Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain’s widow, once sought to have the full police file on the Nirvana singer’s death turned over to her, with no copies remaining at the Seattle Police Department, according to a newly surfaced document.
Love made the striking request on Oct. 20, 1995, roughly 18 months after Cobain, 27, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head inside a greenhouse at the couple’s Seattle mansion.
Seattle investigators ruled Cobain’s death a suicide from the beginning, a finding Love accepted. But for years, a group of researchers who argue the case may have been a homicide has pushed for authorities to reopen the investigation.
The newly revealed record shows that an attorney representing Love, the frontwoman of Hole, wrote to then-Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper in 1995 asking for all investigative materials connected to Cobain’s death.
“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,” attorney Bryan Coluccio wrote in the letter, which was uncovered by researchers with the “Who Killed Kurt?” investigative group.
Coluccio also stated that Cobain’s estate and Love-Cobain were satisfied with the work done by Seattle police. “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 wrote.
“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 police file reportedly contained undeveloped rolls of 35mm still film, Polaroid photographs tied to the investigation, copies of “personal letters” written by Cobain, and financial and other “personal and private” materials.
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Coluccio explained that the reason for making the request was because “several persons” had tried to make money from the “sale and distribution of material pertaining to Mr. Cobain’s death.
“Thank you in advance for your favorable response to this request,” Coluccio wrote at the end of the letter.
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The Seattle Police Department did not agree to the demand.
Retired Seattle police Capt. Neil Low — who spent 50 years with the force and originally backed the suicide verdict when he carried out an audit of the Cobain case in 2005 but has since been convinced it was a homicide — said that was the right decision.
“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 told The Post.
“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?” Low said.
Michelle Wilkins, who is leading the “Who Killed Kurt?” investigation into Cobain’s death, also criticized the letter.
“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.”
Neither a rep for Courtney Love nor the Seattle Police Department or Coluccio responded to Post requests for comment.
The letter’s revelation comes after it emerged in May that Love also sought to have all of the pictures taken at the scene destroyed.
Veteran SPD Detective Sgt. Don Cameron revealed Love’s alleged intention in an internal memo he sent to police Lt. Al Gerdes dated Feb. 13, 1995, claiming she had expressed concerns about the photos being leaked, according to a police memo discovered by the “Who Killed Kurt?” group.
Cameron, who has since passed away, told Gerdes in the memo that he denied the request because destroying the crime-scene photos would make the department seem “foolish and unprofessional.”
The SPD ended up releasing 37 images documenting the death scene after a cold-case review in 2014 that found that investigators had been right to rule Cobain’s death a suicide.
The released photos showed the outside of the star’s home and the greenhouse where his body was discovered.
Two of the pictures –– which included Polaroids and photos found on previously undeveloped 35mm film –– showed parts of Cobain’s body.
Love –– now 62 and the mother of Cobain’s only daughter Frances Bean Cobain –– and other close family members and pals have repeatedly backed the police’s verdict that he killed himself.
But a team of forensic experts assembled by “Who Killed Kurt?” wrote a peer-reviewed paper presented to the SPD last year that included evidence they say shows Cobain was given an overdose of heroin and then shot in the head to make it look like a suicide.
The SPD responded by saying it decided not to reopen its investigation into Cobain’s death, standing by the outcome of the 2014 cold-case review.
