guys. They don't have a lot of money. Kurt's this big famous guy. They've been with him for years. They've seen him like his trajectory. Right. We're not going to talk about some elements of motive because I know certain things I can't say about other people. And the book, like we said, it focuses on what Joseph sees. Okay. It's not about what are they thinking. One thing that Joseph does talk about in the book is. And he uses, we use these kind of little terms. The Knuckleheads, the Three Stooges, the Three Musketeers. Kind of saying like, these guys came there and we're up to no good. The moment I saw them come in, oh, hey, what's up, guys? What's going on? The looks on their face, they were not there to party. They were on some type of weird mission. And that's how Joseph describes that. Because Joseph had been in the game, a felon himself. So he knew, as he calls him Licks in the. In the book. I've done this before. I know that look. And I was fascinated by that. I said, man, just. I like, just tell me more, man. He's like, I knew right away they were up to no good. Where's Kurt? In the basement. What's going on? He follows him down in the basement.

[Clayton]

And is it presumably other up to no good? They're coming to rob the place. They're coming to steal drugs.

[Chris Todd]

Joseph does not know. Joseph has no idea what's going to happen here in about 10 minutes.

[Clayton]

So he just sees that their faces, they're up to no good. They're on a mission. They're not here to hang out and party and play music. They're here to do something. Where's Kurt Cobain? So he sees them with his own eyes come in and then go down in the basement.

[Chris Todd]

Kurt's in the basement with two other women. Yeah, he's playing. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of people in the house. And as Joseph says in the book, and we put this in the prologue. He's not going to remember what every person is doing every minute, what room they're in. So he's trying to say, like, give me some leeway. Just take a breath, okay? Because a lot of these true crime people, they're like wolves, man. Like. And, oh, he doesn't know where Jessica Hopper was. Oh, why? Well, he doesn't remember every single second of what all these people are doing. This is traumatic experience that he buried for 30 years. Okay.

[Clayton]

Also, not to defend him. I don't know him. Yeah, but I mean, I've. I've been to parties, college and otherwise, where you've been there at 2 in the morning, right? And I don't, you know, God knows, you know, two in the morning, you're gonna remember every detail.

[Chris Todd]

You don't know where.

[Clayton]

I mean, unless he was. Unless he was sitting there meditating and not having any alcohol or anything at all.

[Chris Todd]

Oh, no, no, no. He was up for days. This is heroin use drugs. He said literally he didn't sleep the day before at all. So. And the way it happens so fast, the way he tells the story and he tries to protect the girls when it's happening in front of him. He hid this for a long time. He never told anyone this, ever. I'm the only person he ever told it to. He told some other things to people over time because they were trying to help him. They tried to do like a GoFundMe page. He was like the borderline homeless at one time, so. But let's just stick to the moment. And they come in, he doesn't really know this third person. He knows the other two. He knows Dylan and Mark a hundred percent. And they race downstairs. He follows as if like what's going on. And then when they get down there, there's an assault of. Of Kurt Cobain and he is hot shotted forcefully.

[Clayton]

Okay, what does that mean? Sorry. He's. He's down there with two women. He's playing his guitar with these two women.

[Chris Todd]

Yeah, he's just hanging out, smoking weed, drinking beers. You know, they're. Joe's girlfriend is down there and another girl. That is a fate has a famous brother that I won't say the name this second, but she died, she actually died in 2000 of a. Either a hotshot or of an overdose. Hotshot meaning hot loads of heroin can either be dirty heroin or excessive amounts. So hot shots, hot loads, they overdose, Kurt, they force him. They already have these pre made syringes already, already done up.

[Clayton]

So they Force him. And Joseph witnesses this? Yes, Joseph witnesses these three individuals forcing him to open his.

[Chris Todd]

Mainly the two. Mainly. Mainly Mark and Dylan. The other guy, we can say his name, Danny, because everyone's kind of a fan of his story. He passed away this year. He's. He's, he's honing in on Mark and Dylan because the things with Danny, he's not. Doesn't have a hard confirm that's him, but he can't rule them out. And there's a lot of weird stuff Danny said over the years and recently. So we've left him in there and. But it's mainly these two are assaulting Kurt, trying to hit him with something he's confused about, like whether it's being. He's being punched and held down or they're grabbing something. He's. He's literally kind of in shock. Okay. He's in shock of what he is witnessing. Now, Joseph also has a regret. That's why the book says my 30 year journey of Regret, Pain and Disaster. He should have helped.

[Clayton]

Well, and, and the title is To Kurt. I'm sorry, what is he sorry about? That he didn't stop it.

[Chris Todd]

Correct. Because I mean, think about it. This was. He was good friends with Kurt. You know, he loved Kurt and I think Kurt loved Joe. And, and it'd be like you witnessing your friend, who is a very famous person, basically be assaulted. Now remember, at this time, it's not like he's watching a murder. They're. If they're injecting him, they're not shooting him at this moment. They're. So he doesn't, he just doesn't know what's going on. So he's got the girls, one of them screams. We talk about it in there. He's kind of pushing them back. And it's just. It's bad, man. It's bad. I feel for the guy. I deal with a lot of accomplices and witnesses for over 10 years. I know it's hard for them to talk about it. And then Kurt is basically dragged out of there and he witnesses that and he's dragged out of the house and, and into the separate greenhouse. And he knows that's where they are. Cause he sees them in there when he goes in the driveway a little couple minutes after, he's trying to see what's going on. But he does not go in the greenhouse.

[Clayton]

So he has an overdose. They drag him out of there. Is he dead at that point?

[Chris Todd]

I believe, for me, because other people say different things and based on the coroner and the whole investigation is a joke. I'm just sorry to say it. It's a joke. So the coroner doesn't say Kurt is deceased. And it's a post mortem wound. It's kind of left in a weird gray area. I do believe, based on the autopsy, based on other sources and people that have looked, I do believe Kurt Cobain was dead when he was shot through his mouth.

[Clayton]

So he was probably still alive before he was shot.

[Chris Todd]

Well, I think he's dead.

[Clayton]

Oh, you think he's dead?

[Chris Todd]

I think he's deceased, yeah.

[Clayton]

Okay, so he may have had an overdose then, right? Then and there dies. They drag his body out, or he.

[Chris Todd]

Dies when he said, look, remember this gunshot's not going to be heard for 40 minutes. So he could still be alive when they're dragging him. Right. But when they lay him down in the greenhouse, he could die within 10 minutes. The amount of heroin he had in his system was 1.52 milligrams per liter. Normal addicts with a relatively normal tolerance can diet 0.3. Okay. So he has five times the amount Kurt weighed about 140 pounds. Okay. And people try to argue, like, well, he was such an addict. He had a high tolerance. Dude, there's addicts that diet 0.3, 0.4. He has 1.52. Dude, do the math, okay? And it's injected. It's not swallowed. They try to do all this misinformation, disinformation. Oh, a guy, you know, he swallowed a thing that would give him two. Two mil, two grams. That's swallowing this is straight into his veins. Okay. So he, I believe, is dead. There's not a lot of blood coming out of his ear. There is some blood, but I guess, you know, his head actually doesn't blow out, which I thought it would when I initially came out. I used to say that people tried to rip me apart for it. I guess technically the pellets did not penetrate through his skull, so it's actually inside his head. It's disturbing. It's. It's sad. It's a very sad story. And Joseph has had the courage to do this. So.

[Clayton]

All right, so let's go back to. They're carrying the body out. Joseph loses track of them. At that moment, he's watching them carry Kurt out, and he. He doesn't stop it or interact with them.

[Chris Todd]

Correct.

[Clayton]

And then he. He comes upstairs and he's. Take me through the next stages. They.

[Chris Todd]

Sure, yeah. After a few minutes, after the girls are freaking out. Right. And he's Freaking out, he kind of drifts outside into the driveway. This greenhouse is separated from the house. It's above the garage. So they're almost. They're almost like perpendicular to each other, okay? They're like. Like side by side adjacent, whatever. He finally goes out. I gotta. I'm gonna smoke a cigarette. They don't know what's going on. The other people in the house, he can't really remember what they're doing. He believes there's only the three guys in the greenhouse. When he goes out to the driveway, he sees some motion. Okay, he can see. He doesn't see clearly. It. Remember, it's two in the morning. He's. He sees movement up there and then he hears a gun blast. Okay. At that point, as he talks about in the book Part of the regret, should I have gone up there? And partly what we talked about with him or I did, and I said, let's say it a certain way, but tell me what you're feeling. Try to go back. He said, do you think I'm going to walk in there and they're going to kill me too? And I said, I get it, okay? He's like, I'm not trying to get killed, okay? Obviously something happened. All they have to do is turn the gun on him. He walks in. What's going on? So obviously Joseph had his own history of being in, you know, criminal circles and knew I'm not gonna walk in there and. And I tried to, you know, stick up for him and say, I get it. They're gonna understand, man. They're gonna feel for you, you know. And then after that, and then after that, a little later, he then sees Dylan and Mark in the house. And it's very strange about. You got to get out of here. You don't want to deal with this. What's going on? Where's Kurt? Oh, man. Just, you know, like they're not saying it to him. And then he eventually goes and looks at the body. Kind of hours later, when everything kind of like settling down and he never told Anyone this in 30 years, he eventually goes and looks and sees Kurt in the greenhouse, deceased.

[Clayton]

So these two guys, they're kind of saying, well, you don't really want to know. We're not going to tell you. It's don't. You don't need to bother about it. Where's Kurt? You don't need to bother about it. It's kind of. It's like what, three in the morning at this point? Four?

[Chris Todd]

Oh, yeah. Or later. Or later. 5:00am 6:00am they're all there the next day, too. Because there's a key thing that happens on Monday. That's when Joseph leaves is actually on Monday. All these people stay there and they're still shooting up and they're drinking beers and they're. I don't know. I don't have the answers of why they're all staying there.

[Clayton]

That's crazy. I mean, they just. It's like a flop house. It's just like a drug flop house. I mean, you know, I've covered these things in the news where just people, you know, people are in these random houses and they're there for days. You know, they're sleeping on the floor, they're sleeping on mattresses, and. And they're just there. And it was sort of an open revolving door policy to have people just flowing into your house. So. But I think it's very important. Joseph then admits 30 years later that on. I guess it was that Sunday morning, or I guess it would have been Sunday morning, Easter Sunday, he tries to go and find Kurt at some point, maybe three, four, five in the morning.

[Chris Todd]

Right.

[Clayton]

And he goes up to this greenhouse and he sees the body.

[Chris Todd]

Yes. And he. And he. And he didn't tell people this for 30 years. And he didn't ever mention Mark's name for 30 years. He never talked about any of this for 30 years. So, yeah, and look, I've asked him many times. People ask me a lot, like, can I talk to Joseph? No. Well, I want to talk. Well, with me. And gently, you know, because they're coming out and they're all. He's got groupies and they offer money to. Come on, man. It's Kurt. This is traumatic. This is a dark story. There's legality issues, okay? There are criminal elements, okay? Between a witness and an accessory, okay? There's a very fine line. He's had the courage to do it. That's number one. But, yes, he finally admitted. I saw him in there. I didn't see his face. I didn't look in. I didn't go in. He's trying to. And if he went in, maybe. I don't know. But I'm saying he's kind of keeping that buffer of, like, I saw his shoes. I knew how he tied his shoes, okay? And then when you look from the back, you see his shoe facing you. Not the sole, the front. Because that's the back. You can't enter from the front. There's a balcony. You have to come through the. Through the back, there's a French Doors, that's where the police bust in. They go through the back door. His feet are away from us, towards the front. Okay, so that's what he says. I knew how he tied his shoes. And you know, look, this could go on for hours. I'm just. Obviously there's a lot of things racing through his mind. Right?

[Clayton]

Yeah.

[Chris Todd]

At that moment. Now he officially knows one of his very good friends, one of the top rock stars of his generation, just got killed while they're there. That's a problem for all of them, not just the two, plus the one guy, the other six of them. Okay, so.

[Clayton]

So then he. He takes this, he doesn't say a word about it. And no one else does eventually leave.

[Chris Todd]

And no one else does either. That's important to note. None of these people have talked about none.

[Clayton]

When they find. So then I guess when they find you talked about the staging of the. What you believe to be a murder. What do you mean by that? How was it staged? What did the police find on the 8th of April? So now this is five days later.

[Chris Todd]

Yeah, I just stick to the key things that to me, I'm not a cop, I'm not a lawyer. We get it. I am an investigator. It's what I do. I've been doing it for over 10 years. I like to think I'm pretty good at what I do. There's a couple key things that should have set off red flags to the police. They called it a suicide within the same day. That's a problem. They had no fingerprint analysis results from the gun, the pen, you know, the pen was stabbed through a suicide note, supposedly into a potted plant. They don't test any fingerprints on the gun case. The shells, the box of of shells, all this stuff. Okay? There's cigarette butts, you know, there's no touch DNA.

[Clayton]

So can I ask you, all these years later in the cold case, are these pieces of evidence still being held in evidence? Do they still have the gun? Do they still have the shell casing so they could do DNA tests on them all these years later?

[Chris Todd]

Absolutely. But they closed the case at 5pm on Friday. And that's where they made the mistake. They had no toxicology report back yet. Okay, None. And they had some weird rule like the beat cops can say it's a suicide, and if they say it's a suicide, the detectives are off the case. There's some weird. They try to play this game at the Seattle pd. It's just disturbing. There were a lot of detectives there. Detective Cameron was one of the key guys, he died years ago. And even the coroner had died in a paragliding accident accidentally, years years later. Let me just say some of the key evidence, because people like the details in this, in the forensics somewhat. You have a man with a gun laying on his chest. Okay. The way he falls looks strange. First of all, he's holding this gun and they try to. Oh, he had a death grip. So when he. He's seated, when he goes back, he's. He tenses up and he hold. That is not true. That does not happen in every death. That the body seizes. That's not true. This was perpetuated for a long time. Go watch other murders. Watch the bodies don't all seize up when they get killed. Okay. So he's holding this thing the way he's holding. It's weird. The way his body is sitting is strange. The gun is turned upside down. The shell, that should come out of the ejection chambers on the wrong side. On the wrong side. So if he had held it the way he did and he popped it, that gun has an automatic recoil ejection. The shell should have shot out to the correct side. It's on the wrong side. That's one of the biggest pieces of evidence that this is staged. Okay.

[Clayton]

Right. Because. Well, I'm just picturing in my head, if he. If someone is holding his head and pulls the trigger, the shell goes out one side. If he's doing it in the reverse and doing it to himself. Yeah, it would go out the opposite direction. And if you're high, drunk and on drugs at 4 in the morning, maybe that's a. Maybe that's something you don't think about.

[Chris Todd]

And I also believe, to me, this is my theory. I believe they put it against their shoulder. Because now there's some evidence that this type of gun, if it's not shouldered or has something to bounce off the back of the stock, it will not eject the shell. A guy's been proving that he's been holding the barrel and just shooting it. And the shell stays in. You have to rack it. Okay. So what he's trying to show is if Kurt's sitting up and there's nothing, he's like holding it. Is the floor. Wouldn't it slide on the floor out of his hands and he falls back like this instead of him still holding it like that. So the point is, the shell is supposed to eject, but they're questioning, did it even eject at all? But what I'm saying is, when they Lay him down. They just shoulder it, and they sit on them and they shoot them. Then they stage, and obviously they're wiping this thing down because there's no fingerprints found on the gun, not even Kurtz. So they obviously. Whether they're wearing gloves, whether. Wiping it down. Look, DNA is not a huge deal in 94. They're not thinking about too much of that. Fingerprints, they should be. And the pens wiped down. So they obviously are staging this in more ways than one. They put the. The Barks Root beer there. They put the little cigar box with the needles with the caps on them. Okay? There's a spoon with some black tar heroin in there. They leave that there. They're staging this. And also, I'll say this. How many cases you ever seen where the suicide victim has the receipt to the gun in his pocket and the receipt to the shells in a bag by his foot? Okay. You don't see that? Okay? When people commit suit, they don't say, yeah, here's the receipt, man. I want to show you. Here's. That's in my pocket. And then look by my feet. There's a receipt to the shells. It's a setup. It's staged. And all this stuff needed to be red flagged by the Seattle pd. Not right away, but come on, man. This guy is like a hero to half of Seattle. And you're just going to write it? Yeah. Suicide. They're doing interviews. Courtney's reading the letter pretty fast after that. Mtv. He did this. He did this. They're all crying in the park. Come on, man. Yeah. You violated this guy's civil rights. You. You dragged this guy's name through the mud for 30 years. You called him the poster boy for suicide. There were copycat suicides. It's disgraceful. I'm sorry to get fired up about it, but it's unacceptable. And I'm not saying they're going to reopen the case. I'm not saying you should reopen the case. It's a story, okay? And it's for Kurt, Okay? That's what it talks about. That's why it's too Kurt. I'm sorry.

[Clayton]

The suicide note is interesting, too. I remember when they released that, and it said something like, I'll be happier. I love you. I love you.

[Chris Todd]

Yeah. You're better off without me. Well, I'm telling you right now, we believe Kurt did not write those last four lines. They are not in the same font. I mean, they're not in the same handwriting. And they've had multiple handwriting experts look at it. There's some press out there that Jason Jensen was able to get out. You can go look him up. Jason has his own take and what he's doing too. And he. He had a report done. And they believe that. That those last four lines are not Kurt writing. That they're not the same sizing. The spacing is different. It is off. The letters are not the same. Exactly. And Kurt's letter is not suicidal. He's talking about faking it. You know. I just want you guys to all know. Yeah. Because he's trying to break up Nirvana. He wanted to do his own solo thing. Joseph talks about that. He wanted Joseph to play with him. Let's do something with your band too, man. Nirvana, the whole thing. He punched Chris Novoselic in the face. Days when they tried to take Kurt to rehab before Chris drove him to the airport and Kurt punched him in the face. That's his bassist of Nirvana. There was a lot of problems. They canceled Lollapalooza and everybody was mad. He lost money. Okay. The European tour. They. Looks like they gave him Rohypnol and tried to kill him in rome. He was OD'd and he woke up and said some weird things to people. And the doctor said he didn't think he was suicidal. Look it up. Rohypnol, Rome. Weeks before.

[Clayton]

Wow. And so were these individuals that are referenced in the book that Joseph names. Have they ever been investigated at all?

[Chris Todd]

None. Zero.

[Clayton]

And now dead.

[Chris Todd]

At least three of them are deceased. Yes. One. One killer, one accomplice, one witness. Yes. Three of these nine are deceased. There's six left.

[Clayton]

What do we think the motive was in if they were coming there with a mission? What do you think the motive was?

[Chris Todd]

Well, that's why I have to be careful. Because if I. If I try to say, like, were these men told to do it and were they offered free drugs for the rest of their life? I have to be careful how I say that to me, and in my investigations and a lot of cases, I don't care so much about motive. A lot of people, you know, this recent stuff in the news with the shootings. What's the motive? What's the motive? I don't care. I don't care what their motive is. They did something not only bad, it's really the worst thing you can do in life on this planet is take another person's soul. Okay? It's literally the worst thing you can do. You could have a bunch of different excuses. I really don't care. So whether they're jealous of Kurt. Whether someone told them to do it, whether. Whether they were abetted, aided and abetted. Okay, I'm not gonna talk about that too much. And in the book we only address that for a very brief moment. We are only focusing on what happened there with the people that are there.

[Clayton]

So where do you go from here with this, Any indication that police will open reopen an investigation with all of this evidence?

[Chris Todd]

I mean, do you want my personal opinion, my professional opinion on this?

[Clayton]

Sure.

[Chris Todd]

The case is over. This case is closed. This is a story. And this is for Kurt. This is his swan song. This is his goodbye. This is. This is him talking through Joseph. If these other witnesses want to come forward, they can too. They. I'm sure they have their own version of the story. One of them sort of wants to talk. We've had conversations with them. They still. They're a little hesitant. That's up to them. The book is out there. It's only like seven days old. This is it. Okay. Whatever the other people want to say, that's for them. But I believe this case is closed. Do I have some 2% hope? Sure. They opened Keefe D, right? They did the Tupac thing in Vegas. The Vegas PD had courage to do it, get some press. I offered that to Seattle PD and they laughed at me. I'm sorry, I'm not going to help you like that. It's just unacceptable. And they've had a paradigm in their head with this. I think they didn't like Kurt Cobain, to be honest. I really do. I don't think they liked him. He had dark lyrics. He was a heroin user, drug user, artist. They hated grunge. They hated heavy metal. The punk rockers, they thought some of them were white supremacists. Premises. It's hard to say that word. There was a lot of stuff. They. They saw it. Hey, there's a guy gun there. Oh, there's a note. What do we got? Oh, there's a note. Look. Look at this. Looks good to me. How about you guys? Yeah. Pretty straightforward.

[Clayton]

Yeah. I mean, the note is interesting to me on a whole other level. So it's like they basically took. They co opted a note that he was writing and added to it to make it seem like a suicide note at the bottom.

[Chris Todd]

Kurt was always writing. He had all these weird little letters. He wrote letters to Courtney. He. This was on the back of an IHOP menu. This guy was an artist through and through. This guy was a genius. If you really listen to his songs, he was A genius, okay? Imagine what he could have done. He was 27 years old. This guy worked really hard to get where he was. They were not known. They went through like three drummers. They had different band names. So we're to believe Kurt Cobain and he has a child, a one and a half year old, and he's going to take his own life? Yeah, things were bad. Maybe Nirvana was going to break up. Maybe he's going to do something on his own. Yeah, John Lennon did stuff on his own too. Okay? So we were deprived of this man's genius, okay? And I wasn't even a big Nirvana fan, okay? I won't say who I was because they'll freak out. My. My point is I'm here to work for Kurt as an investigator, as a journalist, as an. As a writer, to help this guy tell his story. So for me, moving forward, there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of people online. To me, I feel I've done all I can and so has Joseph. From there, that's organic. And that is up to. Up to the. To destiny, in a way.

[Clayton]

Well, it's remarkable story I've never heard. I'm sure most of our audience has never heard it either. A lot of questions remain. We can't go through all of them. But I would encourage people to read the book, get Joseph's firsthand perspective on what he saw those nights and those days, those early morning hours, and what happened to his friend Kurt Cobain. Chris, thank you so much. It's a remarkable story. Thank you for sharing it with me.

[Chris Todd]

Yeah. Thank you for letting us have a platform like this with your subscribers and audience. I really want to thank you. And Joseph thanks you too. I did give a heads up that I would be talking with you, and he wanted to say thank you so much for allowing this.

[Clayton]

Thank you.