Entire contents copyright Richard Lee 1994-2024.
KCWM does not endorse products on, nor derive revenue from, the ad banners.
contact: kcwmtv@hotmail.com
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It’s a world of twerpy guys and their badge flashing, so we thought for self-defense we’d join in with this artsy entry, with our receipt for the pass of June 28, 1993, and also our UW Daily press ID, from when bangin’ (keystrokes) there in ‘92 as guest columnist. We even won an award.
Seattle public access television closed abruptly on June 30, 2020, and there’s something more than a little foul-smelling about the City taking the cable bill surcharges away from funding even the stripped-down version of what the station had once been. It could be reconstituted, perhaps in a more bare-bones form, but for now, Seattle does not have the channel at all, it no longer exists. But KCWM persists.--R.L. 1/1/22, 10:31 p.m.
*****
*****
1999 One-minute promo /
June 8, 1994 /
January 20, 1997 (Live) /
January 18, 1998 (Live) /
July 26, 1998
One-minute promo, Sept. 2004 /
June 15, 1994 /
June 1, 1997 (Live) /
May 20, 2001 /
Sept. 4, 2004
*****
The FBI has not been truthful about Kurt Cobain. Their self-motivated release in 2021 of about 10 pages of material that made big news gave the impression that they were forthcoming with all that they had.
This is not true. FBI did not in any way indicate that they had records pertaining to my 82-page bound report to them of 1994, which should have been a guide to an investigation for interstate conspiracy to commit murder. My requests subsequent to the 2021 release for documents had FBI stating they had nothing on this lengthy correspondence.
Below is my astounding interview of June 2, 1994 with King County Chief Medical Examiner Donald T. Reay, straight from the binder. Here Reay clearly stated the “no exit wound” contrivance that has contradicted their own death certificate, for 30 years now. The bizarre descriptions in the autopsy report leaked this January of a brain barely bent by a shotgun blast are the fuller version of this fraud, describing a wound which could never occur.
Below also are one of the response letters of 1994, and the cover page of the report to FBI. -RL, 4/5/24, 11:44 p.m.
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 4, 2022
“So Wise, So Young, They Say Do Never Live Long”
Part 1
“David Grohl Is Not Who You Think He Is:
With a Body Count of 5
(Cobain, Pfaff, Terry, Hoke, Hawkins) and a
Long Concealed Reagan Revolution Extremist Dad,
We Must Wonder Out Loud What No One Else is Willing to Ask–
Is the Faux Working Class Foo Leader an Assassin,
And Was His Best Buddy Taylor Hawkins Murdered?”
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 4, 2022
“So Wise, So Young…” Part 2
“Concert Tour 666:
6 Months After the Untimely Death of Foo Drummer
Taylor Hawkins,
It Remains Unexplained and Legally Un-categorized,
But More Than 100,000 Tickets are Sold for His
'Global' Memorial Events,
Invigorating Careers of Many Aging Geezers of Rock,
Who Ignore David Grohl’s Horror Movie Wherein
'I murder the whole band'
and His Strange, Scripted Comment That
'We’ve been planning these shows for a long, long, time'”
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 29, 2022
“So Wise, So Young...” Part 3
“Operation Rolling Stoner:
The Leading Rockumentary-on-Paper Mag
Interviewed 20 to Discover More About
Relationship of David Grohl and Taylor Hawkins,
But Their Weirdly Incomplete Reporting
Says the 'really healthy lifestyle' Drummer
Couldn’t Handle Heavy Touring for an Unspecified Reason,
So Was It Medical, Financial, or Fear of Human Sacrifice?”
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 29, 2022
“So Wise, So Young...” Part 4
“Everlong:
The Foo’s Biggest Hit Strongly Hints at
Downlow Affair with Rock Interloper Courtney Love,
So Should We Be Foolish Enough
to Believe in the Feud Storyline,
and Does the Hawkins Expiration Signal a Renewal
of Marketability for the Bulk of Foo Material,
Obviously Comprised of
Songs for Dead Blonds Sentimentality?”
*****
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*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 30, 2019
On This Week’s Program:
“The Danny Goldberg Variations, 2019”
Part I
"Shmendricks on Parade:
Power Schmoozer Goldberg Caps Off Career of
Chumming Up with the Famous by
Being Star Servant of His Dark Lord Geffen,
Explaining Away All of Those Annoying
Indications that the Gang is Accessory to Murder,
Supported by Seattle Scenesters
and the Seattle Police,
Who Stand an Armed Guard
Against Rude Questions"
(actual first air date May 4)
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 8, 2019
On The Previous New Program:
“Things to Come”
or
“UM YES,
Our Quick and Dirty Clip Reel
of Unseen Material You’ll Eventually See”
Part I
(actual first air date April 13)
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 25, 2018
On The Previous New Program:
"M-appeal:
Three Judge Panel Hears
20-minute Mini-debate on
Censorship of Key Crime Scene
Pics, and are Left Speechless by
Digest of Murder-indicative
Behaviors of SPD, KCME,
Rabid Widow CLC, and Her
Sidekick Kiddo FBC, an Actual
Budding Devotee of the Church of Satan"
(actual first air date April 28)
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 27, 2015
On The Previous New Program:
”The Shotgun and the Damage Done”
Part One
"The Wid and the Kid
Give the City Sworn Declarations of
'indescribable pain…endless and needless pain and suffering'
if KCWM is allowed to 'wrongfully profit from exploiting…
graphic and disturbing images' of
'the damage done by the shotgun blast to his head,'
Which Makes Big News,
But Really, Our Public Records Case is Delayed
Mainly by Trifling Technicalities”
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 30, 2015
“How To Be A Man”
Part Two
“Take You To The Pavement:
Stretch and Duff-man, the Geffen Guys Who
Tell Tall Tales About Cobain’s Demise,
Preach Duff’s Gospel of
‘Don’t Be A Pussy’ to His Followers,
But Cower from Our Questions,
Exiting the Small Gig with A Phalanx of
Black-uniformed Thugs, Vans and Big Motorcycles”
(actual first air date May 30)
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 17, 2015
“How To Be A Man”
Part One
“It’s Such a Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid:
Duff McKagan, of the Notoriously Misogynistic Guns N' Roses
(Which Kurt Cobain Called ‘pathetic and untalented’),
Sells His New Book on Manliness
With Krist Novoselic, Very Oddly, Especially Considering
Infamous GNR Assault on Cobain and his 22-day-old Daughter”
(actual first air date May 23)
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 3, 2015
“Straight to Heck:
Rockumentary May Be
The Lowest Form of Cinema,
But New Cobain Flick Plunges to
New Depths, Slamming His Reputation
While Reasserting His Viability as a Commodity
Among Curiously Newly Chummy
Nirvana, Inc. Principals and Heirs”
(actual first air date May 9)
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 21, 2014
“Our Superstar, Our Rock Star"
Part One
*****
“Big Po Po Pow Wow
at City Hall, as Mere Fraction of Law Enf Officials Introduce,
No Kidding, ‘Our superstar, our rock star,’ as New Top Copper
of the Scandal-mired SPD, Which She Says She Will Make
‘Second to none, I promise you that…the finest police organization in the nation’”
(actual first air date May 24)
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 13, 2014
"Cigar Box Twenty"
Part Two
“Love and Death:
Sous Chef Turned Alleged Tranny Bank Robber
Flips Subcompact 50 Feet from Cobain (Staged) Death Scene
and is Gunned Down by SPD Shooter,
Meanwhile CLC and the Sidemen Receive
Rock Royalty's Highest Honor in Shocking Hugfest"
(actual first air date April 19)
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 8, 2014
"Cigar Box Twenty"
Part One
“Seattle Coppers
Mark Big Anniversary With
Release of Some Photos of
Their Rigged Cobain Crime Scene,
and KCWM Files Suit for the Lot,
Resulting in World-wide Media Blip"
(actual first air date April 12)
*****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 12, 2014
“Ain't Gonna Be No Rematch” Part Two
“With the Lights Off,
It’s More Dangerous”
“CLC is Pinned Down
in Moore Backstage for More Than
an Hour After Her Standard
Serial Killer Musical Schtick,
Then Makes Back Alley Escape
in Reverse in Unlit Tiny Black Car,
From Gaggle of Fans, and
of Course, KCWM”
(actual first air date was March 22)
*****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 20, 2014
“Ain't Gonna Be No Rematch” Part One
"Pushing-50 CLC Descends Upon
Sea-town to Scare Up Some Scratch
from Grunge-curious Consumers and Die-hard Death Rockers,
One of Whom Opines, 'If she killed Kurt...
if she got away with it, good for her'
(Before She Attacks)"
(actual first air date was March 1)
*****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 7, 2013
“Rafe Me: The Raphael Sollecito Story” Part One
"Convicted Murderer Out-on-Appeal
Makes Only North American Appearance
in Our 'hood, KCWM Buys the Book so as
To Pose a Question About His Infamous
Bleach and Butcher Knife Photo,
but is Attacked by Seattle Cops
at the Behest of the Convict"
We have not been surprised that the new corporate structure called SCM TV, which replaced the old SCAN TV, has been equally difficult to deal with, in an ongoing campaign of false claims about technical problems with our programs, so that they have censored us for the last year without admitting it. The real power we are at odds with is the public corporation called the City of Seattle, as always. Their political and police divisions cannot comprehend any reason for a free speech channel to exist as anything but a ghost of its former self, which is what budget cuts and dictatorial executive attitudes have reduced dear old Channel 29/77 to, probably forever.
In any case, after an outrageously long five-year hiatus, we aired a new program today, and have much more coming. --R.Lee, May 7, 2013.
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(4/5/2012) Our program will resume broadcast on Seattle/King County public access television Channel 77, under the new management scheme called Seattle Community Media.
For several reasons, we will begin with some reruns:
Sunday, April 8, 2012, 1 a.m., re-air of January 5, 2008
Sunday, April 15, 2012, 1 a.m., re-air of January 12, 2008
Sunday, April 22, 2012, 1 a.m., re-air of September 29, 2007
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Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 6, 2010
“Coincidental Shooting Spree:
Local Cops Kill Five Minor Suspects in Six Days,
Including Alleged Senseless Shooting-in-the-Back of
American Indian Artist John T. Williams by Seattle Police,
Although New Mayor Immediately Invokes Doctrine of Police Infallibility,
Saying, ‘I don't know the officer, but I'm sure he joined the force, and serves on the force taking seriously his mission to protect and serve the public.’”
Police/News Clips of Crime Scene, (posted 12/31/10)
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7/4/2010, New Clip: from "KCWM at the Beeb," this is the end result of our BBC interview of 7/4/2000.
PART A (Program Intro)
PART B (Cobain Segment)
****
Coming Soon:
“The Danny Goldberg Variations:
Former Nirvana Manager's Book is Rehash of
Well-worn Tales of His Success, Plus Some Astonishing
Admissions of Failing/Backstabbing Kurt Cobain, but When We Ask Him About How He and His Wife, Attorney Rosemary Carroll Have Evident Status as Accessories to Murder, We Are Met with the Familiar Extreme Violence and Robbery”
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 01:40:36 -0700
Rosemary Carroll
Rosemary Carroll:
More than a month has passed since I have attempted to contact you concerning the lingering issues of your legal representation of Courtney Love-Cobain and her deceased spouse Kurt Cobain, especially as this pertains to the talent management representation of same by your husband Danny Goldberg, as founder/head of Gold Mountain Entertainment. A recent authorized biography has referred to this arrangement as “an incestuous relationship which raised eyebrows," which I believe is greatly understating the case.
Your assistant encouraged me to put questions to you in email, but there has been no response whatsoever, except that he let me know you have received my email, but will not respond by telephone. This is not surprising, but obviously your role in the business affairs of Kurt Cobain and his spouse, both pre- and post-mortem, continues to be troubling. When I attempted to speak to your husband Danny Goldberg at a recent bookstore event in Seattle, I was viciously attacked by persons who undoubtedly were lying in wait for me to appear. This is unusual conduct, even for a person in the rock music business, but especially when he is the marital partner of a licensed officer of the court (in New York and California).
What I attempted to ask Mr. Goldberg about, as you know, is the most notorious episode in your career, that 5 years ago tape recordings were released in which you were heard offering your opinion or knowledge that Kurt Cobain's so-called suicide note was a fake ("That suicide note is...forged," you said). Together with an investigator's claim that you gave him a handwriting "practice page," this convincingly showed your client Courtney Love to be guilty of the act of committing that elaborate hoax, which is inextricably weaved into the strange circumstances surrounding Cobain's death, evidently the result of a conspiracy of murder.
The long-lingering question has been if you and Danny Goldberg were parties to that conspiracy, and in what way. There are very many reasons for someone in your position to shun any association with a client who has brought you such disrepute, and yet various indications over the years have hinted that a close association continues between you, your husband, and Courtney Love-Cobain. Various publication ventures such as the photographic reproduction of what purports to be Cobain's notebooks (Journals, 2002) have hinged on the authenticity of handwritten documents originating with Courtney Love, and similarly millions of dollars in largely unseen artworks are solely based on the presumed truthfulness of provenance through Courtney Love.
Even more alarmingly, your legal and business representation of these parties is most problematic because of well publicized stories of impending divorce for the Cobain marriage and Cobain’s death intestate, which were never explained by either you or your spouse. And beyond mere forgery and fraud statutes, we must ask if you consider yourselves to be subject to dangers of permanent potential criminal action on the premise of accomplice liability, for complicity in Cobain's murder?
Courtney Love is now most newsworthy as a person who is claiming that something like $500 million has been defrauded or stolen from her assets in a conspiracy she has yet to adequately describe. At this point, it would be useful to know what role you have had in her ongoing business affairs, especially, do you now represent her in any matters, and have you provided her representation or counsel since April of 1994?
This email will be published on my website in the next few days. I will also publish any response you provide, in full.
Richard Lee
Seattle, Washington
June 1, 2009
This email posted online June 6, 2009, 11:17 PM. Carroll and Goldberg have provided no response.
****
Now see our currently featured program, as hosted by GoogleVideo:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 8, 2007
“Omerta”
Part Three
“Investigations, Not their Strong Suit”
PART A (21 min. 30 sec.)
PART B (14 min. 25 sec.)
PART C (22 min. 13 sec.)
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bonus mo pic clip: 2001 MAYORAL DEBATE, PART 2 (18 min. 43 sec.)
****
Announcement:
Unfortunately, our program has effectively been
“canceled” after more than 15 years of continuous weekly airings by the SCAN Board of Directors, according to a terse April 26 letter from SCAN Board Chair Stan Emert. We have been trying to negotiate a resolution to this malicious action, but to no avail so far. A lawsuit is becoming the likely next move. We will post a detailed article here on this soon. R. Lee, 6/7/08, 11:58 PM.
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SEE ALSO NOW OUR CAMPAIGN SITE AT
https://www.angelfire.com/wa3/richardlee This adjunct site includes press release material on recent legal actions against us by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. ****
On This Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 2, 2008
“Omerta” Part Five
“Pants on Fire:
Mayor's Police Panel Suddenly and Briefly Meets To Release
the Final Report by This Group of Insiders, One Stating,
‘This has been a great opportunity for me to renew friendships
and make new friendships...My uncle was a Seattle police officer;
I love this department and support the officers,’ Although the
Headline Grabber Is Policy To Fire the Common Copper for
Any Lying, and So KCWM Has the Last Word by Asking,
‘How Many Attorneys Have Gotten Through Their Careers Without Lying?’”
****
On Last Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 12, 2008
“Jake and The Fat Man” Part Two
“Second Generation Punk-ass:
Gobsmacking Story of Politics and Personal Scandal
Is Something Seattle’s News Media Treats as Barely
Worth Covering, as Mayor’s Son Is Sentenced to Prison
and Most Reporters Stay Home, Missing The Perp Walk,
The Pursuit, and The Smirky Smile of The Guilty Son”
****
On This Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 5, 2008
“Jake and The Fat Man” Part One
“‘The Gig Is Up’:
Seattle Mayor’s Son Jacob Nickels Gets 3 Months in
Federal Prison When He Could Have Done 5 Years,
U.S. Attorney Says ‘If You Steal From a Tribal Casino It's a Very
Serious Offense,’ Though he Dropped All Those Charges in Favor
of a Single Count of ’spiracy, and Jake Got Only 30% of the
Sentencing Guidelines’ Minimum on That Crime”
*****
On Last Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 29, 2007
“Omerta” Part Four
“The Trouble With Quibbles:
New SPD Internal Investigations Head,
Who Stands To Make a Million in Salary Alone
In a Few Short Years, Yet Who Has No Police Experience,
Affirms Non-investigation Tactic in Cobain Case by
Saying, ‘I'm Not Going To Quibble Over ‘Investigation’...
I Was Satisfied,’ Then Calls Security Guards To Silence
Seattle’s Longest Running Public Affairs Television Program”
(NOTE: The December 8 program actually did not air until December 22, due to a so-called ‘suspension’ put upon us in a December 7 letter by new SCAN TV Executive Director Marshall Parker. In a recent series of mass meetings, Parker has put across an agenda that SCAN and its independent producers need to start aggressively fundraising, paying fees, and allowing him to influence content, because of moves by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels to cast doubt on the channel’s future. We strenuously objected to all this as cheap tactics to put across this Nickels/Parker agenda, and thusly were ‘suspended.’ A series emails describing potential litigation, plus the ‘volunteerism’ task of scraping 200-plus pounds of leafy muck off the SCAN parking lot, while employees hung out on their smoke breaks, have resulted in us returning to air for now. And so look closely and you’ll see that we’ve completed a rather unintended goal of airing 100 new programs in four years. --RL, 1/2/08).
****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 8, 2007
“Omerta”
Part Three
“Investigations, Not their Strong Suit:
Mayor’s Police Panel Discusses How
‘The Office of Professional Accountability Is Best
Suited To Investigating Serious Acts of Misconduct,’
Whilst Raking Over Trivialities in Overblown Minor Coke Bust,
Seeing This as Far More Important Than Evidence Rigging in
In Cobain Case, and Top Crime Reporter from The Times
Demonstrates Abysmal Lack of Knowledge on Recent Big Crimes”
****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 1, 2007
“Omerta”
Part Two “Don't Give A Rat’s:
Mayor's Special Police Panel Discusses ‘The blue line or the wall of silence or the code of, you know, you're not going to rat another officer out that occurred 20 or 30 years ago,’ Whilst They Do the Old Cover-up in Real Time, with the Chair Saying He's ‘not shocked...not alarmed’ at the Evidence in Cobain Corpse Mutilation Scandal”
****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 27, 2007
“…I Did It”
Part Two
“Confessions of a Film Nerd:
KCWM Waxes Memoiristic with Guy
from Decline of Celluloid, Dope Addiction and
Higher Ed, and My Success in Capturing Copping of
****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 20, 2007
“I Have a Confession…I Did It” Part One
“1993 Cobain Tell-all Author Hits Seattle with His New
Non-hit Cobain Bio-pic, Knowingly Utters O.J. Phrase 5
Times,
but Cops Are Called on KCWM for Asking
Rude Questions (Whilst Carrying Concealed Banana,
So We Fared Better Than 13-year-old SPD Shot This
Weekend Reaching for His Cell Phone)”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 6, 2007
“Hello, Cobain...” or “...Jesus” Part Two ****
On The Previous Week's Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 29, 2007
“Hello, Cobain, Come On In”
or
“Fucking Jesus” Part One
“KCWM Visits The Nightmare Version of Mayberry
for Is Given Cool Reception by Promoter, Is Assaulted by His Successor as A&E Reporter at Aberdeen Daily World, Whose Editor
Says, ‘Jesus Christ….You Just Annoy the Shit Out of People…Jesus, Fuck!’”
****
On
The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 22, 2007
“Together Again:
Hearing of Mayor’s Special Panel on Police Accountability
Features Members Gary Locke and Norm Rice,
Who Perform Utterly Tuneless Traditional Local Demos
Favorite, ‘Omerta,’ Keeping Strict Silence on How They’ve Worked
To Keep Truth in Cobain Case Buried Under Blanket of Fraud”
*****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 15, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Nine
“False Witness #6
Endlessly First-nameless Officer Fox
But Strangely Short on Policy, Saying ‘I Don’t Know’
Calls KCWM ‘Maybe Not Mentally Deranged…But Borderline,’
Astonishingly Admits, ‘I Didn’t See You Kick Me But… Our Earlier Stated Position to Prosecution,
*****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 8, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Eight
“False Witness #6
Drop Your Cocks and Grab Your Glocks, Part A:
The Crown Vic Himself, Officer So-called P.J. Fox,
Refuses To Say If His Terroristic Shaved Skull Played a
Describes His Army Counter-terrorism Training
And Claims with Certainty He Was Wearing Huge
Maybe Not, Maybe It Was On His Ankle, The
*****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 1, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Seven
“False Witness #5:
Low-intelligence Head of Mayoral Security,
of His Quarter-million Dollar Unit as Thick-headed Thugs,
Accuses KCWM of ‘Attacking Us With Your Camera’ and
Other ‘Attack-type Interview Things,’ and That We Did a
and Says for 4 Years He Had No Intel
*****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 25, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Six
“False Witness #4
Holey Interview, Bagman:
Longtime City Manager and Neighbor of Nickels,
‘Hundreds of Times’ in 27 Years of Party Politicking and
Curious ‘Spontaneous Gratuity’ Activity, Calls KCWM
Maybe Mrs. N. Too, Says Off. Fox ‘Showed Undue Restraint’
But Sadly He Blinked Long and Hard at The Critical Moment”
*****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 18, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Five
“False Witness #3
Pure Salty Balls, Chef:
Joseph Whinney, Chocolatier Occupying the Redhook Site,
That He Was Holding a Likely Illegal Undocumented
and Who Falsely Claims To Be a ‘Registered Independent,’
Says He Saw KCWM ‘Rush In Front of the Car’ for
Adding, ‘I Don’t Know If You Had A Gun’”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 11, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Four
“False Witness #2
The Elected Committee Officer,
John Miller Watt of Precinct 36-1290,
A ‘Loyal Democrat’ Who Will Not Admit to Being
A Nickels Supporter, Who Repeatedly Refuses
To Describe In Any Way the Politics of His First 45 Adult Years,
Tells Tale of How He Used His ‘Eighth of A Ton’ Frame
To Save Our Mayor from The KCWM Onslaught, Though He
Can’t Say Where Nickels Was at The Time of The Dreaded Kick,
Which He's Certain Was ‘Completely Deliberate’”
*****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 4, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Three
“False Witness #1:
The Saucy Unpaid ‘Unimportant’ Intern
Elizabeth ‘Sascha’ Sprinkle, Reluctantly Reveals Being a Friend and Prom-mate of Mayor’s Daughter, Who Has Been to His Home Numerous Times and Worked for Nickels Because of His Kyoto Green Position, but Who Cannot In Any Way Describe Nickels’ Car, Which She Says KCWM ‘Threw Yourself In Front Of’ for ‘Maybe 30 Seconds,’ Kicking a Cop ‘Between One and Ten’ Times”
*****
On Last Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 28, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats...” Part Two
“Free As A Bird:
City Drops Cop-kicker Political Prosecution After 21 Months,
On Same Day Mayor’s Son Jacob Nickels Gets Popped in Federal
Casino Cheating Sting, and KCWM Kisses The Sky
In 67-story Chase Scene with Senior City Shyster Who Unethically Threatens, ‘We’ll Get You Next Time’”
*****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 21, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats, The Legend Continues” Part One
“I Am The Walrus and Elvis Lives (Costello, That Is):
An Arctic Chill in Muni Court as Judge Threatens KCWM
With Compulsory Mental Evaluation and Loss of
Fundamental Constitutional Rights
When We Mention News that Both We and Nickels
Are Slated as Characters in Zioncheck Mo-pic,
and Ruminations on How Audio Created the Immortal Star,
or At Least Long-term Gainfully Employed Ones”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 7, 2007
“Grief-aganza” Part Two
*****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 31, 2007
“Grief-aganza” Part One
“City Observes Sort-of Anniversary of
Capitol Hill and Jewish Federation Mass Shootings,
Mayor Expresses Tepid Ambition that ‘Fewer of These’
Will Occur, And Narcky Police Lieutenant Brazenly
Assaults KCWM, Fails To Explain Why”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 10, 2007
“Kurt Era, 40” Part Two
“On the Anniversary of His Birth,
Kurt’s Grandfather Lets Loose With
Heartfelt Critique: ‘I’d just have to call everybody
on the police department that had anything
to do with it a goddamn liar.’”
This program aired two weeks in a row with no audio, with the city's SCAN TV station offerring meager excuses as to how this could happen. We feel it was deliberate vandalism from inside the station. The show finally aired with audio on March 23.
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Season Premiere
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 24, 2007
“Kurt Era, 40” Part One
The only major piece on Cobain to run the week of his 40th birthday was in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, with Seattle-based Charles R. Cross being given a full page to describe the "club” of rock stars who died at age 27, or “The Club They're Dying To Get Into” as their headline had it. The PI then ran a reprint of the previous week's article from the Aberdeen Daily World. KCWM fired this off to their letters page, but to no surprise, it did not run in print or online editions.
TO THE PI LETTER EDS:
Your “only the good die young” Kurt Cobain piece by guest Charles Cross last week must represent the lowest rung attainable in journalism, not only in preferring sensational fiction to a discussion of established fact, but propagandizing against the reality of this violent homicide death case.
Cross uses the PI’s pages to try to make newsy fact of his own highly suspicious research on Cobain, where any stray anecdote that argues for Cobain being his own killer is taken without reservation, and ideas to the contrary are ignored or mocked. Assertions of “several previous suicide attempts” are left unsupported, and clash with the record that this is simply not true. No such claim was made prior to Cobain’s death.
The essential problem with Cross’s 2001 book on Cobain is that the widow Courtney Love was a primary source for much of the material in it, to such an extent it appears she acted as editor and censor of the final product. As a party who received a reported $50 million in a partial sell-out of Cobain’s music last year, shouldn’t her motives for spinning stories be questioned?
Another target of Cross’s career, Jimi Hendrix, has his death described as “…reckless behavior…the final page in the life of a man preordained to leave the world at the age of 27.” Hmm. Why is Cross’s pondering on the claims of astrologers seen as printworthy?
In my weekly cable television program on Cobain’s life and death, begun in April, 1994 and continuing still, we have never indulged in rubbishy mythologizing. It’s not interesting, not honest, and not journalism. Reality is so much more engaging, and important.
Cobain’s 40th birthday needn’t be seen as “unsung” as your headline this Monday has it. His grandfather Leland Cobain sat down with us for a 2-hour interview on that date, and we intend to air part of it this week. Cobain makes many comments critical of the Seattle police handling of the case, calling “...everyone on the police department that had anything to do with it a goddamn liar.” Barring any further interference from the City of Seattle authorized SCAN-TV organization, you can see this Saturday at 11 PM.
Richard Lee
Seattle, WA
Monday, February 26, 2007, 2:11 PM
This program actually aired one week later, due to interference by the City of Seattle directed SCAN TV station.
****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 21, 2006
“The First Amendment...” Part Two
“Exclusionary Principles:
KCWM Airs Video Clips That Should Have Shown
District Court That Nickels is a Thicko Who Ordered
Cop Assault Just So He Could Gain Kneejerk Decision
To Crush Our Reporting on Crime, Especially His Own”
KCWM was prepared to offer one video clip which did not directly involve Richard Lee, that of an exclusive in-studio interview with Seattle mayor Greg Nickels only 4 days after the Captial Hill mass homicide.
KOMO-TV NEWS ANCHOR KATHI GOERTZEN: ...the Teamsters' Union that represents the garbage truck drivers. And joining me now is Seattle mayor Greg Nickels to talk about that, and a few other issues as well. Nice to have you here.
After a total of 95 seconds of discussing the biggest mass slaying in Seattle in 23 years, with no direct reference to Nickels' involvement in the promotion of the disasterous All Ages Dance Ordinance, the whole matter is put behind them.
KOMO-TV: Let's switch subjects and talk a little bit about this garbage strike...
The “garbage strike” mentioned was merely a possibility, and never actually occurred.
****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 14, 2006
“The First Amendment Was Lynched Today” Part One
“King County Judge Barbara Linde Flagrantly Ignores
Constitutional Protections in RCW 10.14,
Orders 5-year Restrictions on KCWM,
Rewarding Mayor Greg Nickels for His Perjury,
Police Violence, Political Dirty Tricks”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 30, 2006
“Fifth Avenue Freeze-out” Part Three
“Liberal Bullshit Sleeps With The Fishes:
KCWM Finally Catches Up With Police Chief After Another
Mumbling Council Appearance, He Remains Silent With Us
Except for The Push Out Of The Elevator,
Mayor Rolls Deep Down Fifth Like Gangsta Rapper,
and Nick The Sicilian Loses Trademark Smirk”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 23, 2006
“Fifth Avenue Freeze-out” Part Two
“It's A Sicilian Message:
City Council Pres Runs Like Bandito in White Don Corleone Fedora, His Aide Offers Thin Arguments on Children in Nightclubs Law, and Calls KCWM ‘racist’ for Saying It Was a Bad Idea to Take La Cosa Nostra Money, ‘cause, You Know, Nick's A Sicilian”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 16, 2006
“Fifth Avenue Freeze-out” Part One
“Police Chief Leaves Meeting in Sudden Escape from KCWM, Mayor Slaps Us With Further Anti-First Amendment Legal Action, City Council Pres Runs From Our Questions, So You Know, It's Just Another Casual Friday”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 19, 2006
“Hollywood-planned:
Captain America Cobain Got Whacked in Scheme
Involving Studio Head Geffen, Clinton's Biggest Backer,
So How Is It Bill's Oxford Buddy Kate Pflaumer
Quashed Any Cobain Inquiry As U.S. Attorney,
and Why Is She Being Re-appointed To Sniff Out
SPD Corruption Now?”
****
On The Previous New Program:
KCWM does an impromptu interview with SPD’s Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer as he crosses 5th Avenue.
LEE: Why do you think that professor Fox failed to interview the neighbor who pulled out the hard drive? Wouldn’t that have been an important witness to speak to? from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 5, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Eight
“We've Got A World That Sucks:
Nutty Professor James Alan Fox Turns In Report
On Mass Slaying That Fakes Up Every Aspect of the Case, Even, We Kid You Not, That It's ‘probable’
The Killer Was Thinking of a Nirvana Song as He Slaughtered Six (But the Song, Too, Turns Out To Be a Fake)”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported June 10, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Seven
“Something Stinks With The Big Cheeses:
Homicide Head Dummies Up On If He
Refused To Do Cobain Investigation Because
It Would Be A ‘Waste of Taxpayers' Money,’ and
SPD’s No. 2 Offers Cursory Denial He Lied About
Mass Slaying (In His Taped Statements) Then
Cites KCWM for Jaywalking”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 27, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Six
“Inside Information:
Kyle Huff’s Friends/Apartment Managers Describe
Bungling Police Raid, and Believe Killings
Were Caused by Sudden Drug Reaction, Meanwhile,
Police Chief Contradicts Earlier Promises by Saying
Toxicology Results Will Remain Forever Secret” ****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 6, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Five
“‘We want to make sure we find the truth…We owe it to the victims of this tragedy to solve the puzzle of what happened’: SPD’s No. 2, Clark Kimerer, Sings His Song of Truth on
Huff Killings, Whilst Almost in the Same Breath
Lying About Huff’s Dope Stash”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 29, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Four
“Enough Caps for All You Fools:
Police Cap Off Seattle’s Most Violent Month Ever
With Up-close Blasting of Unnamed 18-year-old at Broadway Bus Stop,
Claiming He Shot at Them, or ‘reached behind his back’ at Least, To Grab Huge Old Pistol He Had Stashed in His Ass Crack,
and Evidence of Huff Hoaxes Mounts”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 22, 2006
“Risk Management:
Their Methods Are Corrupt,
Their Manner Is Corrupt,
Why Don’t They Call It
The Corrupt City Council?” or
“City Politicians Get an Earful From Citizens
on Police Misconduct, Especially New Scheme
To Use Internal Investigations To Target Police Victims,
and Shadowy SPD Auditor Dashes from Our Questions,
Even the Spelling of Her Name (Katrina C. Pflaumer)”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 15, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Three
“'This Was Not About Music, This Was Not About A Party’:
Seattle Mayor Comes to Nearly Instant Conclusion About
Youth Massacre, and Most Media Are Eager To Help Him Dodge Out of His True Role in The Crime”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 8, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Two
“Let The Blame Game Begin:
KCWM Addresses Grievances on Mass Murder
to City Council President Nick Licata,
Seat of Government Only Smirks and Winks”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 1, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken, the All Ages Dance Ordinance, Comes Home To Roost” Part One
“The ‘Billion Dollar’ Local Music Industry, Determined
To Distract from the Cobain Killing, Passed a Radical,
Child-endangering Special Interest Law, and Now the Predicted Tragedy Has Come About, as Redneck Dweeb Kyle Huff Slaughters Six, Self, with Shotgun (Plus Pistol)”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 18, 2006
“It Was 25.25 Years Ago Today”
Part Two
“How To Succeed In Business By Really, Really Trying:
KCWM Examines the Record on Rock’n’roll’s Top Homicide,
Including David Geffen’s Reported Joy at His Overnight Hit,
Number One With A Hail Of Bullets”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 11, 2006
“It Was 25.25 Years Ago Today”
Part One
“KCWM Looks Back To Question Johnny Lennon's
Angelic Nature, and To Ask If Someone Other Than
The Devil Made The Redneck Dweeb Do It”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 18, 2006
“Funeral Baked Meats” Part Five
“No Stinking Badges:
After Five Months of Trying, KCWM Finally Obtains
Adequate Copy of Alleged Cop-kicking Incident,
Which Shows No Such Thing, But Instead An Assault on Us
by Plainclothes Mayoral Companion and Bald-ass Skinhead Officer P.J. Fox”
****
On The Previous Week's Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 11, 2006
KCWM attends the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington's annual conference, along with about 300 others, at Kane Hall at the University of Washington in Seattle. Richard Lee has been listening to and taping former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper giving a closing address on his publicity-gaining campaign to forward ideas about legalizing all now-illicit drugs in the United States. KCWM has been waiting for about 20 minutes in line to ask Stamper a question in the large hall from a public address microphone.
NORM STAMPER: Richard. Lee makes further comments, but continues to move toward the exit, because he notices that his camera and camera bag have been taken out. Reentering the auditorium, BALDING UNIDENTIFIED GOON says to LEE, “You’re a nut,” and punches LEE on the spine, just behind his heart, in an effort to provoke a fight. When UW police arrive about 15 minutes later, they refuse to take a report on Lee’s stolen property and demand that he leave the campus. from:
“Death to the ACLU:
So-called Civil Libertarians Commit Public Relations Suicide
by Attacking and Robbing KCWM at
Their Anointment of Norm ‘Choke-out’ Stamper
(Assisted, Of Course, by Police)”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 4, 2006
Season Premiere
“Her Daughter's Mother” or
“Holey Biography, Batman:
CLC’s Bio-mum Hawks New Bio-tome,
But Will Not Confirm Famous Tale
of Bio-dad’s LSD-dosing Tyke CLC,
and Denies His Decade-long Allegation
She Murdered Sperm Donor Kurt Cobain”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 15, 2005
“Funeral Baked Meats” Part Four
and
“…Asshole” Part Six
“Another Great Week for American Justice”
or “You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Fucks You:
KCWM Gets Burned by Our Lawyer in ‘Meats’ Case,
Then Our Lawyer Calls Us 'A Fucking Asshole' in ‘Asshole’ Case (At Least We Got Our ‘Asshole’ Tape Back)”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported November 10, 2005
“King County Was Manipulated” 2005
“Down for the Count:
King County’s Elections Head Declines to Say Much About
Big-time Convicted Embezzler Who Wrote Suspicious Software
In His Offices Under a $4 Million Contract Whilst Concealing This and His 44-foot Yacht From King County Prosecutors,
Saying ‘That was years ago’ About Last Year’s Underreported Scandal” ****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 27, 2005
“…Asshole” Part Five
“Full Mental Jack-off:
In Our Just-released, Long-withheld Video Footage,
Ex Police Chief Norm Stamper Doesn’t Seem To Mind at All
A Discussion of His Serial Killer Personality, but
When
Danny Goldberg Is Mentioned, Boy, Do the Goons Go Nuts”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 20, 2005
“Funeral Baked Meats” Part Three
“A Straight-up Punk-ass Bitch From The Word Go:
Dirty Little Jailhouse Trickster Greg Nickels, a.k.a. The Mayor,
Lies Under Oath That KCWM Beat His Wife’s Monkey
Ass
From Here to Humptulips, Only To Learn That The Video Shows
The Missus Laughing and Joking With Us About His Grotesque Obesity”
****
On The Previous Week's Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 6, 2005
“Funeral Baked Meats” Part Two
“It's Like Freaking El Salvador:
Generalissimo Greg Nickels Has Coppers
Surround KCWM as We Exit From Voting on Election Day,
Slap Us With Anti-harassment Suit”
(Unfortunately, this program did not air, as once again we have been censored by SCAN employees who say that the tape was not delivered in accordance with their incomprehensible, unwritten rules. Perhaps next week...)
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 29, 2005
“KCWM For Mayor” Part Eight
“S’tymied Again in Candidate’s Non-interview:
Is the Seattle Times Really a Newspaper Anymore,
or Just a Front for the Blethen Family’s Scheme
To Partner-up in the Allentown Development,
and Soak the Taxpayers for About a Billion in Cold Hard?”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Richard Lee speaks at a human services coalition candidates’ forum on September 8, only 6 hours after being released from King County Jail.
LEE: Just an anecdote here before we get into the hard policy issues here. I was at Greg Nickels barbeque last night—he came into my neighborhood with a barbeque, I got an invitation, I’m not sure why, I don’t get a lot of Democratic party material, but you know, I was doing my show as I usually do, and attempting to speak to Mr. Nickels as he entered his limousine, and I was set upon by apparently plainclothes police, and then really roughed up, and then they claimed that I assaulted them, and I spent 16 hours in jail. That’s not ‘The Seattle Way’ that’s the Greg Nickels way. I mean it’s right there in my voters’ guide statement—Greg Nickels bullying attitude is the big problem with politics in this city. You know, he’s erasing the traditions that have developed over many decades here, particularly with neighborhood planning and a lot of other things, and then you’ve got his little, ah, stand-in here tonight, because Mr. Nickels will not face his critics, I mean he’s willing to get the goons after them if they’re able to get ten seconds of good footage of him running from an important question… And...look at this campaign thing I got last night, ‘Greg Nickels,’ and then the first line is, ‘Created over 60,000 jobs in the Seattle area.’ Well, we know this is false, in fact I heard him giving his speech last night and he reduced it to 20,000 jobs. So which is it, is it 20,000, 60,000, or none?” from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 15, 2005
Season Premiere
“KCWM For Mayor” Part Seven
“Funeral Baked Meats:
Current Mayor Holds Flesh Roasting Event
About 100 Yards from Cobain Grave Robbing and Corpse Mutilation Crime Scene,
Curiously, KCWM Is Invited Guest, and Is, Of Course,
Attacked and Jailed by Our Political Opponent's Official Thugs”
(Program Note: This program will likely air next week--it was censored from airing on 9/15/05 by “community television” agency SCAN, whose director has admitted she considers mayor Greg Nickels to be her “boss”).
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
“KCWM For Mayor” Part Six
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 3, 2005
“Citizen Dick:
KCWM Interviews With Local Hearst Daily,
Decries Limp-dickedness In Seattle Political Culture” ****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Richard Lee addresses comments on August 16 to the Seattle City Council public safety committee, and its chair, Nick Licata.
LEE: Well, Mr. Licata, I notice that you’ve got an item, apparently added late, on the subject of contact log cases, in the 2003 police report. I asked you about this three days ago, I asked you did you ever have a chance to look at the annual report of last year, of 2003, which detailed two-thirds of all police misconduct charges going uninvestigated? Do you recall what your answer was? (no response). Ah, you said, ‘You know, that is a false statistic.’ And yet now you’re examining that annual report today, is that correct? (no response). Would you mind answering that question? (no response). Your legislative aide is pointing, or is nodding her head no.
Later in the same meeting Seattle Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske and his director of the SPD’s Office of Professional Accountability, “Sam” Pailca sit down with Licata and parse definitions on the new term for “contact log,” which is now called “P.I.R.” and cooperatively falsely make statements to give the impression that these two thirds of all complaints are actually investigated when in reality, none are investigated.
LICATA: And are there some that drop off even before you get to that level?
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 27, 2005
“Murdergate Meets KCWM For Mayor”
“False Statistics:
Public Safety Chair and Police Chief
Keep Internal Affairs Stats All Faked Up,
Then Dash From Our Questions,
and Mayor Evades KCWM, Too” ****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 20, 2005
“KCWM For Mayor” and
“…You’re Gonna Die, Asshole” Parts Four
“Yesterday’s News:
KCWM Has High-stress Friday,
Headbanging With Portland Law Bright and Early,
Returning To Expose Unethical Conduct
of Seattle Ethics Office Before Close of Beeswax”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 13, 2005
“KCWM For Mayor”
Part Three
“Our Platform Is Simple:
A Family-friendly City
and No Corporate Welfare for Geffen’s Partner Paul Allen--
A Message Mayor Darth V. Speeds Away From Hearing”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 6, 2005
“’I’d Whisper in Their Ear, You’re Gonna Die, Asshole’”
Part Three
“The Book Business Is About The Dirtiest Goddam Business In The World Right Now:
Mild-mannered KCWM Appears at Stamper Event
in Portland, Is Jumped Upon by Waiting Goons,
Busted by Local Copperoos” ****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
“KCWM for Mayor” Part Two
It is July 29, and the filing for offices has just closed. Richard Lee is at the King County elections office, an embattled agency which has endured nine months of constant critical coverage of their handling of a very close gubernatorial election, and has just seen a former top official of their office arrested on complex fraud and theft charges in the last few days.
DEAN LOGAN: …here to conduct the official lot draw to determine the official order of the, um, candidates on the ballot for the September 20, 2005 primary election. I’m Dean Logan, director of Records, Elections, and Licensing Services. Julie Moore, assistant superintendent of elections is going to explain how the lot draw works… According to American political tradition, the candidate who receives the number one position on the ballot will likely receive a distinct advantage in a large field of candidates. In this case, the top position went to Al Runte, the establishment’s automatic favorite to ineffectually oppose the incumbent in the general election. (Ms. Kempf’s actual exposure to ultimate possible penalties is likely far less that an actual thirty years).
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 30, 2005
“KCWM for Mayor” Part Two
“2,500 Seattle Signatories Can’t Be Wrong:
KCWM Files for Mayor’s Job,
Ex Top Boss at Elections Office Is Under Indictment, but Their
Procedures Are Still Marred by Goofy-assed Laxity”
**** On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 23, 2005
“‘I’d Whisper in Their Ear, You’re Gonna Die, Asshole’”
Part Two
“A Brutal Civility:
Ex Top Cop and Ex Alterna-weekly Owner Have KCWM Attacked by Goons,
SPD Cops a Do-nothing Attitude,
Seattleite Zombies Line Up To Pay for Stamper’s Words of Wisdom” ****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Richard Lee has been waiting to speak during a question and answer session after a reading and comments speech by former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper, who resigned after riotous action at the World Trade Conference in 1999, although Lee contends his early retirement was really a firing by then-mayor Paul Schell, because of Stamper’s involvement in the Kurt Cobain case. Stamper has been talking to about 300 people for nearly an hour, to much applause, forwarding himself as a staunch liberal with deep personal convictions about gun control, police accountability, and civil liberties.
STAMPER: …there are a handful of community oversight programs in this country. There are like 25,000 police agencies, and only a very, very small fraction of the all of the cities in this country is there anything resembling citizen oversight to address the issues that you’re talking about. So it seems to me that, that that vacuum has got to be filled by community organizing and mobilizing.
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 16, 2005
“‘I’d Whisper in Their Ear, You’re Gonna Die, Asshole’”
Part One
“Ex-Police Chief Norm Stamper
Returns to Seattle,
KCWM Pays $5 for Q&A Session,
Is Brutally Assaulted When Daring To Ask About His Old
Extravagant Claims of Brutality, and His New Employment by Danny Goldberg, Nirvana’s Old Manager”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 9, 2005
“KCWM for Mayor” Part One
“Nickels’ ‘Seattle Way’:
KCWM Begins Political Campaign,
Armed Coppers Show Up Within Minutes”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 2, 2005
“Murdergate” Part Three
“American Idle:
City Council Members and Wannabes
Audition for ‘Music Industry’ Graft
by Promising Corporate and Personal Welfare
and Telling The Average Schmuck ‘if you want
peace and quiet, you better live in the suburbs’”
--All recorded at a June 29, 2005 National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences candidates' forum.
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported June 25, 2005
“‘Last Days…’” Part Two
“Courtney Love or Confusion:
New Cobain Necro-pic
Very Precisely Spins Details From Official Lies,
So Is Van Sant Just Dumb, or
Is He Serving Some Dark Lord?” ****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported June 18, 2005
“‘Last Days’: It's Confused,
So Long, So Untrue”
Part One
“Van Sant Appears for 3 Minutes at
Premiere of New Flick, Just Long Enough
To Say He’s ‘very scared’ of KCWM,
from Whom He Copped His Title,
from Our 1999 BBC Rock Shrines Interview” “So perhaps you haven’t heard a great deal about the research, but that Kurt Cobain was murdered is a provable point beyond a reasonable degree of doubt. Who killed Kurt Cobain and the specific details of his last days or last hours will always be a matter of controversy…”
Richard Lee, from BBC’s Rock Shrines series, released in 2000.
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported June 11, 2005
“Murdergate” Part Two
“All the President’s Men:
Nirvana, Inc.-JAMPAC President ‘Stretch’ Novoselic
Keeps the Grease Flowing to Public Safety Chair,
Who Calls It a ‘Stretch’ To See This as
Connected to Murder Evidence He Obstructed,
Then Opts To Keep Throat Resealed”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 21, 2005
Season Premiere
“Murdergate” Part One
“Overcoming Overreaching Ban,
KCWM Returns to Seat of Government
To Question Public Safety Chair on His
Taking of Thousands of Dollars from
Novoselic’s Lobbying Partner Whilst
Quashing Evidence of Cobain’s Murder”
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 25, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Six
“Detective Friction:
LASD Interrogation of KCWM
by Dynamic Duo Who Seem to Have
Been Fed A Lot of Choice Skinny
From None Other Than CLC Herself,
14:17-16:02, January 12, 2005”
****
On Last Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 18, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Five
“Fulsome Prison Blues:
I Wasn’t Shot by the
Sheriff and His Deputies,
But LA County Lock-up
Ain’t the Beverly Hilton”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 11, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Four
“Illegal Seizure and Search:
KCWM Nabbed,
Our Cool Stuff Grabbed,
We All Confabbed in
Gnarly Dragnet Spoof”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 4, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Three
“Breakfast of Champions:
The Three-day Hunger Stint
Comes to an End, and
KCWM Scarfs and Vents”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 28, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Two
“Foreboding and Aftermath:
KCWM Arrives, Is Abducted by Police, Is Eventually Released,
and The World Reacts”
****
“COURTNEY LOVE AND ‘GUN’ PLAY: WHY WAS I ARRESTED?”
AND
“WHY DID MANY IN THE MEDIA AUTOMATICALLY BELIEVE COURTNEY LOVE’S CLAIM OF RESTORATION OF CUSTODY OF HER DAUGHTER FRANCES COBAIN?”
RICHARD LEE PRESS RELEASE FOR JANUARY 23, 2005
“Very few questions are being asked about how it is that notorious accused violent crime felon Courtney Love was able to ‘ha(ve) police arrest journalist Richard Lee’ with a false claim of what is being called ‘stalking’, which appears to be an unprecedented action by a celebrity in a city known for an almost-anything-goes policy toward paparazzi, working under the protection of being journalists,” says Seattle journalist Richard Lee, against whom all charges have now apparently been dropped.
“And why it is that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had to come at me with guns drawn is an even bigger question. What reasonable conclusion can anyone reach from the footage shown nationally than that these public employees were fully prepared to shoot me dead if given some slight provocation?
“And although some of the media coverage on this has only described my being arrested on ‘fake’ or ‘invalid’ I.D. issues, the fact is that I was charged with two felonies and threatened with years of prison time. The principal charge was that of CA Penal Code 422, Terrorist Threats, with CA 470 (b) Forgery thrown in, apparently for misdirection, although both are felonies,” says Lee, reading the criminal charges from his Booking and Property Record form.
“You should understand that the Courtney Love allegations against me are far more extensive than merely expressing concern at my presence last Tuesday. In fact, her campaign of lies against me began a year ago, following my successful attempt to question her outside Beverly Hills Municipal Court about the longstanding allegation that she tried to hire late punk icon Eldon Hoke ('El Duce') to kill her husband Kurt Cobain only months before his death, coinciding with Cobain’s first-ever open discussion with an interviewer about the distinct possibility of an impending divorce.
“The day following that rather famous incident, wherein Courtney Love gave a middle finger gesture with both hands and growled ‘Richard Lee. you suck so bad,’ I attended her hearing at the downtown Temple Street courthouse, and was greeted by a coordinated effort to demonstrate extreme hostility toward me by the LASD personnel there.
“This culminated the following month at the same courthouse, when I was detained for an hour under accusations concerning my plasticized photocopy of my Seattle Police Department-issued press I.D. The claim LASD put forward was that because it was issued in 1993 and had the signature of a former Seattle chief of police, it was somehow a fake or perhaps merely invalid document. I told the LASD personnel to charge me with a crime or let me go, and they did the latter.
“In following months, I attempted to anticipate any further dangers by applying for a new Seattle I.D. and the LASD press I.D. The Seattle police told me, apparently falsely, that they no longer issued media I.D.s, and after going through a rather extensive process with LASD, including fingerprinting at an LAPD precinct, my application was rejected because I did not ‘ …require access through police and/or fire lines at the scene of a disaster or civil unrest.’ (I responded with a copy of a photo of me from the front page of the New York Times, where I am seen covering the civil unrest at the WTO conference in 1999, but to no avail).
“A color copy of my Seattle police-issued I.D. was actually tucked inside my wallet last Tuesday, and around my I neck I was displaying my business card with a small photo of my face,, as a sort of company-issued I.D. And in my possession was a copy of the letter, signed by Captain John A. Franklin, which rejected my application but concluded,
'Nevertheless the full services of the Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau are available to all journalists, regardless of whether or not they have a press pass.' The LASD personnel at the courthouse repeatedly asserted that the headquarters bureau didn’t speak for them.
“The Courtney Love campaign of falsehoods heated up after a January 27, 2004 incident outside the Beverly Hills courthouse where I attempted to question her again, when amid a large group of photographers and other reporters, Courtney Love had her driver suddenly move forward about 20 feet so that she could tell LASD personnel ‘get that guy,’ meaning me. But the deputies at Beverly Hills courthouse were not about to do that. After I was assaulted by her bodyguard and a crazed Courtney Love fan, her car sped off with disregard for the safety of all, in footage that was seen widely.
“At the next hearing there, Love made news by failing to show up, with her lawyers in court citing unspecified ‘security concerns.’ When I read a report that she had just appeared on the Howard Stern radio program complaining that she couldn’t come to court because she was being stalked there by ‘guy with a gun,’ (MTV.com, February 13, 2004) I made immediate efforts to inform Beverly Hills police and LASD of this apparent danger, videotaping some of my interactions. Despite the clear possibility of a multiple homicide incident, both agencies repeatedly refused to even take a report on this. This seemed strange, and frankly, like a planned response. One detective, familiar with Love’s reputation, essentially said that if Courtney Love was making this claim, they simply couldn’t view it as credible.
“I subsequently obtained a tape of an earlier Stern program which had Courtney Love claiming that ‘Richard Lee’ was the reason she couldn’t appear (SEE TRANSCRIPT BELOW), in what amounts to a clear claim that I was the stalker, waiting outside of court with a gun. In an effort to protect myself, I sent the Beverly Hills judge a tape with the significant excerpts from the Stern shows. At the next hearing, Courtney was reported to have been seen crying, and this was apparently after a chambers conference, because I was in court and it wasn’t during the hearing. Presumably the reason for her tears was that Judge Elden Fox made her cop out to her outrageous lie, the ‘guy with a gun’ fabrication.
“And so despite my great efforts to work smoothly with the law enforcement personnel and the civilian employees in Los Angeles, including filing a ‘980 form’ concerning media access on January 4, I was arrested on these scurrilous charges on January 11, with the deputy who had identified himself as the media liaison for the day actually recorded as my arresting officer (although it was a gun-wielding sergeant who actually arrested me outside the courthouse, claiming that I had violated a restraining order held by Courtney Love).
“Within about 20 minutes a female deputy came into the room where I was being held and stated to the large gang of male deputies there, ‘There is no restraining order…He didn’t do it.’ She also said she had checked with a law enforcement officer who knew of Courtney Love’s spurious complaints about me. I had called the restraining order claim 'a big lie,' and upon hearing this new information a sergeant said, 'Oh, so it was a big lie.' But within minutes the charge was then transmuted into making threats against Courtney Love. Although they had no signed statement from her as to details on these supposed threats, at one point the same sergeant stated to another person, 'He threatened to kill her and…’ (another person, whom we will not specify here).
“My protests that they could hardly take the oral statements of this notoriously unstable person seriously, especially when she had just lied to them about a restraining order which doesn’t exist, fell of the deaf ears of the LASD, especially a Lt. Melton, who claimed that he knew of certified letters that I had signed for concerning my press I.D. being ‘revoked’ by Seattle police—a claim that SPD has discounted this week.
“And so I spent 65 hours behind bars and often in cuffs, in fact spending about 7 hours in an isolation cell in deliberately overly tight handcuffs, which was nothing less than torture. In fact, the cuffs used on me have been banned by many police agencies, these being cuffs which can tighten with very slight pressure to the exterior of the cuff, because of the very small teeth that allow the cuff to tighten even when in a very tight position already. These handcuffs made my hands very swollen and numb from the first minutes they were on, and the next 7 hours were quite hellish. In fact, I spent 13 of the first 19 hours I was held with my hands cuffed behind my back. And that’s only a part of the trauma they put me through.
“Whether the primary motivation for targeting me in this way has mostly to do with the sadism of the Criminal Courts Building LASD personnel or some plot that was hatched higher up, because of the influence of this particular defendant is not perfectly clear, but it appears to be a combination of both. In fact, the sergeant who appeared to be the one really running things in the early hours told me several times that they were discussing this move several months ago, and when I corrected him and said it was closer to a year ago, he corrected me twice and said no, it was about three months ago. He was clearly trying to intimidate me with the idea that this was no misunderstanding, that it was all a calculated operation.
“My overwhelming feeling about this is that I was in mortal danger, and escaped being shot by much too narrow a margin. I mean, since they had months to plan this calculated aggression, they must have known that the Courtney Love lies about my having a gun were totally false. So why were they prepared to use deadly force on me? The sergeant seen in the video creeping up on me with his drawn gun, by the way, was in the minutes following the arrest looking very strange, as if he was experiencing a big adrenaline ‘head rush’. .Another sergeant appeared to be similarly in an unusually excited, red-faced state. So how close to killing me did they really come? And why?
“Much of the press Courtney Love received on her January 11 court appearance was very positive, and reported without question that she had the day before received an unnamed judge’s grant of restoration of full custody of her daughter Frances Cobain. Because of the secretive nature of these type of hearings in Los Angeles County, and because this seems so out of logical progression inasmuch as Courtney Love still faces multiple felony charges, for crime(s) allegedly committed in her child’s close proximity, there is reason to doubt the veracity of the bold claims of Love and her lawyer Howard Weitzman. Perhaps her attorney merely took Courtney Love’s word for this, as he has apparently never said he was at such a hearing or represents her in these custody matters, and his widely quoted comments were made in an impromptu setting in the parking lot after my arrest. They seemed to have wanted to feed the media a more upbeat story. In fact, it is apparently Mr. Weitzman’s voice and hand that are heard and seen at the moment when Courtney Love is calling me a ‘weirdo,’ trying to obscure her statement. (The Los Angeles Times, by the way, reported with some caution, headlining ‘Love Regains Full Custody, Lawyer Says’). The published quotations from the press release by Courtney Love through Weitzman two days later do not repeat the custody claims, and his website does not post the press release.
“This custody claim actually began at least two weeks earlier with a December 27 RollingStone.com interview which described Love’s 'recent win in family court which returned custody of daughter Frances Bean to her’. The piece was headlined as an interview with the ‘post-coke nutbag-breakdown’ Courtney Love, referring to her description of herself, and her many psychiatric episodes (including suicidal behavior) and reported internments in mental rehabilitation facilities in the past year or so.
“So when she approached the courthouse doors and said something about ‘…just got out of a mental hospital...’ I honestly thought she was talking about herself, although it appears that the tape has her referring to me. Although Love herself is a very low-credibility source, some journalistic entities, most notably AOL Time Warner’s Celebrity Justice, have chosen to pick up on this vicious mischaracterization, with CJ repeatedly referring to me as 'obsessed' and guilty of having 'harassed' Love, both of which have no factual basis. CJ correspondent Pat Lalama has appeared at more Courtney Love hearings than I, and has been seen and filmed hugging with Courtney Love, so if anyone can be said to have an unhealthy desire to get up close and personal with the defendant, it’s not me.
“I think most people would be surprised that even Courtney Love has gone to these great extents of criminality, such as false reporting to police, and to such great depths of deception with the media, in dealing with me. The standards for whom should be taken seriously as a source in dealing with the justice system or as a show biz celebrity are not very high, but Courtney Love represents the absolute low end of the scale. If this is a war of credibility between myself and Courtney Love, it should be clear to all who has remained truthful and proper in conduct, and it isn’t the defendant.”
Richard Lee began his practice as a professional (paid) journalist in 1982. Since 1993 he has been the sole producer of Now See It Person to Person, seen weekly on cable TV in most of King County, Washington, in more than 500 editions. The scheduled January 14 season premiere of his program was made impossible because Lee was in jail until that morning.
****
TRANSCRIPT OF COURTNEY LOVE’S COMMENTS ON LEE LAST YEAR ON HOWARD STERN RADIO PROGRAM
February 12, 2004 on Stern show: COURTNEY LOVE says, "I didn't show up for court because Richard Lee and all
those crazy Kurt people were there and they had no professional bodyguards..."
Also claims that the person stalking her at the Beverly Hills courthouse "...came
through the gate with a loaded gun in Seattle."
February 13, 2004 COURTNEY LOVE on Stern show: "That judge is cool and he knew there was a guy with a gun down there...There was a guy with a gun."
In open court, COURTNEY LOVE's attorneys cited "security concerns" to the judges on February 11 and Feb. 17 as to why she was absent on the 11th. They did not elaborate.
March 22, 2004 COURTNEY LOVE on Stern Show: "I wasn't late. You're insane. There was a man with a gun.
There was a man with a gun. I wasn't going out without professional security.
You're insane." (Howard Stern: Where is there a man with a gun?) "At that
courthouse. The crazy guy from Seattle. He's gone after Dave and Chris. He's
insane. There's only one of them." (Howard Stern: Then call the police.) "Oh,
how about this. I gotta tell you this..." (COURTNEY LOVE goes on to tell story of calling the FBI about a "loan" and how she got Todd Gold to call and ask if FBI hung up
the phone on her).
RICHARD LEE'S RESPONSE AT THE TIME:
"I have never in my life carried a gun, not even for one minute. Every time Courtney Love says 'gun,’ just substitute the word 'truth.' Like this: Courtney couldn't come to court because 'there was a guy with the truth down there.' The truth is Kryptonite to Courtney Love. She can't go anywhere near it."
****
On the Previous Week’s Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 21, 2005
Season Premiere
“Shitty of Angels” Part One
“LA Sheriffs, Pistols in Hand and
Fully Prepared to Kill KCWM,
Abduct Us to Please CLC, Whom They
Know to Be A Notoriously Disturbed Criminal”
image: After already calmly explaining to one deputy that Courtney Love-Cobain's complaints about him are baseless, Richard Lee is later arrested by LASD deputies with guns drawn, ready to fire, on January 11, 2005.
****
On the Previous Week's Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 14, 2005
NO PROGRAM NOTICE: Unfortunately, we were unable to bring you our planned season premiere because of the very aggressive actions of the criminal defendant Courtney Love-Cobain and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
****
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 15, 2004
“Coffin-shaped Box Set” Part 2
“EMPathy, EMPathy!”
******
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported November 24, 2004
“Coffin-shaped Box Set” Part 1
“Overture to ‘Closure’:
****
On The Previous New Program:
“Can I Be O.J.?” Part Two
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 13, 2004
“CLC, O.J. And The MCA:
Weitzman and Kardashian Were There for the Juice at the Rockingham Gate, Now the Former Universal Soldier Is There To Front for The Wid”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
"Can I Be O.J.?" Part One
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered,
as reported October 6, 2004
“CLC, Now Represented by O.J. Simpson’s Most Mysterious Counselor,
Incredibly Continues to Complain About KCWM’s Presence”
****
On The Previous Week’s Program:
"First Amendment..." Part Two
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 29, 2004
“Modern Political Method:
Deny, Deny, Deny,
Forget, Confuse, Feign Befuddlement,
And If Nothing Else Works,
Send Out Some Guys With Guns And Badges,
Maybe To Smash Some Noses” ******
On The Previous Week’s Program:
“First Amendment Fucked in the Ass by Fascist Authorities” Part One
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 22, 2004
“Mayor’s Personal SPD Thugs Criminally Assault KCWM by
Actually Jamming Badge Against Our Nose, then Shoving Us Out of City Hall and the Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Arts Committee”
****
On The Previous Week's Program:
“Moments of Zen?”
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 15, 2004
Season Premiere
“SPD’s No. 2 Runs for Cover,
Public Safety Chair Stonewalls,
Mayor Sends Goon Out of Limo to Shove KCWM,
and Copper Brass Fails to Show at Event
Honoring Murdered U.S. Attorney”
****
On The Previous New Program:
"Nonsense Communications"
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 21, 2004
“Council Public Safety Chair Has KCWM Heckled Rather Than
‘Fess Up About Internal Non-investigations Rate,
and SPD’s No. 2 Says They Did No Investigation ‘Cuz Yer Wrong’”
****
On The Previous New Program:
"Enter Ho-phelia, The Mad Scene"
KCWM is attempting to interview Seattle Police Department Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer outside of a meeting of the public safety committee of the Seattle City Council. He first objects to being called “Mr.” Kimerer, then tells Richard Lee he will answer one question. Lee asks how SPD failing to open an investigation into his charges of official corruption in the Cobain case can be in accordance with the policies of the SPD regarding investigating all serious allegations “to the fullest extent possible”. Kimerer does not address this, saying “I don’t know what that means,” and then offers a mere refutation of the validity of Lee’s research.
KIMERER: Are you going to let me answer the question? This has been thoroughly investigated as a, as a matter that is appropriate for what has been referred to the department. People don’t agree with your theory, and there is substantial evidence that lead them to that conclusion. So I’m sorry that--
Minutes later, Lee pursues SPD’s internal investigations director, Sandra “Sam” Pailca, who has left the same meeting, through a back door. Kimerer has just told Lee rather forcefully that he is simply “wrong,” although the verbiage of Pailca’s recent statements to Lee contradicts this directly.
LEE: Oh, say, Ms. Pailca. Say, Ms. Pailca, a lot of people are going to be perplexed by your (Pailca exits Seattle City Hall), I say, a lot of people are going to be perplexed about your statement about, you know, ‘you may be right and we may all be wrong, mistakes will be made.’ Is there any clarification that you’d want to add to that?
NOTE: There’s a good reason for Kimerer almost mumbling his denial that the majority of all complaints about police misconduct are dismissed without investigation—it is irrefutably true. Even the Fall 2003 Annual Report of the SPD’s Office of Professional Accountability lists a compilation of 866 complaints, of which 573 are listed as “contact logs” at the front of the report. That equals 66.1% of all complaints dismissed without any investigation whatsoever. The report defines this category as:
Contact Log: An OPA Investigation Section computerized form used to document inquiries from both inside and outside the department. These complaints range from de minimis complaints to nonsense communications.
Lee’s extensively documented complaint of 2003 was dismissed as such a “contact log” case.
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 7, 2004
“Enter Ho-phelia, The Mad Scene:
CLC Turns 40 as Loony Toon in Cuffs,
Whilst SPD’s Number Two Says a Phantom
‘body of evidence’ Proves KCWM Is Wrong
and That SPD Needn’t Investigate Murder Allegations”
****
On The Previous Program:
"Citizen Locke" Part Four
KCWM has been waiting in the sun for Washington Governor Gary Locke to conclude his session of meeting and spending time with each of the children who has shown up for his public relations event. He has gone on for 45 minutes longer than was originally scheduled. Richard Lee has been taping a lengthy monologue on Locke’s role in the Cobain case while surrounded all this time by police personnel who are there preventing Lee from approaching Locke. At least 5 such personnel walk alongside Lee as Locke walks back toward his offices, blocking him from getting within about 50 feet of Locke.
LEE: Oh, say, Mr. Locke, if you have just a moment, sir, I’ve been waiting two hours.
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 31, 2004
"Citizen Locke" Part Four
“Loss of Face Face-off:
Gov Gives Face Time to Kids for 2 Hours,
But Flees Rather Than Face KCWM’s Questions”
****
On The Previous Program:
"Citizen Locke" Part Three
KCWM has been waiting about 10 minutes during Washington Governor Gary Locke’s presentation to children on the importance of reading for their careers. Locke concludes, and Lee, surrounded by at least three Washington State Patrol personnel, asks for Locke’s attention.
LEE: Oh, say, Governor Locke, could I prevail upon you to read this document, sir?
The WSP personnel continue to insist that they will keep Lee’s documents, despite his protestations that this amounts to robbery of his one-of-a-kind documents. Finally, WSP relents and returns the binder, and forces Lee to about 100 feet from the event. They are soon joined by the Olympia city police. Surrounded by, and interacting with these personnel, Lee delivers a lengthy monologue in which he discusses Locke’s career and the fact that the blue binder is the actual 4-page item that he asked Locke to review in November of 1996, causing Locke to suddenly leave a campaign appearance.
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 24, 2004
“Citizen Locke” Part Three
“Rosebud--Something He Couldn’t Get, or Something He Lost:
Gary Locke’s Reputation and the Cobain Affair”
****
On The Previous Program:
"Citizen Locke" Part Two
Richard Lee has traveled about 60 miles to Olympia, to the lawn of the state capital, to again ask Washington Governor Gary Locke about his endorsement of the 1995 study on shotgun wounds that was supposed to clear up controversies about Lee’s assertion that Cobain did not die according to the causes described by the King County Medical Examiner in 1994. Locke exits a neoclassical executive office building next to the legislative building. He is more than 15 minutes off-schedule for an event called the Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge, where he will spend two hours reading and taking photos with children. He is walking rapidly, and gives no pause for Lee.
LEE: Oh, hi, Governor Locke. How are you today, sir? from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 17, 2004
“Citizen Locke” Part Two
“Ohmygod, He Did It Again:
Governor Performs Assault/Robbery on KCWM
and Falsely Claims 'I Did Not Ever Talk To You’ in 1996”
****
On The Previous Program:
"Citizen Locke" Part One
Richard Lee approaches Washington Governor Gary Locke on a side street bordering Seattle Center. Lee has been filming an Independence Day event featuring the three primary politicians in the state—the Seattle mayor, the King County executive, and the governor.
WASHINGTON GOVERNOR GARY LOCKE: (into cell phone) Okay. I got, I got some people here. Alright.
Lee goes on to deliver a lengthy monologue in which he discusses, among other points, how Yale graduate and lawyer Locke could fail to realize that Dr. Harruff’s publication of a purportedly scientific study on shotgun wounds constituted an alarming case of conflict of interest, because of his role in the Cobain autopsy at the King County Medical Examiner division.
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 10, 2004
“Citizen Locke” Part One
“I.D. For Ya’:
Washington Governor Welcomes New Citizens,
But Is Most Uncivil In Shoving KCWM’s Lens,
And Speeding From Our Questions”
****
On The Previous New Program:
"Politique Concrete"
LEE: Oh, hi Captain Evenson, how are you today?
EVENSON: Let me ask you this: does it strike you odd that all of the agencies you have talked to in the last 9 years do not put any merit into the information that you’ve supplied them? Is that, is that odd to you, or is it, do you feel that the entire, all of these different agencies are conspiring to hide something?
Isn’t there a perfectly obvious precedent that establishes a very good answer to your question? Is it possible that there’s a conspiracy within the Seattle government to hush up, you know, major crimes by Seattle police homicide detectives? Well, you don’t even have to ask the question—your job—
--beginning and ending of interview with Seattle police internal investigations commander Capt. Mark Evenson at Seattle City Hall, June 15, 2004.
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered as reported June 19, 2004
Politique Concrete:
"SPD’s Chief Internal Investigator Remains Obtuse About KCWM's Rock-Solid Facts, and
Refutes Any Possibility of SPD Cover-up Conspiracy,
Despite Reality That His Position Was Created
Because of Just Such a Scandal
By the Very Same Coppers"
****
On The Previous New Program:
"Nickels Plugged"
The following transcript details Richard Lee’s attempt to question Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels at the opening of the new central library on Sunday, May 23. Only 8 minutes pass from the time Lee begins asking questions of Nickels to the time he is thrown to the sidewalk outside by 3 “library security” officers.
Mr. Nickels, when you were elected, sir, your foremost promise on the campaign trail, Mr. Nickels, was that you were going to closely supervise (at this moment, Nickels takes off his glasses, does a strange spin around, and clearly gestures with his eyes and head toward Lee, as if signaling “get him”)—sir, you were going to closely supervise—(to U.M.) You’re assaulting me, fatboy.
Sir, your foremost promise when you ran for the office of mayor (U.M. is grabbing at Lee’s camera’s monopod)--Why are you grabbing me, pal—that’s a crime.
Another “library security” personnel approaches and during the next 90 seconds, joined by another uniformed “library security” officer, Lee is forcibly removed—having never been so much as asked to leave--by the three, who then hurl Lee to the sidewalk. Lee springs to his feet and insists he wants to file a complaint with any nearby SPD officer. But only feet away, the SPD officer who is standing by is one of two cops whom Lee says tried to murder him on March 16, 1996 (as described elsewhere on this website). Lee accuses him of this and he immediately denies it. When Lee tries to exit he is followed by the gang of uniformed personnel, and is shoved off the property by the officer he accuses of being involved in his attempted murder. Lee records a lengthy monologue that describes the incident in detail, in which he reports that he has not spoken publicly about this in years (although this website has had the story posted continuously since the day the attempted murder occurred).
He challenges the officers to get their union lawyer to file a suit against him if they feel they are able to argue that Lee is defamatory in his accusation of attempted murder (it's worth noting that Lee has never received a written threat of a lawsuit from any person for any statement he has made in this case or any other, despite Lee’s contention for 10 years that Cobain’s murder involved gross misconduct by certain government officials, and others).
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 29, 2004
"Nickels Plugged: Mayor Calls New Library A Place 'of inclusion...to break down barriers, to promote understanding, to gain knowledge...'
In Reality, KCWM Enters This 'cradle of democracy'
and Nickels Has Our Questioning of Him Brutally, Violently Supressed"
****
On The Previous Week's Program:
"Kurt Was Mutilated, Very Dry"
RICHARD LEE: Well, hi Mr. Sims, how are you today?
--Part of an interview Lee conducted with Sims at an environmental conference at Seattle Center, May 18, 2004.
****
LEE: Well, Mr. Licata, I’m back after having been here 2 weeks ago, as you recall, on the Cobain affair. And where I left off, right at the end of what I had to say to you 2 weeks ago, is that I had a conversation with the director of the OPA, Ms. Pailca, last year, the the end of this process of my going to great lengths to provide them with extensive information on the Cobain affair, and at the conclusion of the process, what Ms. Pailca had to say was, ‘Mr. Lee you may be right and we all may be wrong—mistakes will be made.’ And I offered this to you and you said, well, I don’t want to comment on what Ms. Pailca may have said or may not have said. And in fact after the council meeting I did get an opportunity to do a brief sort of interview with Ms. Pailca, and this is what I said to Ms. Pailca.
(Lee): I did quote you today in council. I quoted you as saying ‘Mr. Lee, you may be right and we all may be wrong—mistakes will be made.’ Now do you stand behind that comment that you made on June 25th of last year? Pailca: Absolutely.
So you have to understand that what Ms. Pailca was saying in this phone conversation was, basically, you can’t accuse us of not doing investigations, because we do investigations, we do a couple of hundred per year. Now if we didn’t do an investigation into this affair where the police are complicit in a murder, don’t tell us we don’t do investigations…In other words, it came in their inbox, it went out their outbox, that’s all Ms. Pailca has to say about it. And so, do you know of any aspect of the city ordinance or anything else in police procedure that allows the OPA to pick and choose the cases they investigate based on whimsy or whatever?
COUNCIL MEMBER NICK LICATA: Your time is up and we’ll get back in touch with you regarding that…
--Part of Lee’s testimony during the public comment opening of a meeting of the public safety committee of the Seattle City Council, May 18, 2004.
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 22, 2004
“Kurt Was Mutilated, Very Dry:
Top Pols Hear Horrific Tale,
Are Not Shaken, Not Stirred”
****
On The Previous New Program:
"Gimmie Honor, Nevermind the Justice"
RICHARD LEE: Oh, hi Ms. Pailca.
--Part of an interview conducted with the head of SPD’s internal investigations office, as she exited a Seattle City Council meeting on the afternoon of May 4, 2004.
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 8, 2004
Season Premiere
“Gimme Honor, Nevermind the Justice:
SPD Internal Investigations Director Says,
‘You May Be Right and We All May Be Wrong
--Mistakes Will Be Made’”
****
On the Previous New Program:
A Small Correction, but No Apologies.
The initial part of this website is now devoted to posting information from our most recent television programs, in which we try to make our facts as rock-solid as they should be according to a print journalism tradition, and not the standards of daily TV or radio chat. Whenever we veer into speculation or mere opinion, we try always to label it that way or to make it obvious enough so that a reasonable person would surmise this.
Below find intact our posting on yesterday’s television program, which clearly stated that our assertions about the "Love and Death" authors were subject to “final verification, which isn’t going to be easy…” because, as I explained, Rolling Stone and Court TV would be resistant to getting dragged into this. These comments were recorded as part of a long monologue at LAX airport on April 15, and both in the following week and also today, I have been dealing with a variety of personnel at those organizations, as well as Simon & Schuster, and the majority have been hostile to my inquiries. Nevertheless, there are new facts to report, not the least of which are within the website posting at the “Justice for Kurt” site, almost certainly posted today (and not yesterday), as Ian Halperin contacted them to contradict my monologue opinions. Let’s deal with these problems in their biographies item-by-item:
1. As you can see below, I was fairly convinced that Halperin/Wallace did not win the Rolling Stone college journalism award because their book cover from 1999 clearly states, “In 1984 Halperin and Wallace were cowinners…” of the prize, which is not correct. The posting today finally corrects this by saying it was 1985, not 1984. I’ve just found the microfilm and indeed, they took the prize as part of a group of 6 staffers at The Link at Concordia University, for investigating alleged funds mishandling at their school’s athletic department. (I had, even prior to the April 15 monologue, searched several years of the publication’s September back-to-college editions, but in 1985 the competition results were listed later in the year).
2. The book cover asserts that the two have “…more than thirty years of combined experience in journalism and the music industry…” which I find very dubious, even as a very squishy fact. Where are their actual journalism credentials, beyond scoring some points in college, then appearing a decade later to plagiarize my work while slamming me viciously (such as calling me a “crackpot” in the latest tome)? Wallace says his career prior to 1998 was as a radio station manager, and Halperin claims nothing for the decade prior to Cobain’s death other than being a musician.
3. The jacket of the new book, published only 3 weeks ago, states, “Ian is a regular correspondent for Court TV…” This is most certainly false. Court TV’s payroll department reconfirmed today what they told us last week, “In terms of a paid correspondent, we have no record of this person,” Ian Halperin. The General Counsel for Court TV, Mr. Doug Jacobs, told us today, “He is not currently a Court TV correspondent,” and said he had no further comment on whether Halperin had ever appeared on the network. The new posting today reads, “Halperin says he contributed to the show ‘True Hollywood Crimes’ on Court TV for 2 years and appeared on a half dozen shows.” There is no program with that title on the network now. At this point, we can only conclude that the statements in the book and on its cover that Halperin “was hired as a regular correspondent for Court TV” and that he “is a regular correspondent for Court TV” are false, and deliberately so. And so what Halperin claimed today is far less than what Simon & Schuster have published in the book they ask $25 for. If the book cover is deliberately false, isn't that fraud? And Halperin is clearly backing off the sole claim he and Wallace had to any post-college career in journalism under the traditional meaning of that word, i.e., regular appearance in a regularly scheduled publication or broadcast. (Halperin’s asserted role as editor of one Canadian Disk appears to be impossible to document-—this was some kind of fanzine project as Halperin told me in 1995, or perhaps it never existed). Unless they can come up with something else, it appears that Mssrs. Wallace and Halperin are not journalists. Regardless of how often they say they are.
4. The show-biz biographies and scandal books on the modeling industry they say they wrote appear to be exist, although only one, Halperin’s 200-page paperback on Celine Dion, appears to be a candidate for pre-dating the first Cobain book, meaning that their book-author careers seem to be largely or almost entirely based on the commercial success of their misappropriation of my ideas and my words. And people wonder why I don’t like these guys.
5. Max Wallace says he’s been a “guest columnist for the Sunday New York Times.” While we’re not calling this false, it’s fair to point out that this appears to be based on a single article of 1205 words he wrote in the “Back Talk” section of the Sports Desk. This hardly constitutes a basis for presenting himself as a Timesman, or a journalist.
6. Wallace claims to have “contributed to the BBC” and Halperin claims to have “contributed to 60 Minutes 2.” It’s not easy to decipher what this may mean, but CBS is owned by the same parent company as Simon & Schuster, Viacom, and perhaps someone there arranged for him to gain a potentially verifiable credit there. And perhaps Wallace is claiming credit for cooperating with independent director Nick Broomfield, who pressured cooperation from interview subjects by falsely claiming he was doing Kurt and Courtney “for the BBC.” But he was not. In fact, a big personal drama occurs in the film when Broomfield seems to get a phone call (perhaps from a paid actor) from someone claiming to be an MTV executive, saying that Courtney Love is demanding a pulling of his funding by MTV, also wholly owned by Viacom. (I’ve appeared in two documentaries for BBC-TV, but I certainly don’t blur the line between subject and producer by implying I’ve been have been on the editorial side of BBC). If they want us to take this “contributed to” nonsense seriously, they will have to explain what it’s supposed to mean, because no one knows.
7. The new book says, “Ian …embarked on an acting career that landed him a role as Howard Hughes’s friend in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film, The Aviator.” At first this seems laughable, and it does not check out. IMDb.com has a “complete cast and crew” list of more than 200 names, with 44 actors listed in The Aviator cast, for even minor characters such as “Louis B. Mayer Cronie” and “Starlet.” The “Justice for Kurt” posting today has Halperin reasserting that he will be in the film, saying he “filmed scenes… in August & September, 2003.” IMDb says its list was last updated November 23, 2003, and gives the status of the film as “post-production”. But the new posting today has Halperin still confident we’ll see him theaters soon. Halperin seems not to understand that even featured players can get cut out of a final edit. IMDb has 19 persons with the last name “Halperin” listed as having film and TV credits. None of them named Ian. It is extremely hard to believe that Halperin has an “acting career” that would have him being featured in a $115 million film by one considered by many “the greatest living American director”. Halperin claims he has a contract to show, but perhaps this is for being a mere uncredited extra for the film, which was filmed in Montreal. How about Halperin letting loose with some details now, like his character’s name, how many lines he is supposed to be seen uttering, and why he is conspicuously absent from the published cast list? Otherwise, we’ll have to assume this is false.
The stoked-up rumors about something big happening with Tom Grant this month probably led many to hope that everyone would get a listen at all of the relevant tapes Grant made with Courtney Love and her attorney. Instead, we have a set of snippets with interpretation and piece-together by Halperin and Wallace. The disclosure of the “practice page” (said to be given to Grant by Love’s lawyer) on which Ms. Love appears to work out faking Cobain’s handwriting is truly fascinating—too bad Grant clung so tightly to his “retirement letter” theory that he waited this long to release it (it strongly supports my original contention that the whole note was forged). What more can I say about these guys than that everything they say has to be held in suspicion, and that is unfortunate in a case like this one. Without a high degree of credibility to the writers presenting these facts, Courtney Love and her publicity machine can knock them off in a sympathetic forum like Leno, Letterman or The View with a few well-chosen words. In other settings she could take them apart almost as extensively as I have here, without ever having to discuss the facts of the case.
Has anyone noticed that Simon & Schuster has a division called MTV Books? I mention this to remind you of the strange relationship between the various Viacom properties in bringing about this big-scale publishing push. It’s really an MTV wet-dream come true—after 10 years, they (or the parent company, at least) establish some deniability in the Kurt-was-murdered realm in a once-removed way, and yet they can still feature Courtney Love as a major personality (her ego-tripping “24 Hours of Love” is on the MTV2 schedule almost daily this week), because anyone literate enough to read the tabloids knows enough to call these guys scandal-mongers, who themselves appear on TV and couch all of their arguments (the lack of fingerprints, the jumbo dose of heroin, etc.) in a contradictory flurry of maybes that add up to nothing. Let me put it this way: if Courtney Love were to debate these guys on the evidence for say 30 minutes, I think the result would be the stooges limping away with apologies and asking why CLC didn’t want to join them on the hunt for the “real killers”. I’ve closely watched and taken notes on their many TV appearances, and believe me, they’ve got a cold hand, not a pair of deuces between them. It can all be explained away. Even an impaired Courtney could stomp ‘em.
And what has CLC’s reaction to my presence at her drug trials been? As you may have seen, a retreat back into her limo in less than 60 seconds on one occasion, followed by a refusal to stop for cameras outside court whenever I’ve been present, and, most incredibly, an asserting on at least 3 different appearances on the Howard Stern program that this guy from Seattle, Richard Lee, is stalking her “with a gun” outside of court. (We, of course, immediately urged Beverly Hills Police and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to investigate, but both, very curiously, refused). And what does this say about the razor-tongued CLC, that she wants not a single further moment of recorded interaction between us, and will go to such desperate lengths to keep me from her trials, and the media that surround these events? The obvious answer is that Courtney Love knows I have the case against her, and the case is strong.
Below is a copy of my original posting at the Barnes & Noble site on the occasion of Wallace and Halperin’s initial "revised" volume release. I’ve just read it carefully and see no reason to change or correct anything. Of course, we welcome any clarification that Wallace, Halperin or any other party would care to offer to explain their evidently incorrect and/or false assertions. Halperin's brief comments posted today are hardly sufficient. (RL posted this 4/26/04, 11:37 PM, Pacific).
HERE IS THE ORIGINAL BARNES AND NOBLE POST:
Richard Lee, the leading expert on this case., April 6, 1999
Con Artists and Plagiarists Do Not Deserve Your Dollars
I would like to urge Nirvana fans and those in the book business not to buy this item, now out in a highly self-congratulatory 'revised' paperback edition.***** I met Halperin and Wallace in 1995, after they had e-mailed me to let me know how excited they were to read my book-length composition on the Cobain case on my widely known website. They arrived uninvited in Seattle and said they had lots of connections in Canadian TV and wanted to get a deal to do a newsmagazine segment on me, possibly for the CBC.***** After spending a couple of hours showing them locations for their supposed TV segment, I was not favorably impressed. Their furtive conduct made it apparent they had some hidden agenda, and they seemed to know or care little about Kurt Cobain other than that he was the object of their get-rich-quick fantasies. After getting me fairly irritated with their banter, Halperin actually said they were too busy to drive me home and tried to insist that they drop me off on a street corner many miles from my home, as Wallace offered that they could slip me a few bucks for a cab and expenses. I could have spit.***** A few months later they began to have their names appear in the U.S. tabloids as the purported authors of a book that was going to reveal all about the Cobain case, despite the fact that they did not publish anything for another 2 years. When I called Wallace to ask him about this surprise development of their becoming the famous authors of a non-existent book, he literally shieked that they would sue me if I ever dared to utter a word of criticism of their plans to cash in on this story, which I had made available to the world of Internet readers without ever asking anyone for a dime, in the form of the basic research that will always be the fundamental work at the center of the questions about how Cobain really died.***** As my reward for trying to cooperate with these guys, they subject me to much ridicule in their eventually released book, writing, 'In the strange cast of characters that dot this case, perhaps none is more bizarre than Richard Lee. Lee is a rather odd character. He comes across as the stereotype of a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist...bitter...' and 'difficult to take seriously.' (While they also mention my long career as a journalist, this does not balance their baseless mischaracterization).***** I can say without reservation that I consider Max Wallace and Ian Halperin to be plagiarists, and even far worse, liars. The first charge is completely beyond question, as, after they subject me to a battery of pejoratives, they cut-and-paste a verbatim 389-word segment, another 322-word segment, some very significant additional portions of my research, and the color photo of my face directly from my website and into their little book, ignoring obvious warnings that this material is under my copyright.***** Even more disturbingly, they introduce their product with a claim that Halperin had actually met Cobain at a music club in 1990 and that Cobain had asked him (and I quote them directly here), 'Hey man, you know where I can score some smack?'***** If they are being as untruthful with their readers as they were in their duplicitous dealings with me, I can say that this is an outrageous and obscene lie. Their apparent strategy is to put themselves in some sort of leadership position as scandalmongers who have first-hand knowledge of what Cobain was 'really' like. In doing so, Halperin is, to my knowledge, the first person ever to come forward with such an story of being solicited by Cobain for narcotics as a person he just met, and this stands in stark contrast to the known record on these issues (wherein we find Cobain himself asserting that media stories of his drug use were largely fictional). ***** Do us both a favor and resist any temptation to hand over to these con artists (whose claim to be longstanding journalists is left unsubstantiated) any of your hard-earned. If you want much of the truth about the Cobain case for free, just click over to my website (easily found through Yahoo and elsewhere), and if you want more, just hold on for my 'Kurt Cobain Was Murdered: The Independent Investigation', to be out in August if not earlier (to order, use ISBN #0-9657412-0-6). Richard Lee Seattle, WA March 26, 1999 (Note: the book is still a work-in-progress.—RL, 4/26/04).
BELOW IS THE SAMPLED COMMENTARY FROM THE APRIL 25 TV PROGRAM:
“But the big story of the week, which really blew my socks off was, I called Rolling Stone and said hey, who won the 1984 Rolling Stone college journalism prize, and found out there was only one prize, and that went to Mr. W. Hampton Sides, 22, a 1984 Yale graduate, won in the investigative category… Not the two stooges. Not Max Wienerdog and Ian Blowhard, not those guys from Canada. In fact, they told me at the Rolling Stone, gee, I don’t even think we even let Canadians enter the contest—which is still going on to this day—we get nasty letters all the time about Canadians who don’t like the idea that we won’t let them enter. Wow. Really?...These guys did not win the Rolling Stone prestigious annual journalism prize as students, this Ian asshole does not work for Court TV—he was not ‘hired’ as a ‘regular correspondent’ for Court TV--and he sure as hell is not going to be starring as Leonard DiCaprio-slash-Howard Hughes’s buddy in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film The Aviator…. They’re not any of those things….They were on the Catherine Crier program, and they got like 8 minutes, and she was very complimentary. She holds up the book at the end and she says, ‘Fascinating, fascinating...’…Unfortunately, fascinating the material may be, certainly fascinating the premise is, but (neither) Ms. Crier nor her staff took a look at even the first few pages…or even the inside flaps where they’re making these outrageous claims that this Ian butthole…that he’s a ‘regular correspondent’ for CourtTV! …Believe me, they laughed at the beginning when I brought this up with someone that I’ve been dealing with on the phone for many months, on related matters. She said, if they hired some new correspondents, I would know about it. I’ve never heard of this guy. No…Total liars to all appearances, although I’m still working on the final verification, which isn’t easy to get now that Rolling Stone and Court TV realize how stupid they’re going to look, that their corporate names got dragged into this, in this particular way.”
(NOTE: THE THREE IMAGES REFERRED TO BELOW HAVE BEEN DELETED TO AID DIAL-UP USERS IN LOADING THE PAGE MORE EASILY, AND BECAUSE THE "LOVE AND DEATH" AUTHORS CONTROVERSY DOES NOT REALLY HINGE ON ANYTHING PROVED BY YOUR ACTUALLY SEEING THOSE DOCUMENTS--R. LEE, July 10, 2004).
Image 1 is the back flap from Wallace and Halperin's new book, under Simon & Schuster. Image 2 is from the back cover of their 1999 "Revised and Updated" Cobain paperback. Image 3 is from a microfilm copy of Rolling Stone magazine, showing that Mr. W. Hampton Sides was the actual winner of the award Wallace and Halperin falsely claim that they won. (Note: At this point we correct the last caption on this original version, asking you to substitute “incorrectly” for “falsely,” i.e., for whatever reasons, Wallace and Halperin “incorrectly claim” that they won the 1984 award on the back of their 1999 book. Please extend that correction to the commentary here transcribed from the April 25 TV edition, which was based on the best information we had at the time, as we clearly noted at that time.—RL, 4/26/04).
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 25, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 14
"LAX Standards: Our Airport Monologue
on CLC's Child Abuse/Murder Gags on Leno
and Fakery by 'Love and Death' Stooges"
****
On The Previous Program:
“I’m not suggesting we interfere with NBC’s right to make a profit, on the other hand, I have great hostility toward the idea that they’re interfering with my ability to make a profit, because that thing (NBC Dateline) two weeks ago, 12 days ago scooped me, you know. It was just a malicious corporate takeover of the thesis of Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, that they were going to give big play in front of 20 million people or so on a Friday night…And what is the net result? The net result is that not only is the public presumed to have a short memory span, but the fucking network itself…This was really a sundering of the trust between the public and the TV networks…that essentially own and control the public airwaves…It’s only incrementally different from putting O.J. back on Monday Night Football.”
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 18, 2004
“Deadline, Beverly Hills” Part 13
“Adolph Hitler is Alive and Well
and Appearing at NBC Studios in Burbank:
Courtney Declares ‘I Am The Center of the Universe’ and 'The Biggest Bitch In Rock’
and Jokes About Beating and Murdering 11-year-old Daughter”
****
On The Previous Program:
"Rip him to fucking shreds. I don't care. Leave his limbs scattered, and then ten years from now we'll celebrate that."
--MTV producer Alex Coletti, extolling nearly riotous crowd of teens and twentysomethings to exact violent retribution on KCWM producer Richard Lee for seemingly limiting their exposure on MTV's live coverage of 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's official date of death, April 5, 2004.
from:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 11, 2004
"The Battle of Viretta Park" Part 1:
"KCWM Sings Our Song, MTV Calls It 'Giving Everyone Crap'"
*****************************************************
*****************************************************
Our television series is seen in King County, Washington (including Seattle) in hundreds of thousands of households that receive the cable signal on Channel 29 or 77. All of the programs are presented under the aegis title Now See It Person to Person, which has been the name of the weekly series since it began in April, 1993. Over 600 programs have been presented as Kurt Cobain Was Murdered editions, beginning on April 13, 1994 (the earliest episodes were actually called Was Kurt Cobain Murdered?).
****
Here are the titles from the most recent new programs:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 4, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats…” Part Three
“False Witness #1:
The Saucy Unpaid ‘Unimportant’ Intern
Elizabeth ‘Sascha’ Sprinkle, Reluctantly Reveals Being a Friend and Prom-mate of Mayor’s Daughter, Who Has Been to His Home Numerous Times and Worked for Nickels Because of His Kyoto Green Position, but Who Cannot In Any Way Describe Nickels’ Car, Which She Says KCWM ‘Threw Yourself In Front Of’ for ‘Maybe 30 Seconds,’ Kicking a Cop ‘Between One and Ten’ Times”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 28, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats...” Part Two
“Free As A Bird:
City Drops Cop-kicker Political Prosecution After 21 Months,
On Same Day Mayor’s Son Jacob Nickels Gets Popped in Federal
Casino Cheating Sting, and KCWM Kisses The Sky
In 67-story Chase Scene with Senior City Shyster Who Unethically Threatens, ‘We’ll Get You Next Time’”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 21, 2007
“Funeral Baked Meats, The Legend Continues” Part One
“I Am The Walrus and Elvis Lives (Costello, That Is):
An Arctic Chill in Muni Court as Judge Threatens KCWM
With Compulsory Mental Evaluation and Loss of
Fundamental Constitutional Rights
When We Mention News that Both We and Nickels
Are Slated as Characters in Zioncheck Mo-pic,
and Ruminations on How Audio Created the Immortal Star,
or At Least Long-term Gainfully Employed Ones”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 7, 2007
“Grief-aganza” Part Two
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 31, 2007
“Grief-aganza” Part One
“City Observes Sort-of Anniversary of
Capitol Hill and Jewish Federation Mass Shootings,
Mayor Expresses Tepid Ambition that ‘Fewer of These’
Will Occur, And Narcky Police Lieutenant Brazenly
Assaults KCWM, Fails To Explain Why”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 10, 2007
“Kurt Era, 40” Part Two
“On the Anniversary of His Birth,
Kurt’s Grandfather Lets Loose With
Heartfelt Critique: ‘I’d just have to call everybody
on the police department that had anything
to do with it a goddamn liar.’”
****
Season Premiere
On The Previous New Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 24, 2007
“Kurt Era, 40” Part One
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 21, 2006
“The First Amendment...” Part Two
“Exclusionary Principles:
KCWM Airs Video Clips That Should Have Shown
District Court That Nickels is a Thicko Who Ordered
Cop Assault Just So He Could Gain Kneejerk Decision
To Crush Our Reporting on Crime, Especially His Own”
****
On The Previous Program:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 14, 2006
“The First Amendment Was Lynched Today” Part One
“King County Judge Barbara Linde Flagrantly Ignores
Constitutional Protections in RCW 10.14,
Orders 5-year Restrictions on KCWM,
Rewarding Mayor Greg Nickels for His Perjury,
Police Violence, Political Dirty Tricks”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 30, 2006
“Fifth Avenue Freeze-out” Part Three
“Liberal Bullshit Sleeps With The Fishes:
KCWM Finally Catches Up With Police Chief After Another
Mumbling Council Appearance, He Remains Silent With Us
Except for The Push Out Of The Elevator,
Mayor Rolls Deep Down Fifth Like Gangsta Rapper,
and Nick The Sicilian Loses Trademark Smirk”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 23, 2006
“Fifth Avenue Freeze-out” Part Two
“It's A Sicilian Message:
City Council Pres Runs Like Bandito in White Don Corleone Fedora, His Aide Offers Thin Arguments on Children in Nightclubs Law, and Calls KCWM ‘racist’ for Saying It Was a Bad Idea to Take La Cosa Nostra Money, ‘cause, You Know, Nick's A Sicilian”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 16, 2006
“Fifth Avenue Freeze-out” Part One
“Police Chief Leaves Meeting in Sudden Escape from KCWM, Mayor Slaps Us With Further Anti-First Amendment Legal Action, City Council Pres Runs From Our Questions, So You Know, It's Just Another Casual Friday”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 19, 2006
“Hollywood-planned:
Captain America Cobain Got Whacked in Scheme
Involving Studio Head Geffen, Clinton's Biggest Backer,
So How Is It Bill's Oxford Buddy Kate Pflaumer
Quashed Any Cobain Inquiry As U.S. Attorney,
and Why Is She Being Re-appointed To Sniff Out
SPD Corruption Now?”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 5, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Eight
“We've Got A World That Sucks:
Nutty Professor James Alan Fox Turns In Report
On Mass Slaying That Fakes Up Every Aspect of the Case, Even, We Kid You Not, That It's ‘probable’
The Killer Was Thinking of a Nirvana Song as He Slaughtered Six (But the Song, Too, Turns Out To Be a Fake)”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported June 10, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Seven
“Something Stinks With The Big Cheeses:
Homicide Head Dummies Up On If He
Refused To Do Cobain Investigation Because
It Would Be A ‘Waste of Taxpayers' Money,’ and
SPD’s No. 2 Offers Cursory Denial He Lied About
Mass Slaying (In His Taped Statements) Then
Cites KCWM for Jaywalking”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 27, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Six
“Inside Information:
Kyle Huff’s Friends/Apartment Managers Describe
Bungling Police Raid, and Believe Killings
Were Caused by Sudden Drug Reaction, Meanwhile,
Police Chief Contradicts Earlier Promises by Saying
Toxicology Results Will Remain Forever Secret” ****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 6, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Five
“‘We want to make sure we find the truth…We owe it to the victims of this tragedy to solve the puzzle of what happened’: SPD’s No. 2, Clark Kimerer, Sings His Song of Truth on
Huff Killings, Whilst Almost in the Same Breath
Lying About Huff’s Dope Stash”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 29, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Four
“Enough Caps for All You Fools:
Police Cap Off Seattle’s Most Violent Month Ever
With Up-close Blasting of Unnamed 18-year-old at Broadway Bus Stop,
Claiming He Shot at Them, or ‘reached behind his back’ at Least, To Grab Huge Old Pistol He Had Stashed in His Ass Crack,
and Evidence of Huff Hoaxes Mounts”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 22, 2006
“Risk Management:
Their Methods Are Corrupt,
Their Manner Is Corrupt,
Why Don’t They Call It
The Corrupt City Council?” or
“City Politicians Get an Earful From Citizens
on Police Misconduct, Especially New Scheme
To Use Internal Investigations To Target Police Victims,
and Shadowy SPD Auditor Dashes from Our Questions,
Even the Spelling of Her Name (Katrina C. Pflaumer)”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 15, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Three
“'This Was Not About Music, This Was Not About A Party’:
Seattle Mayor Comes to Nearly Instant Conclusion About
Youth Massacre, and Most Media Are Eager To Help Him Dodge Out of His True Role in The Crime”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 8, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken…” Part Two
“Let The Blame Game Begin:
KCWM Addresses Grievances on Mass Murder
to City Council President Nick Licata,
Seat of Government Only Smirks and Winks”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 1, 2006
“Novoselic’s Chicken, the All Ages Dance Ordinance, Comes Home To Roost” Part One
“The ‘Billion Dollar’ Local Music Industry, Determined
To Distract from the Cobain Killing, Passed a Radical,
Child-endangering Special Interest Law, and Now the Predicted Tragedy Has Come About, as Redneck Dweeb Kyle Huff Slaughters Six, Self, with Shotgun (Plus Pistol)”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 18, 2006
“It Was 25.25 Years Ago Today”
Part Two
“How To Succeed In Business By Really, Really Trying:
KCWM Examines the Record on Rock’n’roll’s Top Homicide,
Including David Geffen’s Reported Joy at His Overnight Hit,
Number One With A Hail Of Bullets”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 11, 2006
“It Was 25.25 Years Ago Today”
Part One
“KCWM Looks Back To Question Johnny Lennon's
Angelic Nature, and To Ask If Someone Other Than
The Devil Made The Redneck Dweeb Do It”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 18, 2006
“Funeral Baked Meats” Part Five
“No Stinking Badges:
After Five Months of Trying, KCWM Finally Obtains
Adequate Copy of Alleged Cop-kicking Incident,
Which Shows No Such Thing, But Instead An Assault on Us
by Plainclothes Mayoral Companion and Bald-ass Skinhead Officer P.J. Fox”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 11, 2006
“Death to the ACLU:
So-called Civil Libertarians Commit Public Relations Suicide
by Attacking and Robbing KCWM at
Their Anointment of Norm ‘Choke-out’ Stamper
(Assisted, Of Course, by Police)”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 4, 2006
Season Premiere
“Her Daughter's Mother” or
“Holey Biography, Batman:
CLC’s Bio-mum Hawks New Bio-tome,
But Will Not Confirm Famous Tale
of Bio-dad’s LSD-dosing Tyke CLC,
and Denies His Decade-long Allegation
She Murdered Sperm Donor Kurt Cobain”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 15, 2005
“Funeral Baked Meats” Part Four
and
“…Asshole” Part Six
“Another Great Week for American Justice”
or “You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Fucks You:
KCWM Gets Burned by Our Lawyer in ‘Meats’ Case,
Then Our Lawyer Calls Us 'A Fucking Asshole' in ‘Asshole’ Case (At Least We Got Our ‘Asshole’ Tape Back)”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported November 10, 2005
“King County Was Manipulated” 2005
“Down for the Count:
King County’s Elections Head Declines to Say Much About
Big-time Convicted Embezzler Who Wrote Suspicious Software
In His Offices Under a $4 Million Contract Whilst Concealing This and His 44-foot Yacht From King County Prosecutors,
Saying ‘That was years ago’ About Last Year’s Underreported Scandal” ****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 27, 2005
“…Asshole” Part Five
“Full Mental Jack-off:
In Our Just-released, Long-withheld Video Footage,
Ex Police Chief Norm Stamper Doesn’t Seem To Mind at All
A Discussion of His Serial Killer Personality, but
When
Danny Goldberg Is Mentioned, Boy, Do the Goons Go Nuts”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 20, 2005
“Funeral Baked Meats” Part Three
“A Straight-up Punk-ass Bitch From The Word Go:
Dirty Little Jailhouse Trickster Greg Nickels, a.k.a. The Mayor,
Lies Under Oath That KCWM Beat His Wife’s Monkey
Ass
From Here to Humptulips, Only To Learn That The Video Shows
The Missus Laughing and Joking With Us About His Grotesque Obesity”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 6, 2005
"Funeral Baked Meats" Part Two
"It's Like Freaking El Salvador:
Generalissimo Greg Nickels Has Coppers
Surround KCWM as We Exit From Voting on Election Day,
Slap Us With Anti-harassment Suit"
(This program actually aired one week later)
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 29, 2005
“KCWM For Mayor” Part Eight
“S’tymied Again in Candidate’s Non-interview:
Is the Seattle Times Really a Newspaper Anymore,
or Just a Front for the Blethen Family’s Scheme
To Partner-up in the Allentown Development,
and Soak the Taxpayers for About a Billion in Cold Hard?”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 15, 2005
“KCWM For Mayor” Part Seven
“Funeral Baked Meats:
Current Mayor Holds Flesh Roasting Event
About 100 Yards from Cobain Grave Robbing and Corpse Mutilation Crime Scene,
Curiously, KCWM Is Invited Guest, and Is, Of Course,
Attacked and Jailed by Our Political Opponent's Official Thugs" (This program actually aired one week later) ****
“KCWM For Mayor” Part Six
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 3, 2005
“Citizen Dick:
KCWM Interviews With Local Hearst Daily,
Decries Limp-dickedness In Seattle Political Culture” ****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 27, 2005
“Murdergate Meets KCWM For Mayor”
“False Statistics:
Public Safety Chair and Police Chief
Keep Internal Affairs Stats All Faked Up,
Then Dash From Our Questions,
and Mayor Evades KCWM, Too” ****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 20, 2005
“KCWM For Mayor” and
“…You’re Gonna Die, Asshole” Parts Four
“Yesterday’s News:
KCWM Has High-stress Friday,
Headbanging With Portland Law Bright and Early,
Returning To Expose Unethical Conduct
of Seattle Ethics Office Before Close of Beeswax”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 13, 2005
“KCWM For Mayor”
Part Three
“Our Platform Is Simple:
A Family-friendly City
and No Corporate Welfare for Geffen’s Partner Paul Allen--
A Message Mayor Darth V. Speeds Away From Hearing” ****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 6, 2005
“’I’d Whisper in Their Ear, You’re Gonna Die, Asshole’”
Part Three
“The Book Business Is About The Dirtiest Goddam Business In The World Right Now:
Mild-mannered KCWM Appears at Stamper Event
in Portland, Is Jumped Upon by Waiting Goons,
Busted by Local Copperoos” ****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 30, 2005
“KCWM for Mayor” Part Two
“2,500 Seattle Signatories Can’t Be Wrong:
KCWM Files for Mayor’s Job,
Ex Top Boss at Elections Office Is Under Indictment, but Their
Procedures Are Still Marred by Goofy-assed Laxity”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 23, 2005
“’I’d Whisper in Their Ear, You’re Gonna Die, Asshole’”
Part Two
A Brutal Civility:
Ex Top Cop and Ex Alterna-weekly Owner Have KCWM Attacked by Goons,
SPD Cops a Do-nothing Attitude,
Seattleite Zombies Line Up To Pay for Stamper’s Words of Wisdom” ****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 16, 2005
“’I’d Whisper in Their Ear, You’re Gonna Die, Asshole’”
Part One
"Ex-Police Chief Norm Stamper
Returns to Seattle,
KCWM Pays $5 for Q&A Session,
Is Brutally Assaulted When Daring To Ask About His Old
Extravagant Claims of Brutality, and His New Employment by Danny Goldberg, Nirvana’s Old Manager”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 9, 2005
"KCWM for Mayor" Part One
“Nickels’ ‘Seattle Way’:
KCWM Begins Political Campaign,
Armed Coppers Show Up Within Minutes”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 2, 2005
“Murdergate” Part Three
“American Idle:
City Council Members and Wannabes
Audition for ‘Music Industry’ Graft
by Promising Corporate and Personal Welfare
and Telling The Average Schmuck ‘if you want
peace and quiet, you better live in the suburbs’”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported June 25, 2005
“'Last Days'…” Part Two
“Courtney Love or Confusion:
New Cobain Necro-pic
Very Precisely Spins Details From Official Lies,
So Is Van Sant Just Dumb, or
Is He Serving Some Dark Lord?” ****
"'Last Days': It's Confused,
So Long, So Untrue”
Part One
“Van Sant Appears for 3 Minutes at
Premiere of New Flick, Just Long Enough
To Say He’s ‘very scared’ of KCWM,
from Whom He Copped His Title,
from Our 1999 BBC Rock Shrines Interview”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported June 11, 2005
“Murdergate” Part Two
“All the President’s Men:
Nirvana, Inc.-JAMPAC President ‘Stretch’ Novoselic
Keeps the Grease Flowing to Public Safety Chair,
Who Calls It a ‘Stretch’ To See This as
Connected to Murder Evidence He Obstructed,
Then Opts To Keep Throat Resealed”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 21, 2005
Season Premiere
“Murdergate” Part One
“Overcoming Overreaching Ban,
KCWM Returns to Seat of Government
To Question Public Safety Chair on His
Taking of Thousands of Dollars from
Novoselic’s Lobbying Partner Whilst
Quashing Evidence of Cobain’s Murder”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 25, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Six
“Detective Friction:
LASD Interrogation of KCWM
by Dynamic Duo Who Seem to Have
Been Fed A Lot of Choice Skinny
From None Other Than CLC Herself,
14:17-16:02, January 12, 2005”
****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 18, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Five
"Fulsome Prison Blues:
I Wasn’t Shot by the
Sheriff and His Deputies,
But LA County Lock-up
Ain’t the Beverly Hilton"
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 11, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Four
“Illegal Seizure and Search:
KCWM Nabbed,
Our Cool Stuff Grabbed,
We All Confabbed in
Gnarly Dragnet Spoof”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 4, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Three
“Breakfast of Champions:
The Three-day Hunger Stint
Comes to an End, and
KCWM Scarfs and Vents”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 28, 2005
“Shitty of Angels” Part Two
“Foreboding and Aftermath:
KCWM Arrives, Is Abducted by Police, Is Eventually Released,
and The World Reacts”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 21, 2005
Season Premiere
“Shitty of Angels” Part One
“LA Sheriffs, Pistols in Hand and
Fully Prepared to Kill KCWM,
Abduct Us to Please CLC, Whom They
Know to Be A Notoriously Disturbed Criminal”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported December 15, 2004
“Coffin-shaped Box Set” Part 2
“EMPathy, EMPathy!”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported November 24, 2004
“Coffin-shaped Box Set” Part 1
“Overture to ‘Closure’:
3-panel Rigid Horizontal Digipak
Holds 4 Trays, Plus 60-page Booklet”
******
“Can I Be O.J.?” Part Two
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 13, 2004
“CLC, O.J. And The MCA:
Weitzman and Kardashian Were There for the Juice at the Rockingham Gate,
Now the Former Universal Soldier Is There To Front for The Wid”
******
"Can I Be O.J.?" Part One
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported October 6, 2004
“CLC, Now Represented by O.J. Simpson’s Most Mysterious Counselor,
Incredibly Continues to Complain About KCWM’s Presence”
******
"First Amendment..." Part Two
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 29, 2004
“Modern Political Method:
Deny, Deny, Deny,
Forget, Confuse, Feign Befuddlement,
And If Nothing Else Works,
Send Out Some Guys With Guns And Badges,
Maybe To Smash Some Noses”
******
“First Amendment Fucked in the Ass by Fascist Authorities” Part One
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 22, 2004
“Mayor’s Personal SPD Thugs Criminally Assault KCWM by
Actually Jamming Badge Against Our Nose, then Shoving Us Out of City Hall and the Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Arts Committee”
******
“Moments of Zen?”
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported September 15, 2004
Season Premiere
“SPD’s No. 2 Runs for Cover,
Public Safety Chair Stonewalls,
Mayor Sends Goon Out of Limo to Shove KCWM,
and Copper Brass Fails to Show at Event
Honoring Murdered U.S. Attorney”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 21, 2004
“Council Public Safety Chair Has KCWM Heckled Rather Than
‘Fess Up About Internal Non-investigations Rate,
and SPD’s No. 2 Says They Did No Investigation ‘Cuz Yer Wrong’”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported August 7, 2004
“Enter Ho-phelia, The Mad Scene:
CL Turns 40 as Loony Toon in Cuffs,
Whilst SPD’s Number Two Says a Phantom
‘body of evidence’ Proves KCWM is Wrong
and That SPD Needn’t Investigate Murder Allegations”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 31, 2004
"Citizen Locke" Part Four
“Loss of Face Face-off:
Gov Gives Face Time to Kids for 2 Hours,
But Flees Rather Than Face KCWM’s Questions”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 24, 2004
“Citizen Locke” Part Three
“Rosebud--Something He Couldn’t Get, or Something He Lost:
Gary Locke’s Reputation and the Cobain Affair”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 17, 2004
“Citizen Locke” Part Two
“Ohmygod, He Did It Again:
Governor Performs Assault/Robbery on KCWM
and Falsely Claims 'I Did Not Ever Talk To You’ in 1996”
******
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported July 10, 2004
“Citizen Locke” Part One
“I.D. For Ya’:
Washington Governor Welcomes New Citizens,
But Is Most Uncivil In Shoving KCWM’s Lens,
And Speeding From Our Questions”
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered as reported June 19, 2004
Politique Concrete:
"SPD’s Chief Internal Investigator Remains Obtuse About KCWM's Rock-Solid Facts, and
Refutes Any Possibility of SPD Cover-up Conspiracy,
Despite Reality That His Position Was Created
Because of Just Such a Scandal
By the Very Same Coppers"
****
"Nickels Plugged: Mayor Calls New Library A Place 'of inclusion...to break down barriers, to promote understanding, to gain knowledge...'
In Reality, KCWM Enters This 'cradle of democracy'
and Nickels Has Our Questioning of Him Brutally, Violently Supressed"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 22, 2004
“Kurt Was Mutilated, Very Dry:
Top Pols Hear Horrific Tale,
Are Not Shaken, Not Stirred”
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 8, 2004
Season Premiere
“Gimme Honor, Nevermind the Justice:
SPD Internal Investigations Director Says,
‘You May Be Right and We All May Be Wrong
--Mistakes Will Be Made’”
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 2, 2004
“It's Our Season-ending
Text'n'Clip Promo Reel"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 25, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 14
"LAX Standards: Our Airport Monologue
on CLC's Child Abuse/Murder Gags on Leno
and Fakery by 'Love and Death' Stooges"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 18, 2004
“Deadline, Beverly Hills” Part 13
“Adolph Hitler is Alive and Well
and Appearing at NBC Studios in Burbank:
Courtney Declares ‘I Am The Center of the Universe’ and 'The Biggest Bitch In Rock’
and Jokes About Beating and Murdering 11-year-old Daughter”
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 11, 2004
"The Battle of Viretta Park" Part 1:
"KCWM Sings Our Song, MTV Calls It 'Giving Everyone Crap'"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported April 4, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 12:
"Positively Burton Way: Angry Journos Say,
'She Won't Talk If You're Here, Richard, So I'm Sorry, You Have To Die'"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 28, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 11:
"Waiting for The Ho:
CLC Is 2 Hours Late for Her Latest Perp Walk"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 21, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 10:
"February in LA: The Mural Monologue Wrap-up"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 14, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 9:
"Beverly Hills Cops on 'Gun' Allegation:
If Courtney Love Said It, It Must Be A Lie"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported March 7, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 8:
"'And I Swear That I Don't Have a Gun':
CLC Tells Outrageous Lie That KCWM
Is Her Ruby-esque Stalker"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 29, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 7:
"Courting Disaster: CLC's Lawyer Quits,
She is FTA, and a
'Guy With A Gun' Is Blamed"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 22, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 6:
"Citing Mysterious 'Security Concerns,'
CLC is FTA at Felony Court, 90210"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 8, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 5:
"It's a Real Drag-net: An Hour of
False Imprisonment in LA, CA"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported February 1, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 4:
"Bodyguards and a Nut Job:
Courtney's Latest Line of Defense"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 25, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 3:
"Poor and Famous in Beverly Hills" and
"CLC is MIA at The Temple of J"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 18, 2004
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 2:
"Courtney, Cops, KABC, and The Cultural Wasteland"
*****
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported January 11, 2004 (Season Premiere)
"Deadline, Beverly Hills" Part 1:
"Courtney Love's 30-second Press Conference" or
"'Who Is Richard Lee, Why Does He Suck So Bad, And
Why Is He Saying These Terrible Things About Me?'"
*****
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The following is a transcript of some of the video material which was
filmed today, Saturday, 3/27/99, and which will make up much of a 5th
anniversary program of the Kurt Cobain Was Murdered series, which
will pass the 400 editions milestone this year.
The footage today was from an event called the "Community Policing Action
Council Real Partnerships Conference" held at a large private university
and attended by, we estimate, more than 100 "community members", and
dozens of Seattle police employees and officers in civilian clothing, as
well as no small number of uniformed officers who made their presence seen
and felt at various times throughout the day.
The event was quietly promoted through a 90-second spot seen on the
Seattle Police Department's monthly one-hour program on the municipal
television station Channel 28, which puts across the City of Seattle's
political agenda in living color, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Police
Chief Norm Stamper himself appeared in the TV spot, saying:
I want to urge every one of you to give some consideration
to this conference. It provides an excellent opportunity,
particularly (to) those who've had a strained relationship
with the Seattle Police Department or policing in general,
to come together to spend one full day talking about our
community/police relationship, what it's been, what it is
today, and how it can be improved.
One of the things we want to emphasize throughout that day
is the freedom to express personal views about our relationship
with you. A great opportunity: please take advantage of it.
Chief Stamper himself wore a cryptically marked black cloth jacket
emboidered "MCC Los Angeles 1999" (for Metropolitan Correctional Center).
He was, as we expected, conspicuously evasive when we tried to obtain
answers to questions in the Cobain homicide case and related matters, to
which he offered a variety of non-answers, with this exchange being merely
typical:
STAMPER: I'm sorry, but I'm not, I'm not here for that purpose.
LEE: That's precisely what you said 5 years ago--
STAMPER: And I'll say it 5 years from now. Thank you.
Chief Stamper indicated that it was his prerogative to decline all
comment to Lee on all subjects, and when Lee questioned him about when he
might be available for comment, responded that there would be no
appropriate time today, this week, or this month. Nevertheless, even after
some rough handling by two uniformed officers, Lee persisted with
questioning at several points during the lunch break, until, ironically, a
police media specialist who is supposed to facilitate press access to
information decided (presumably based on instructions she received in
several "huddles" with Stamper after Lee's first approach) to force Lee
out of the building.
LEE: Chief, despite the regrettable symbolism of being manhandled by your
media unit, I would like to give you the opportunity to respond to the
question, which is that Sergeant Cameron has been suspended this week.
He's been suspended under an accusation by a fellow detective that he
staged a crime scene, a crime scene at which an individual was killed by
the Seattle Police Department, and allegedly $10,000 were taken. Now,
(if) Sgt. Cameron would stage that crime scene, might he not also stage
the Kurt Cobain crime scene? (no response)
Do you realize that in the Cobain case, sir, there are certain
similarities, like the first individual, Officer Levandowski, indicated---
(Without warning, a female SPD media relations unit officer has come up
from behind LEE, grabbed his arm, and put it into a police hold, then
forcing LEE from the room and into a hallway).
LEE: Okay, okay, okay--
SPD OFFICER: You know what, we've asked you twice, and we're not going to
ask you a third time (she is forcing him down hallway filled with
civilians and police).
LEE: (to the crowd) Freedom of the press? Not in Seattle. You got
no freedom of the press here.
SPD: And there's something called respect--
LEE: And I gave him respect, I asked him about detailed questions--
SPD: And we asked you, and you were not paying attention, and you're not
giving in to our requests--
LEE: Officer, you are a media relations officer--
SPD: You bet I am, and I'm also an officer, and I'm going to remain an
officer. And unless you can go by the ground rules of the conference--
LEE: There's a lot of officers out here, man (3 male officers in full
uniform are following within easy reach, as the camera pans to show)
SPD: Yes, there are, aren't there? You know what, you're welcome to be
here if you can follow the ground rules, if you can't follow the ground
rules, we have to ask you to leave.
LEE: I don't know what ground rules indicate that I'm not allowed to ask
the chief a question.
SPD: You heard me.
(The 4 officers immediately begin to retreat back through the
doors).
LEE: (to officers) I asked him a detailed question about a crime
scene, about an investigation that is going on currently and about an
investigation that was concluded 5 years ago.
(LEE turns the camera around and onto himself, and, after positioning
the tripod, begins the following 27-minute extemporaneous monologue
without a moment's delay or even pausing the camera).
LEE: And that, my friends, is da name of dat tune. Officer Pam of the
Media Relations Unit, she's an officer and she intends to remain an
officer, in other words, she's gonna do whatever is required, including
the old half-nelson to get the reporter out of the so-called community
conference. This is brought about to foster better relations between the
community and the leadership in the police department. Yeah, right.
This is it, though: (LEE holds up a photocopy of Thursday's newspaper
and reads the headline) "Two (Seattle) Detectives in New Roles:
Suspects".
And, boy, those guys really wanted to bust me, too. I think Officer Pam
had really make a snap decision there as to whether I was going to be
incarcerated, and my tape confiscated, and of course, that would have kind
of ruined my day, so it was important to me to make sure that I played
along as smoothly as possible so that there was absolutely no possibility
of the tape getting snagged. But, boy, they sure did want to bust me.
They looked pretty surprised, the other 3 guys, pretty surprised that I
was merely being turned loose, instead of being taken downtown, taken down
to the King County correctional facility, right behind the (King County)
administration building. You've seen it. It's the same size as the
administration building because, they've got a big bureaucracy in King
County, but the jailhouse is even bigger. In fact, that's only jailhouse
1--they just built a great big new one in Kent.
So, of course, here we are at Seattle University, it's 3-27-99, March
27, 1999, and a lot of curiosities occurring there at the Seattle Police
Department's get-friendly-with-community-leaders conference. A lot of
peculiarities like, this is the biggest police corruption story in a very
long time in Seattle, (and it's) involving Sergeant Cameron, who(m) the
media calls "Mr. Homicide". There's not a great deal of persuasive
evidence for giving him such a friendly-sounding nickname, if you consider
"Mr. Homicide" friendly, but it's friendlier than spelling out that he's
the guy who's at the center of a lot of the homicide action that goes on
in this city.
And now, after his 38-year career, which, to read the papers this week was
absolutely spotless, which is obviously highly inconsistant with the nature
of homicide investigations, which is they don't always succeed, and when
they are presumed to succeed, they still are not always correct--sometimes
they even send the wrong guy to jail, right? And by jail, I do mean
prison for long stretches.
So the question is: if Sergeant Cameron would stage the crime scene with
Earl "Sonny" Davis, one of his detectives, a crime scene in which
allegedly $10,000 was stolen and then put back--yeah, that's something
that thieves usually do, is put the money back, all of it--well, if
Sergeant Cameron would facilitate and participate and coordinate the
staging of evidence at that crime scene, who's to say that he didn't stage
the crime scene in numerous cases, including, of course, the case which is
the focus of our investigation here, which is the Kurt Cobain case.
Cameron was there. And we've said from the very beginning that one of the
huge discrepancies in this case is that the first officer reporting,
officer Levandowski, did not indicate the presence of certain key elements
of the case against Kurt Cobain, as the perpetrator of his own homicide.
For instance, the narcotics box, the cigar box that was supposed to be
full of back tar heroin and other drug paraphernalia, found immediately
next to Cobain's body, according to the second police report. The first
police report by the first officer reporting indicates no cigar box full
of drugs, also does not indicate an open wallet with a driver's license
exposed, which is what you see in the second of these reports, written
later in the day.
So the idea is, why is it that a patrol officer, who is trained to look
for certain things above all in any situation in dealing with a traffic
stop or any other interaction with the general public, certain things like
drugs, drug paraphernalia, driver's licenses, wallets--with the exception
of weapons, (these are the few things) that officers are supposed to look
for. And yet, all of those items were present at the crime scene, at the
Cobain death scene, and yet, officer Levandowski made no note of them,
according to Levandowski's report. The homicide detectives later
completely contradicted him. Completely contradicted him by finding all of
those alleged items at the site. Yeah, right.
Just like in this situation (holds up Thursday's front-page news story),
the initial reports did not indicate anything about the famous
$10,000--that was something that Cameron, Sgt. Cameron, again, who
supervised, along with others, the Cobain crime scene, cooked up at a
later time, after, according to the allegations by Detective Steiger,
whose allegations have become public this week. So, you've got Cameron and
Detective Earl "Sonny" Davis allegedly going back and staging this crime
scene so that $10,000 will be found at the site. And, of course, the
version of the story that is being propagated now is that took $10,000
out, they put $10,000 back. But I don't think that it can at all be
determined with certainty, in this early stage of the official
investigation, that that's really what happened.
What really happened? Well, what really happened was that some money was
taken out, and some money was put back, according to the allegation. And
if that is the case, first of all, the theft could still be an outstanding
unsolved crime. Of course, the person who owned the money is dead, having
been shot at one of these stand-off situations, this was Mr. (Bodegard
Mitchell) who was 84 years old at the time that he was shot dead in his
home or immediately outside his home by Seattle Police Department, and who
is to say, since there is no accounting of that money, that, in fact, it's
not an unsolved theft? If you take $100,000 and you put $10,000 of it
back, that still means you stole $90,000, doesn't it? And certainly this
could be the case in the allegations against Cameron and Davis, although
the media considers this completely incomprehensible: they put $10,000
out, and they put the exact figure of $10,000 and zero cents back into the
man's desk, or sewing chest I think it was.
So here you see how things work. You know. It's a complete anomaly that
this accusation could have even come up. And, as the Seattle Times is
indicating, it's all due to a certain rivalry that's developed over the
years between the King County Prosecutor's office, which wants to be
actively involved in witnessing crime scenes, and the police department,
which does not want the prosecutor's office present there at the crime
scene. And it's impossible from the news reports this week to determine
when this was supposed to have been developed--the news accounts say this
was all supposed to have been developed in the mid 1990s. And so would
that be 1994, like after April of 1994, '95, '96, '97---when did this unit
develop? Well, I've heard absolutely no word that it was in effect on
April 8, 1994, when Cobain's body was discovered. So, I think it's a safe
bet that it developed after that, and may, in fact be a reaction to the
utter horror by the King County Prosecutor's office that they may be
prosecuting cases in which, like that Cobain case, there's this
outstanding question about rigged evidence at the crime scene. An
extremely outstanding question.
(LEE removes 2 folded documents from his breast pocket)
LEE: Now, I don't know with Chief Norm Stamper if I am now under some
permanent prohibition from asking him questions, but given that this
warning they discussed was not any sort of formal warning in any realistic
way, given that they merely wanted to exact their action of removing me
from the site, and principally, removing my camera from the site, I have
to assume that, well, just as they have done today, that they'll just play
it by ear and get away with everything that they can, or everything
they're confident they can get away with, in suppressing my ability to ask
Stamper questions.
Although I should point out, for all of those of you who do not know the
particular history of my trying to question Stamper, the last time I spoke
with him, I think the precise date was July 14, 1994, on what he called a
"walkabout" in the Belltown community. And it took me by surprise that
this "walkabout" thing even existed--I saw it on a poster in a copy shop,
and so I decided I'd show up for it. And on that occasion, he gave me
precisely the same answer that he gave today: his catch-all, I'm not here
to discuss that today, this is not an appropriate setting for that type of
question.
Although, and this is the most important thing to realize, this is an
individual who leads an extremely cloistered life. It is difficult for the
commercial media, who are always cutting deals to be friendly with the
police department, to get close to Stamper, to get any sort of statement
from him on anything. For instance, this was the biggest local story this
week, this Sergeant Cameron and Detective Davis business, and yet, there
was no, to my knowledge, and I watched many of the newscasts very closely,
there was no statement on video by Stamper this week regarding this
development, the investigation and the suspension of Cameron and Earl
"Sonny" Davis, Detective. And so, that's phenomenal. In most police
departments, you would have, you know, an effort at a news conference or
at least a one-on-one with individual reporters so that there would be
video on the particular story. A police chief should not want to exempt
himself from being covered in an important case like this. He should be
public and make statements. However, Stamper has not done that.
So I expected that if Stamper was going to be present today at this big
community policing conference, that there would be media here--I mean,
they're a 10 minute drive away! You know, these commercial television
stations, they know that this big thing is going on. They probably would
have covered this as a "feel good" story on a Saturday under normal
circumstances, there would have been 3 or 4 television stations here
covering this, as a positive, upbeat chance to cover the police
department. But, since there's a controversy brewing, and since they want
to play ball to the utmost with the leadership in the police department,
that is, the highest executives in the police department, they didn't show
up! There's not one television camera here except for the SPD's own TV
camera recording it for their propaganda program on Channel 28, municipal
television.
So, finally, I'd like to draw attention to the only communication beyond a
June telephone conversation, which was very brief, with Stamper, in 1994,
the first few days of June of 1994, I got Stamper on the phone--I think he
called me, in fact--and I was surprised to hear his voice on the other end
of the line, and he said, you know, 'I understand you have some questions,
I want to be helpful', all of which took me by great surprise, so I
immediately took the conversation to the crux of the biscuit, which is:
Kurt Cobain died at a bloodless crime scene, the King County Medical
Examiner is now saying that all of the shot stayed inside his skull and
there was no exit wound. How is that a wound scenario that the chief of
police can accept? And Stamper immediately said that he was very busy,
rushing to another appointment. 'Thank you, good bye'. Hung up on me.
That was the first week of June of '94.
And then there was the small videotaped effort to interview him in July
of '94, and since then, believe me, I have looked for every opportunity to
track down Chief Stamper. And I'm not saying that out of not knowing a
few things, I may have missed a few appearances that he has made, but
believe me, for a guy who was hired as a media-friendly chief of police,
who would be very good at schmoozing with reporters and appearing on
camera, being very persuasive about the police department's point of view
on things, which is precisely why (then-mayor) Norm Rice hired Norm
Stamper (he has not made himself generally available). I mean, he said
this when Stamper was introduced, that one of the prevailing reasons why
Stamper was hired was that he was so good on video, the videotaped
interview with the executive recruiter that Norm Rice saw, that he thought
he would make an outstanding chief for the city of Seattle, said Norm
Rice.
And then, finally, the only other direct statement from Norm Stamper to
myself on this case occurred only a few months ago. And this was in
response to a January 6, 1999 letter of mine, which I have right here
(LEE holds it up). And the letter reads:
Chief Norm Stamper:
In the interest of public disclosure, as well as what you have called (in
your website) statements) "accurate, up-to-date, and open
communication...open and honest communication with community members," as
well as the SPD Core Values statement of promoting "direct communication
that encourages health disagreement", I am requesting a videotaped
interview with you on the subject of the homicide investigation of the
decedent Kurt Cobain, a case about which, to my knowledge, you have made
no public statement since April 8, 1994, the day the body was found.
And his response, which is dated a week later, the 13th of January:
Dear Mr. Lee:
Thank you for your letter of January 6, 1999. I must, however, decline
your request for an interview regarding the death of Kurt Cobain. As you
know, Mr. Cobain's death was determied by our homicide unit to be a
suicide and the investigation has been closed. Additionally, out of
respect for Mr. Cobain's family as well as the investigative unit, I do
not believe it would be appropriate for me to give an interview regarding
a case which is nearly five years old and about which no additional
information has been discovered.
Sincerely,
Norm Stamper
Chief of Police
And he actually signed this one. Usually, when you get a letter from Norm
Stamper, it's actually signed by someone else, therefore it's difficult to
attribute authorship to him. In any case, this appears to be entirely
authentic, his words precisely.
And I don't have my response to his brief letter with me at this moment,
but, briefly, the analysis of his statement is that, the investigation has
been closed, point 1. "The investigation has been closed." Right. If
it's closed, that means there's nothing prohibiting you whatsoever from
commenting on it. An open investigation should still be commented upon by
the chief of police, which is an absolutely rarity in Seattle, but really,
that's the way it should work, and a closed case, obviously there's
absolutely no reason not to comment on a closed case, so it's nonsensical
to bring up the "closed case" status.
And then this is the real humdinger of it all: "Out of respect for Mr.
Cobain's family, as well as the investigative unit, I do not believe it
would be appropriate" for him to give an interview. Well, "out of
respect for Cobain's family," what family is he talking about? He is
responsible to the citizens of the city of Seattle, and Kurt Cobain, to
my knowledge, has never had a single family member residing in the city of
Seattle, other than his daughter, obviously, a minor child, and Courtney
Love, the only adult in the mix. And, of course, Courtney Love is
considered by anyone who has looked at this case to be a person of
interest, that is to say, in non-police jargon, a suspect.
And, as I wrote in my response to Stamper, which he never responded to,
when a person is a suspect because they are the surviving spouse who will
benefit greatly from the untimely death of a very wealthy individual and
that person is taken into custody in Los Angeles, the week that the death
occurred for suspicion of possession of illegal physician's prescription
pads, which are used by drug dealers, and drug paraphernalia, and what the
police determined at the site to be a narcotic substance, when that type
of person is under custody for those types of crimes the week that the
husband turns up dead, of course, you consider the family member, the
wife, to be a suspect, and in this case particularly, a principal
suspect.
So why all this about protecting Courtney Love's privacy? In fact, just
coincidentally in the stack of documents I brought along this item which I
mailed to Stamper on the occasion of responding to his January 13 letter,
and this is something called the "Declaration of Detective Steve
Kirkland" (LEE holds up document), entered into King County
Superior Court October 26, 1995. And this was Courtney Love-Cobain,
Plaintiff, (versus) Washington State Patrol. The State Patrol was,
according to their position in court, insisting, although insisting in an
extremely non-persuasive way, that they be allowed to release, the suicide
note, that is, the suicide notes, 2 of them, to a reporter, Richard Lee,
who had made the request.
Although I was not, as those of you who know the story (know), I was not
invited to the hearing, and they used, really, none of my evidence, and
they allowed Courtney Love's lawyers to state that I only wanted this out
of some sort of selfish private curiosity, and not to serve the public's
interests, which is preposterous, but it did go unanswered by the
Washington State Attorney General.
And so, one of the very persuasive pieces of evidence--as if they even
needed it, in this case--would be the Declaration of Detective Steve
Kirkland, Detective Steve Kirkland telling the King County Superior
Court, in this case regarding public disclosure, quote,
It was readily apparent that Ms. Love-Cobain was traumatized by her
husband's death. It was SPD's intent to conduct the investigation in such
a fashion to protect the privacy interests of Mr. Cobain's family and
minimize any adverse impact upon his family.
Well, the "adverse impact" had already been sustained, don't you think?
Mr. Cobain was dead. And to "conduct an investigation in such a fashion to
protect the privacy interests" of Courtney Love, a "rock star", who is
principally known for flashing her naked crotch on-stage, and brutally
assaulting individuals conspicuously in public, usually under
circumstances that are said to be completely unprovoked, that is, she's a
violent criminal, is absolutely untenable.
And yet, you have a detective, in the homicide unit, who is involved in
the Cobain alleged homicide investigation, telling the court that out of
the interest of Courtney Love, he was supporting suppression of the
documents, the suicide notes. And, of course, the amazing thing is the
absolute laxity of the language here. He openly admits that the
investigation--not just the disclosure or anything else following the
investigation--but the investigation itself was conducted in such a
fashion that the principle, one of the principle, if not the absolute
principle of the homicide investigators was to conduct the investigation
"in such a fashion to protest the privacy interests of" Courtney Love, the
accused narcotics felon. And when I say narcotics felon, I am pointing to
that particular week that the husband died, of course. In other words,
the principal suspect. The primary motivating factor in the way that the
investigation was conducted was to protect the privacy interests of the
principal suspect.
So when I read in the papers this week that there's this allegation that
Sgt. Cameron may have staged a crime scene, tampered with evidence, and in
effect sanctioned an attempted theft if not an actual theft, I find that
completely plausible. I do believe that that's what went on. And I
believe that that sort of thing has been going on for a very long time.
And that is why the Kurt Cobain homicide investigation was not a real
homicide investigation, by any stretch of the imagination.
And nearly 5 years after, I'm Richard Lee and thanks for joining us.
****
(Notes: Almost all of this installed 12:12 AM, 3/28/99. The bit CORD, NOT ARSON, WHICH IS SURE WHAT
ANYWAY, THIS PROBABLY WILL MAKE ME THE ONLY PERSON IN HISTORY EVER TO BE PHYSICALLY KNOCKED DOWN AND
AH, THE EARLY DAYS OF THE I'NET, KIDS, IT WAS ROUGH AND MEAN.rlee5/26/01, 342pm.
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--Kurt Cobain, "School"
I suppose in very many ways it is an appropriate punchline to
the lengthy saga of the aftermath of the murder of Kurt Cobain that as the
story has now gotten out further, in achingly slow fashion, that the
credit for the discovery of the true nature of the unfortunate end of the
leader of Nirvana is going to a resident of Los Angeles, a former LA cop,
no less.
I am writing these comments on the evening of October 13, 1995, a date
which marks now a full 18 months since my first broadcast on the Cobain
matter on Seattle's public-access television channel 29, on April 13,
l994, entitled, "Was Kurt Cobain Murdered?" This was a mere 5 days after
the discovery of Cobain's body in the garage of his Seattle home. This
first program, which was based on the initial significant evidence of
violent death by means other than suicide in Cobain's case, has been
followed by 78 weeks of ongoing, new, hour-long programs, which are now
titled, with deliberate certainty, "Kurt Cobain Was Murdered".
The only coverage in the mainstream Seattle print media, to my knowledge,
on any theory of Cobain being the victim of murder was a December 14, 1994
story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, based on a wire service
story, that a private detective in Los Angeles, Tom Grant, had been
featured on the syndicated Gil Gross radio program, and was forwarding
what he claimed to be his theory that Cobain had been the victim of
murder.
Local television news programs were eager to report this startling new
revelation as they pulled it off the wire, in so doing fully ignoring the
fact that I had been very publicly delving into this material for 8 full
months, each and every week, on the public-access TV channel that reaches
more than 350,000 households in King County (which includes Seattle),
virtually all homes that are connected to cable television.
The only times I have spoken with Mr. Tom Grant were on two occasions that
he called me a month or so prior to his going on the Gil Gross show in
December. To be frank, there was immediately something I didn't like much
about Mr. Grant, basically that he seemed to have the policeman's habit of
changing details in the description of events he was relating to you
within the course of a conversation, and acting as if you weren't too
intelligent or concerned about his discrepancies. I also got the extremely
strong impression that he knew virtually nothing about nothing, and was
additionally difficult to deal with as he conveyed a certain feigned
befuddlement, which further consideration of his abilities might convince
one was not so feigned after all. My subsequent review of tapes of radio
interviews that he has done, and especially of the the Internet postings,
leads me to believe that his habit of relating what he knows, or claims to
know, in a very irregular way undermines the degree of credibility of what
he may genuinely know as the private investigator hired by Courtney Love
for an initial period of a few days in April of l994, to make some sort of
search for her missing husband Kurt Cobain.
Today a viewer of my television program called me on the phone and said I
should run out and get a copy of the November issue of the British rock
magazine Vox, which is featuring a lengthy story they've titled,
"Was Kurt Murdered?" and "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?"
The Vox story, as you may have guessed, does not mention my work or
my television program, and while Mr. Grant is the target of some rather
sophomoric skepticism throughout the this story as a "conspiracy theorist
in a land where death sells and sells," he is also elevated in very
explicit language to the leadership position as an analyst and
investigator of the Cobain case, i.e., "IF TOM GRANT'S THEORY (their
capital emphasis) were to prove true, he would be at the centre of the
biggest story in the rock world..."
Pardon my correcting you so absolutely, Vox (and others who have
described the situation in these terms), but Tom Grant is not the
originator, nor is he by any standard the best developer, of the "Cobain
was murdered" theory or investigation. There can be no mistaking or
denying the fact that I have revealed and reported this story each week on
my television program, covering much of the material to which Mr. Grant
refers rather casually, but in great depth, (up to and including the
suspicions about the role of the male nanny), for a term of 8 months, much
of the time Mr. Grant himself admits he was receiving money from Courtney
Love to perform what he describes as rather inconsequential detective
work.
Presumably from the remote location of Los Angeles all of this work that
Mr. Grant says that he is doing on the case largely consists of trying to
gain publicity for the idea that he developed the theory and the
investigation on the Cobain murder. Here in Seattle, I have been
diligently broadcasting an hour-long exploration of this case for public
examination each and every week, as well as successfully developing new
information in the case. I receive no compensation whatever for the
television program, so that its ongoing production each week is quite a
task indeed. (My present plans are to press forward and complete at least
l00 of these programs). I have, of course, been at the significant
disadvantage of not having any Courtney Love seed-money to get me started
on this investigation. (Ms. Love, by the way, has written to call me
"obsessed," saying little else).
My efforts to achieve national recognition for this important story have
been difficult, to say the least. If you've read in the British rock
press that Mr. Grant's allegations have created a huge stir here in the
U.S., believe me, this is not the case. Mr. Grant was the subject of one
story in the Star tabloid (entitled, ironically, "Kurt Cobain Was
Murdered") which they didn't even promote on their page one, and a story
was built on his Gil Gross interview on one of the better "tabloid TV"
national programs (American Journal) and even MTV News did a brief
spot with news jockey Kurt Loder actually enunciating the essence of the
"Kurt Cobain didn't do it" theory, but it is significant for those of you
outside the U.S. to know that Grant has gone nowhere since his first
splash in forwarding this story with the mainstream American media.
Appropriate commentary has been provided frequently in my monologues on
the TV program concerning the absence of attention to the Cobain homicide
in this, the year of shameless and shameful rampant O.J.-mania. As much
as I've focused on the rather sinister nature of the "gatekeeper" function
of the tending-toward-monolithic major media here (that's a word,
"gatekeeper," which Peter Jennings used to describe the primary function
of media news-giants when he visited Seattle about 6 weeks after the Gil
Gross wire story) the American media ignoring Tom Grant's claims are not
best described in terms of big media conspiracy, snobbery, or any other
pejorative. Those of you who have read his files on the Internet have
probably noticed that while the whole of the theory is highly interesting
(yes, I take a bow), Mr. Grant is not so compelling. His turgid writing
style (long-winded though it may be) and what looks a whole lot like a
propensity to make claims he can't ever possibly back up (like Courtney
Love's attorney ratting her out to him a few days after Cobain's body was
found, saying, yep, she probably whacked the poor boy), make for a story
which in style, if not in substance, is beneath the standards of what is
usually practiced by the tab-TV shows (who, despite their frequently awful
exploitation of the O.J. Simpson drama, did actually do some respectable
reporting on the Simpson matter, when viewed in the narrow terms of
traditional city-news journalism).
For all of my efforts, I have been greeted by a complete blackout of all
coverage by mainstream media (a phenomenon which I have frequently
described as being the result of sinister forces, an analysis I do not, of
course, disown here), and I must say that for what should be all of my
good standing here in Seattle as a responsible journalist acting in the
public interest, the ignoring of my work (and the brief attention given
here to Grant) can only be described in terms of a scandal in itself. What
would be the bluntest way of stating this, just so no one misunderstands
my general theory on how this all could have happened? How's this--the
gaggle of reporters who were at the scene of Cobain's body's discovery on
the morning of April 8, l994 saw some mighty strange things as witnesses
to a shotgun suicide, like no blood at the scene of the crime, and said
nothing. As for expecting the truth from the local coppers, just you
nevermind that. Once again I find myself referring to the famous Polanski
film for an apt explanation that you may be able to understand. "It's
Chinatown, Jake." Yes, and Seattle too.
A few pieces of inky coverage have helped to punctuate the vast stretch of
time when I began on this project, visiting the Cobain home site on that
most infamous day. A rather amusing exception to the blackout was an
article in the international punk music magazine Maximumrocknroll
last summer (actually post-dated as the October, 1994 issue), which was
the first journal with a regular publication schedule (meaning other than
"fanzines") to do a Kurt Was Murdered story, which was written by
Seattlite John Nero based on an interview he did with me, which he
subsequently published at great length last summer in his fanzine
publication Lumber. The very first fanzine mag to get a "Was Kurt
Cobain Murdered?" story out, based on my work, was the Seattle 'zine
Feminist Baseball the publisher of which is a guy who actually
refused to accept any phone call from me subsequent to this publication--I
guess the oft-cited "Seattle rock community" has its ways of applying a
little pressure, putting a bit of stick about.
The indifferent role of the British rock press has been hard to understand
in all of this--I had held out hope for a long time that their interest
was always soon to be expressed. FOR UTMOST IN PRIVACY, I SUGGEST THAT SENSITIVE
COMMUNICATIONS OF ANY VARIETY, INCLUDING FURTHER MEDIA INTEREST, BE SENT
TO MY POST OFFICE BOX, NOT TO THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright Notice and
Addresses
The Compendium Document/December 15, 1994
Illustrations and Key Video
Document Examination of the Alleged
Suicide Note of Kurt D. Cobain
S-note Illustrations and
Accompanying Text
KCWM: Internet Column of February 11,
1996
KCWM: Internet Column of March 16, 1996
Kurt Cobain
Was Murdered/April 10, 1996
KCWM: Internet Column of June 30, 1996 KCWM: Election
Special/Internet Column of November, 1996
Kurt
Cobain Was Murdered/November 10, 1996 (transcript of television
program
Now See It Person to Person: Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
(Live)/November 11, 1996 (transcript of live studio
presentation)
About the Author
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A key document in the effort I have made to force action on the part of
those who might be called among those foremost to blame for the sad state
of corruption in which Seattle presently finds itself is an item of 20
pages that was provided with cover letters to several public officials
here: Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, King County Executive Gary Locke, and
Seattle City Councilperson Margaret Pageler, who is Chair of the Public
Safety Committee that is supposed to oversee the Seattle Police
Department. Mr. Rice and Mr. Locke eventually provided one-page letters
that endorsed the shotgun-suicide verdict, Ms. Pageler, despite many phone
calls to her staff in request of a response, neglected to answer.
What follows is a complete transcript of the "compendium" report to these
officials.
(title page, page i)
(frontispiece page, page ii)
"...Kurt Cobain was, ladies and gentlemen,
he was a worthless shred of human debris,
who had been trying to kill himself for
12 years, and finally did it right,
by using a shotgun, so he couldn't miss..."
Rush Limbaugh,
syndicated radio and TV talk-show host
"Kurt Cobain lived hard and died young.
His body was discovered in his Lake
Washington home today..."
Dan Lewis, KOMO News 4
April 8, 1994
"Rock stars live a life a little bizarre
to the normal citizen...This is not like
calling up Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Wallingford
at 9 in the morning to ask them some questions..."
Capt. Larry Farrar,
head of Seattle Police Department
Crimes Against Persons Dept.
"...he screwed me over by splitting...
maybe he was terminally pouting,
I don't know, I don't know..."
Courtney Love,
widow of the deceased,
MTV interview, August, 1994
(introductory page, page iii)
It has now been more than 8 months since the body of Kurt Cobain was
found in his lakeside home in Seattle, Washington. This report is being
prepared most specifically for the purpose of addressing the weight of
evidence in this case to the attention of government officials to whom
the ultimate responsibility of oversight of its investigatory agencies
must be attributed.
In the past 8 months (beginning on April 13, only 5 days after the
discovery of the body of Mr. Cobain), I have broadcast 36 consecutive
weeks of analysis and commentary examining the evidence in the case of the
death of Kurt Cobain on my cable television program in Seattle called "Now
See It Person to Person". This program had aired continuously for 12
months prior to this event, providing coverage and commentary on political
issues and events (candidate's debates, press conferences, political
rallies, etc.) as a purely independent and self-financed news source
reaching the homes of nearly all cable TV subscribers in King County. So
important did I feel that the police mishandling of this case was that the
format of the news program changed considerably to exclusively devote the
program to the purpose of developing a public awareness of the facts in
this case.
As host of this unique ongoing TV series, it is accurate to say that I
can hardly step foot out of my home anymore without being soon recognized
for this broadcast, yet to date, government response to this controversy
has been virtually nil. This state of affairs has changed somewhat this
week as a Los Angeles private detective named Tom Grant went on a
syndicated radio talk-show and outlined his theory that Cobain was
murdered. The Seattle Police Department has issued its denial of this, and
given the rather general nature of the claims made by Mr. Grant, this
appears to be all that can be said by local government at this time. There
is, in fact, though, far more to the argument that Cobain was murdered
than has ever been discussed in the press. In fact, prior to the story on
Mr. Grant, no news story has ever appeared in a regular press source that
approached this issue. Because the SPD and the King County Medical
Examiner have made their case plainly enough in their official
pronouncements, it falls to local elected officials to demand in the face
of persuasive evidence that further explanation of this case be
forthcoming.
Richard Lee
Dec. l5, 1994
(page 1)
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain was born in February of 1967 and resided through his late
teens in the area of Aberdeen, Washington, 100 miles south of Seattle.
Young Curtis was considered a very bright boy with a definite artistic
streak, and in his teens, with his interest in high school waning, he
became involved with the local rock music scene, determined to be the
leader of a professional rock band. His first record was released in
1988, and by 1991 he had produced his first major-label album,
"Nevermind", which became a number 1 bestseller worldwide, selling more
than 10 million units. This November, seven months after Cobain's death,
a live recording by his band Nirvana premiered on the American charts at
number 1.
The career of Kurt Cobain and his Nirvana was as critically acclaimed as
it was commercially successful. With Cobain's thundering voice and
intuitive grasp of rock music songwriting and performing, the band he led
was changing and challenging the role of rock music and popular culture.
His artistic achievement will not be forgotten, although his personal
reputation has suffered greatly by the official proclamation of his death
as a suicide.
An Overview of the Occasion of the Death of Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain's body was discovered on Friday, April 8 in a
greenhouse room above the detached garage of a home on a
small lot of property he purchased in January. The body was
discovered by an electrician who was there to install security
lighting, and who called 9ll at 8:56 am.
From the very beginning, when reporters assembled in front of the Cobain
home, the Seattle Police Department version of the situation was that they
were there to handle a suicide. Mid-morning, SPD spokesperson Vinette
Tichi made an announcement to the press that they had found a dead body in
the room above the garage and that there was "a suicide note left inside
the house" (the note was subsequently described as being found next to the
body). Although the body was not officially identified by the King County
Medical Examiner until a press release mid-afternoon, on the east coast,
television viewers were already being told by the evening network
newscasts that Cobain had committed suicide in feature stories complete
with analysis of his psychological torment. In the words of ABC's anchor
Diane Sawyer that evening, Cobain was "another casualty of success." No
evidence, it seems, is needed to close a case of alleged self-murder.
(page 2)
The Initially-Released Police Reports
Much of the ease with which the press was able to convey the death of
Cobain as a suicide and not conceivably anything else was supported by 2
police reports that SPD made readily available.
The first report dated from March 15 and concerned a 9ll call
from Courtney Love-Cobain, Kurt Cobain's wife, who claimed to
police that her husband had locked himself in a room with a
gun and was threatening suicide. When police arrived at the house,
Kurt Cobain denied that this was true, and then Courtney Love,
according to the report, "stated that she did not see him with
a gun, and he did not say that he was going to kill himself.
"The disturbance was verbal only," this report concludes. Despite the
retraction of her original claims, Seattle Police officers confiscated
three handguns, a rifle, and a bottle of unidentified pills "for
safekeeping," according to the report.
(This strange domestic dispute was similar to an earlier incident which
also resulted in the confiscation of his firearms, the report of which was
also made readily available by SPD. This incident of domestic
disturbance, from June 4, 1993, involved Courtney Love calling 911 after,
she said, Kurt Cobain had "pushed her" after she had thrown a glass of
juice in his face. According to the report from that incident, Courtney
Love claimed that she had suffered a scratch on her forearm, then changed
her story to say this scratch was "self-inflicted." An unnamed
30-year-old witness, whose occupation was listed as "Psychic", is said to
have backed Love's story. Says the report, continuing, "Kurt was
determined to be the primary aggressor and was arrested
for...assault...and booked into King County Jail." Charges were finally
dropped that September on a basis of lack of evidence).
The second police report which was widely used in the media to
demonstrate a reckless end to Cobain's life was from April 4,
1994, 4 days before Cobain's body was found. The report was
phoned into police dispatch offices by someone claiming to be
Kurt Cobain's mother, Wendy O'Connor, who lives in Aberdeen,
where she is know to have been at this time. The main section
of this SPD Missing Persons Report form reads:
One last cryptic note in this section was blacked-out by the SPD media
relations office, but was still able to be made out as reading, "Det.
Terry, SPD Narcotics has further info." When I called Det. Antonio Terry
in May, I asked him how Kurt
(page 3)
Cobain's mother in Aberdeen would have information about a reputed drug
dealer's address--in another section of the report his destination is
described with extreme specificity as "ll/Denny brick apt building 1st flr
corner unit". Det. Terry, who seemed nervous about discussing this matter,
indicated that I was right in believing that this was information that is
not logical to have come from Cobain's mother, but that his wife would
have been a much more logical source for this information.
The truth about the Missing Persons Report is that it is far more likely
to have been the product of the efforts of Courtney Love. According to
the SPD dispatcher who took the call and wrote the report, there is no
doubt about the fact that the call came from California, where Courtney
Love was at the time, and his perception was that this was likely to have
been Courtney Love falsely claiming to be Wendy O'Connor, Cobain's mother
(such false reporting and criminal impersonation are considered gross
misdemeanor offenses under RCW 9A.84.040 and RCW 9A.60.040, respectively).
The dispatcher indicated that SPD detectives had duplicated the recording
of the phone call.
All requests I have made to review the tape of the call have been rejected
by SPD, who claim that this would violate the privacy of the person who
made the call, who, they say, insisted that her privacy be protected
when making the call. My telling the SPD media relations office that a
person acting in violation of the law must certainly compromise such
assertions of right to privacy fell on deaf ears at SPD. Their claim to
right to conceal this material is in violation of the Washington State
Public Disclosure Act.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on at least 2 occasions
that it was Courtney Love who made this call (without much emphasis) and
the Seattle Times reported confusion on the issue of whether it was
Love or O'Connor who made the call. (Ms. O'Connor, by the way, has
refused to indicate who made the call when I asked her directly, and has
not addressed this issue publicly). It is quite obvious that it was no
secret that it is without much doubt Courtney Love who made this call,
though it is rather astonishing to think that this was not taken as quite
significant by either police or press in light of the prescient nature of
the description offered--narcotics, a shotgun, and suicide were all said
to have been the instruments of his death and the manner and which in was
to occur. Since Cobain had been missing for 2 days already at the time
that the call was placed, and since the King County Medical Examiner
states that their estimate of the date of death as April 5 has a margin of
error of "more than 24 hours" (according to the KCME pathologist who
signed the death certificate), it is quite conceivable that Cobain was
already dead at the time this missing persons call was placed, and that
the manner of his death, or apparent manner, was known to the caller.
(page 4)
The SPD Endorses Quick Verdict
I spoke to SPD spokesperson Vinette Tichi on April 13, who seemed
surprised that I would have any questions about whether or not Cobain had
killed himself, after all, she asked, "Didn't you know that we had a
suicide attempt on him last month?" and then repeated the use of the term
"suicide attempt" to refer to the incident on March 18. The report, of
course, concluded that this was only a "verbal disturbance".
Ms. Tichi also made it very clear that there was no reason to conduct an
investigation into Cobain's death. She said, on April 13, "We don't
normally even investigate suicides. You know, this was a kind of a high
profile person, so our homicide detectives did go out to the scene that
day to do an investigation, but our case is closed. It has been
determined that it was a suicide, self-inflicted, and we aren't doing any
further investigation regarding his death.
"We have done a thorough investigation," stated Ms. Tichi, with her
statements closely matching those that were being made at this time by
Capt. Larry Farrar, head of the SPD homicide squad, in an Associated Press
story that same day. The death investigation was completed, but some
sort of investigation was being undertaken, apparently to find Capitol
Hill narcotics dealers that Courtney Love was complaining to the media
about (this being very strange as she was in jail in Los Angeles on
several drugs charges only days before).
In a phone conversation that drew to a quick termination with SPD Chief
Norman Stamper on June 3, he endorsed the quick-and-easy suicide verdict,
saying that he was aware that on April 8, "they had reached their
conclusion that, in fact, it was a suicide." One may wonder that Chief
Stamper would find this acceptable, and further wonder at the fact that
the homicide detectives' report indicates that they "turned over" the
residence to Allan Draher, Cobain's (and, if not prior to his death, then
after it certainly, Courtney Love's) attorney, before noon that day, April
8. Nowhere in the police handling of the scene will you find any
indication that the detectives were there to do anything but write up a
report on the death and then get out of there. Patrol officers are said
to have entered the main house, but not homicide detectives. No standard
forensics testing such as fingerprint, footprint, fiber sampling,
etcetera, was done at the scene. Homicide detectives were apparently
willing to entertain no notion but that this was a suicide.
This is also the fate of Ms. Kristen Pfaff, also age 27, who died in her
Capital Hill apartment on June 15 or the morning of June 16. Ms Pfaff,
who was the bass player in the rock band Hole, led by Courtney Love, died
of what the KCME called a narcotics overdose according to a death
certificate they issued one month after her death.
(page 5)
Just how a fatal dose of narcotics might have fallen into Ms. Pfaff's
hands, or, alternatively, how it might have found its way into her body is
not clear. Ms. Pfaff had returned from a European concert tour only a few
days before her death, and was, in fact, preparing to depart Seattle on
June 16 in a U-Haul truck already loaded with her possessions. Why she
would have taken a fatal dose of narcotics at this time is not easy to
understand. Likewise, how it was that no investigation into the matter of
her death on a basis of someone being guilty of controlled substances
homicide (i.e., providing lethal drugs) is a question that needs to be
addressed. Ms Pfaff's record company, Geffen Records, immediately came
out with a statement that Ms. Pfaff was a drug abuser who had recently
been through a drug treatment/rehabilitation program, but her family has
denied this. Ms. Pfaff spent the last night of her life in the company of
two musicians, one of them the guitarist for the band Hole, a longtime
associate of Courtney Love.
According to the SPD homicide squad, Pfaff's case was "handled as a
suicide," meaning that there was no need for homicide unit detectives to
even visit the scene, and so they did not.
The 200 Hour-Investigation
Although the early statements by police would seem to indicate
beyond doubt that the SPD and KCME considered the Cobain case
a strictly open-and-shut matter, with only narcotics inquiries
following his death, on May 11 the Seattle Times ran a front-page
story on how detectives had done "more than 200 hours" of work
on Cobain's death, "to eliminate any questions in the future,"
according to a detective. Although this detective was apparently
quite pleased with his work, saying only that SPD had gone to "some
pretty remarkable ends," they were only able to conclude that
Cobain died, said the Times, "without the possibility of foul
play."
To reiterate, there is no evidence, or even any contention by SPD, that
they ever treated the Cobain home or garage as a true crime scene where
they were gathering evidence on April 8 to determine in the time after the
body was found, if they were dealing with a suicide or homicide.
This investment of 200 hours of time appears to have been to serve no
purpose other than to protect the reputation of the SPD by doing some
cursory work, while of course avoiding any evidence that might
persuasively indicate homicide was the manner of the death, not suicide,
the verdict they reached rather irrevocably on April 8.
Police documents made available to me only more than 6 months after the
fact of Cobain's death tell a story of a pointless
(page 6)
poking around that was first outlined in the Times' May 11 story.
According to the Times, Cobain's trail ends after the morning of
April 2, when he was said to have gone to a gun shop to buy shotgun shells
(with which to kill himself). The gun shop that the Times' source
at taxi company indicated has personnel that are confident that it didn't
happen there, and a nearby gun shop said likewise. Both shops said that
it was virtually impossible that they would have written out a receipt for
a trivial purchase like a box of shotgun shells. Each shop has a register
receipt from its cash registers that is nondescript and does not bear the
name of the shop in either case. Nevertheless, the Times reported
that a "receipt for the ammunition was later found at Cobain's house."
The police documents recently released make no mention of any receipt for
shotgun shells, instead, they refer to two pieces of "note paper" on which
are written references to a gun shop and shotgun shells which, SPD claims,
were in Cobain's pants pockets at the time of his death.
The Times' May 11 story did report some very alarming information
about attempted charges on Kurt Cobain's Seafirst MasterCard, the last of
which was attempted at 1:35 am on April 8. These charges, according to
the Times, included attempts to obtain $2,500, $5,000, $1,517.56,
among other attempts. The Times stated that Cobain's wife Courtney
Love had canceled his cards from California, in an effort to make it easy
for her private investigator to track him down, as she was concerned that
he had left a drug treatment facility after only an overnight stay. Said
the Times, "As it turned out though, canceling the card made it
more difficult to track Cobain because the bank stopped recording the
precise location of the attempted charges." Seafirst's fraud prevention
department has told me that this is not so, that the locations of
attempted charges would still be recorded. As for their part, the
recently-released SPD documents claim that "all of the transactions were
attempted over the phone." This seems very unlikely, and a more realistic
presumption would be that somewhere Seafirst made surveillance photographs
of the person or persons connected to these transactions, who almost
certainly was not Kurt Cobain, but who may be involved in his murder.
One other interesting pert of the Times' wrap-up piece is that they
report that the "nanny" whose tasks seem to have included taking care of
the Cobain's 2-year-old daughter and housesitting, left the Cobain house
on the afternoon of April 7 to fly to Los Angeles to, as the SPD reports
state, have a "face to face" conversation with Courtney Love. Cobain's
body was found above the garage the next day. According to police
reports, the nanny, Mr. Michael DeWitt, was involved in rather contentious
relations within the Cobain household, and has known Courtney Love for
many years.
(page 7)
Kurt Cobain and Drugs
"It's really hard to believe everything you read," said Kurt Cobain in
1992 on national television as a message to fans when accepting a major
award. His fans were to understand that this concerned all of the
controversy in the press about Cobain's and his wife's alleged (and, to
some extent, admitted) narcotics use. The major drama in this area
concerned a 1992 article in Vanity Fair magazine which reported
that Courtney Love had admitted using heroin while pregnant. The article
was a directly contributing factor to the Cobain losing custody of their
newborn child briefly as per court order sought by California authorities.
In an article in the Los Angeles Times on Sept. 21, 1992, a month
after their daughter's birth ("Cobain to Fans: Just Say No/ Nirvana's New
Father Addresses Drug Use") Kurt Cobain made the assertion that he had
been guilty of using drugs, but only to the extent of "dabbling" in heroin
use more that a year before, and that his dabbling with narcotics was in a
search for relief from chronic stomach pains which at that time he had not
been able to successfully have treated or diagnosed.
Nevertheless, a book called "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana",
released shortly before Cobain's death, contains some wild claims by
Cobain that he had been a full-blown heroin user "just filling up the
syringe as far as it could go without pulling the end off." Although the
author says he spent many hours interviewing Cobain, he never says that he
tape recorded these interviews. Given that Kurt Cobain was known for his
wry humor and his disdain for the focus on drug use in his life by the
celebrity-hunting press. had he lived, he might have just brushed aside
much of all of this with an explanation that some celebrity journalists
just don't know when they are being "put on" by his humor (this sort of
"put on" of writers is common in the rock music press). This book, was,
in fact, specifically marketed to an audience eager to read lurid details
about drug use, with its back cover advertising, "Nirvana tells all: about
the ongoing allegations of heroin use..."
It is probably fair to say that Cobain played into the fixation on drug
use in his life to some extent, and there can be no denying its publicity
value in his career. He also seems to have been genuinely offended by
the effort to characterize him as anything less than an ideal father. His
willingness to play along on the issue of illicit drug use is a complex
issue, but certainly what has been published on this in the rock music
press cannot be presumed to pass any standards of veracity. Had he lived,
it appears most likely that he would have merely gone on saying what he
told the Los Angeles Times and others, that drugs are "a total
waste of time."
(page 8)
To what extent Kurt Cobain ever used illicit drugs is probably never going
to be established (and, of course, this is an issue that has remained
questionable in the lives of many leading national politicians). But the
bonding of his name forever, it would seem, to heroin use in the event of
his death is unequivocal. As the Seattle P-I began one story on
its front page the week after his death, "Rock singer Kurt Cobain, high on
heroin and Valium, shot himself in the head in the late afternoon or
evening of April 5..." The report that Cobain had taken a massive dose of
heroin at the time of his death came to the P-I not from any
official source, but rather from Courtney Love, according to KCME chief
pathologist Dr. Donald T. Reay, whose office has never made the toxicology
report public. Nevertheless, the enormous wave of media coverage reported
as fact the unsubstantiated claim (by, of all people, Cobain's wife) that
the lab tests showed a massive dose of heroin taken at the time of
Cobain's death.
Cobain had done the overnight stay at the Exodus treatment center in Los
Angeles as a response to an "intervention" encounter that occurred in his
home on March 25, when his wife had arranged to have about 10 people,
including top record industry people from Los Angeles, drop in unannounced
to give the 27-year-old Cobain a dose of "tough love" drug counseling. He
is said to have vigorously denied that he had a drug problem. One might
speculate that he flew to the overnight stay at the facility (a part of
the Daniel Freeman Hospital) days later to satisfy this situation in terms
of getting some solid proof from the facility in the form of tests and
examinations that would demonstrate that his health was good and that he
did not bear any marks of recent drug use.
One extremely curious and ethically compromised aspect of the
drugs-at-the-time-of-death issue arises from the press release from the
KCME dated April 11, which states that "Kurt Cobain died of a
self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. Toxicological studies are being
conducted which are routinely performed on autopsies." It seems an
indefensible position that they could announce a cause of death without
these tests being conducted. Further, although the information was not
made explicitly public by any official source in the first month after
Cobain's death, the May 11 Seattle Times article has SPD homicide
squad leader Larry Farrar claiming that Cobain had a box of drugs and
paraphernalia next to his body. "The shooting kit next to him looked like
an alley downtown...It was just as dirty a stinking drug box as I've ever
seen," the Times reported. But if this evidence of narcotics at
the scene was known to SPD and KCME from the outset, why were the
toxicology tests described as merely routine, and how could it be said
that the shotgun blast could be said to be the only possible cause of
death? When I attempted to ask this of Dr. Reay in the weeks after the
death, he was quick to insist that my inquiry was all a waste of time.
(page 9)
The Wound Scenario
Perhaps the single most bizarre aspect of this very troubling case is that
of the various descriptions of the wound to Cobain's head (or lack
thereof) and the blood loss at the scene (or lack thereof). The nature of
the wound to Cobain's head seems to be contradicted by nearly everyone who
has seen it, with some witnesses contradicting their own descriptions, or
contradicting their own descriptions in various ways.
One of the first descriptions of the wound or damage to the head of the
body came from the electrician who found it, who said that from several
feet away and through the windows of french doors, he saw only that there
was "blood in the right ear" of what he initially thought was a mannequin.
This account alone clashes considerably from what should result from a
contact-range blast from a big-bore shotgun.
It was reported nationally that a reporter from the Seattle Post-
Intelligencer had seen the body closely enough to positively identify
it as Kurt Cobain's, but the P-I reporter on the scene at the time
says that this just isn't so. In the April 9 P-I, a very
troublesome wound description was published without attribution: "He was
shot once in the left temple." The reporter who says that he didn't see
the body also says he won't say who saw it and told him this, and
interviewed recently, does not indicate as to whether he feels this is
accurate.
Some press accounts report Cobain's body sustaining a massive
destruction of flesh and bone, with Cobain's body identifiable
only through his fingerprints. If they were told of this
massive wound by an official source is not established, and one
cannot rule out that sometimes a reporter for a leading national
journal will simply make this sort of thing up.
Aside from the not-too-reliable eyewitness descriptions by reporters,
police, and pathologists, people who we might assume make it their
business to be accurate in these matters, we must look to the photographic
evidence to find any indication that can stand the test of scrutiny. The
first still photograph published, in the late edition of the Seattle
Times on April 8, actually shows us the right shoulder of the body,
clothed in a white shirt. What is remarkable is that not a drop of blood
is seen on the shirt or anywhere. Video aired that day showed the same
portion of the body with the same lack of blood spots.
The next day the Seattle Times ran a front-page color blow-up
of it's now-famous shot of Cobain's right arm, blue-jeaned leg,
and sneaker. Much hubbub was to follow about how people were
shocked and/or moved by this rather innocuous photo. The photo
was most genuinely disturbing when one matched it with what was in
the P-I that day about him being shot on the left side of the
head. This should have sent much blood and gore to the
right, but again, not a drop of blood is seen in this photo.
(page 10)
The following week, I put the question to Dr. Nikolas Hartshorne, the
pathologist who had signed Cobain's death certificate on Saturday, April
9, making it officially a suicide. If Cobain had shot himself on the left
side of the head, as the P-I reported, where was all of the blood,
etcetera, that should have sprayed to the right side of the body but was
not seen in the Times' photo. Dr. Hartshorne of the KCME put me on
hold for a long while, then came back with a never-heard-before
description that Cobain had shot himself in the mouth.
The death certificate then issued that week to expedite cremation
(or, at least, this was the net effect of the hasty certification)
read that the cause of death was a "Contact perforating shotgun wound
to the head (mouth)". This would account for the lack of any blood
in the photographs. The blood must have all gone to the left
and behind the body.
In late May, working with an anonymous donor, I discovered a piece of
video that shows the top of Cobain's body's head and several feet of floor
space all around the left side of his head and directly behind his head.
This was directly contradictory to Dr. Hartshorne's claims that the
earlier photographic evidence was meaningless because "you don't have any
idea what was around that head." Now we could see what was around the
head at the spot where it was found, and not a drop of blood was seen in
Cobain's hair, or anywhere. This was very convincing evidence that Cobain
did not die according to the means or manner that have been described by
the KCME and the SPD.
I aired that piece of video and discussed it at length on my
television program of June 1. The next day, June 2, I reached
Dr. Reay of the KCME and found that he now had a brand-new,
never-before-heard version of the wound. The new official
description was that "all of the shot stayed inside his skull"
and that "there was no exit wound."
The next day I spoke long-distance with Dr. Cyril Wecht, arguably the
leading forensic pathologist in the U.S. (he is the author of a standard
4-volume text on forensic sciences, published 1992). Dr. Wecht declared
this wound scenario as "virtually impossible" and conceivable only in the
case, possibly, of extremely defective ammunition. A coroner's
investigator for the County of Los Angeles, where they have some 1500
suicides per year, many by firearms, was even stronger in his opinion. He
says that he has seen hundreds of cases like this in his 30-year career,
and that even with the rare incidence of defective ammunition, there is
always an exit wound, and that always a very large blood loss if the
person is found lying flat with a shot through the head. On this day I
also spoke to Capt. Farrar of SPD homicide, who seconded the "no exit
wound" scenario, and even said that he had seen an x-ray of Cobain's
intact skull.
(page 11)
The contention of Capt. Farrar and the KCME pathologists is that this
impossible wound scenario is possible because, they say, Cobain shot
himself using what they call a "light load", meaning that these shells
have a smaller size of pellet and sometimes a marginally less powerful
powder charge. While "light load" shotgun shells can be much less lethal
over a distance of many yards, even a blank shotgun shell with no
pellets at all is quite lethal within 1 to 2 feet, so says a medical text,
causing devastating bone and tissue damage.
The only person or persons I have ever known to have committed to this
"light load" theory in writing is a person or persons claiming to be
patrol officers from the SPD's South Precinct. Recently "Sam & Robert"
("Robert" is the nickname the SPD uses to refer to the "Rainier" patrol,
and "Sam" is the nickname for the patrol unit south of Othello
Street--both are headquartered at 3001 S. Myrtle, which is what "Sam &
Robert" use for a return address) wrote me a hostile letter explaining
this theory and referring specifically to #8 size shot, which is what
Cobain is said to have used in SPD documents concerning his case
(something you would think would not concern South Precinct patrol
officers). In the recent letter, "Sam & Robert" explained that they are
a bunch of South Precinct cops who like to get drunk on Wednesday night
and sit around "laffing" at my TV program. In June, this "Sam Roberts"
had sent me a letter spelling out that the police were not going to be too
"enthusiastic...about investigating your murder." Mailing threatening
communications in this way is a violation of section 876 of Title 18 of
U.S. federal law, and punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
A recent document from the KCME signed by Drs. Reay and Hartshorne (dated
June 20) indicates that Cobain suffered a "contact perforating shotgun
wound to head" in one section and a "contact penetrating shotgun wound to
head" in another section. The point seems to be that they would like us to
believe that these two terms are interchangeable. They are not. In fact,
they mean exactly the opposite of one another. "Penetrating" means shot
goes in but does not come out. "Perforating" means that shot goes in and
then comes out the other side--with an exit wound. One who asks Dr.
Hartshorne how that they can pretend that these terms mean the same thing
is likely to get a shrill response in which he says "just semantics,
that's all" a lot, in my experience.
No photograph has ever been published nor has any video ever been
aired that shows blood at the scene where Cobain's body was
found. Although eyewitness accounts vary widely, it is the
extremely inconsistent descriptions offered by the pathologists
at the KCME and officials of the SPD that most persuasively
argue that these officials are not telling the truth about
the cause of death of Kurt Cobain.
(page 12)
The "Suicide Note"
The cornerstone of the SPD contention that Mr. Cobain killed himself has
been, from the time of the very first hour or two after the body was
discovered, what SPD spokesperson Vinette Tichi called immediately,
apparently on instruction from SPD detectives, the "suicide note." (Ms.
Tichi at one point was contending that she did not say this that morning,
but instead said "apparent suicide note," but this is not borne out by
what is heard in videotape of her statement on April 8).
The key question in examining the handling of the Cobain death and the
so-called suicide note must be this: did SPD give adequate attention to
the possibility that the note was a forgery, manufactured to conceal
Cobain's murder? The answer is, of course, that they did not
appropriately address this possibility.
The actual handling of the note has never been particularly
clear. Courtney Love is said to have been handling the original
note, in red ink, at a service for Cobain's family and friends,
and on April 13 Vinette Tichi indicated that Ms. Love did indeed
have the note, and then stated she really did not know.
The police reports from the scene state that "This is a suicide note
directed to Courtney and (deleted) and signed Kurt Colbain (sic)." The
letter, the top of which reads "To Boddah," who is said to have been an
imaginary friend of Cobain's when he was a child (so it is said in two
books about him), is not actually "signed" by Kurt Cobain as the police
report indicates. His name is spelled out in very small printed letters,
just like the rest of the letter.
Although the chronology of events concerning the discovery of another
cryptic note is not clear, SPD records state that there was another note
signed "yer penpal Courtney" that private investigator Tom Grant, who had
been hired by Courtney Love in Los Angeles, had at one time asserted to
police was actually written by Michael DeWitt. This was said to have been
written to Kurt Cobain and seems to be the note referred to by DeWitt in
an interview with SPD, when he said that he wrote the note to Kurt because
he was "pissed" at him about alleged drug use.
(page 13)
This forces a very pertinent question: if there was a note
found at the house, the authorship of which was established
to be apparently false, why would this not alert SPD detectives
to the strong possibility that the alleged suicide note was
also a fake? The answer to this question is probably best
found in observing the negligence in the other areas of the
case.
The SPD did make a belated attempt to authenticate the note, though this
appears to have been a not particularly sincere effort. On April 18, SPD
detectives asked Courtney Love to provide a sample of Kurt Cobain's
handwriting for comparison, and according to the police reports, "Courtney
was told of the need for a handwriting sample from Kurt. She turned over
3 small pages of note paper which contained the suicide note Kurt had
written in Rome." This is quite remarkable. In order to attempt to
authenticate one possibly false suicide note, SPD detectives used what they
called another "suicide note", never taking into consideration the
possibility that Courtney Love, primary beneficiary of the estate of
Kurt Cobain, might have motive to expedite the conclusion of suicide for
purposes of a more rapid securing of his estate (in avoiding probate
delays that a homicide verdict might force, or that she may have been an
active party in her husband's homicide). Using only one sample of
handwriting for comparison, in this case a document subject to the same
questions of authenticity as the primary document in question is
nonsensical, unless, of course, SPD detectives were looking for a
handwriting sample that was most likely to support their original
conclusion on April 8 that the "suicide note" found then was genuine.
Although SPD reports show that detectives received confirmation from the
Washington State Patrol crime lab that "the suicide note found at the
scene was written by Cobain," the WSP lab will vigorously assert that
their authentication only indicates that this is a conclusion that can be
reached only in the case of the comparison sample being genuine "known"
handwriting by Kurt Cobain.
One might also wonder why a document this challenging was not
given to the experts at the FBI's national laboratories for
analysis and latent fingerprint detection. The fingerprint
work done at SPD is apparently of a very limited quality,
as their examination of the shotgun allegedly used by Cobain
to kill himself had "no legible prints".
The SPD did go to the extent of consulting with ("hiring" according to the
Seattle Times) at least 3 local handwriting examiners to
authenticate the Cobain "suicide note". These examiners were apparently
given only photocopies, not the original, to inspect, and all 3 will tell
you that they backed SPD's original finding of authenticity, though none
of these experts is at all willing to discuss their methods used to arrive
at this conclusion.
(page 14)
So often, it seems, this is the case with expert witnesses who work within
the legal system. According to SPD records, the original note was handed
back over to Ms. Love on June 17 (the day after Kristen Pfaff was found
dead).
At least two of the expert used by SPD to authenticate the clearly
indicated that the note that they inspected in photocopy form was also the
note that appeared in photocopy form in the British magazine Vox.
A close examination of this document reveals some very troubling aspects
of the handwriting therein, particularly in that it is almost entirely
devoid of "connecting" movements between letters, save two at a time, and
that this kind of meticulous printing out of handwriting is an obvious red
flag that the document may be a painstaking forgery, penned out
meticulously by a forger who adopted a "printing" style of writing to
facilitate the stopping and starting of their pen movement as often as
they liked. The note's writing is discussed at length in Appendix B, but
certain key points should be very clear on the subject of the s-note:
2. SPD's belated attempt to authenticate this document was cursory
at best. Their efforts look suspiciously like tactics
employed to avoid raising any doubts about its being
by Cobain.
3. The clear possibility of forgery was not dealt with in any
reasonable way. The existence of the "yer penpal Courtney"
note and its probable authorship by Mr. DeWitt would
point to a lively interest in Mr. DeWitt, at least, in the
activity of writing phony notes.
Courtney Love
One aspect of this evident homicide which has to be taken with the utmost
seriousness is that of the possible role of Courtney Love-Cobain in her
husband's death. A rock music singer who has yet to achieve commercial
success in this field (her husband's band has sold at least 100 times the
number of recordings as has Ms. Love's, according to recent figures), Ms.
Love has long had a reputation of strange and outrageous behavior, which
has increased, and not declined, since her husband's death. As a
flamboyant public figure one might say that she merely makes an easy
target for suspicion, but the evidence that indicates her possible role is
more than mere odd character.
Ms. Love was married to Kurt Cobain for only 2 years (25 months) prior to
his death. They had not known each other too well or too long before the
marriage, and they were married while she was pregnant. In a January
issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Kurt Cobain stated in an interview
that he was perhaps headed
(page 15)
to divorce with Ms. Love in the near future, and that if
this happened, he would try to end it amicably. After his
death, the same magazine reported that papers were supposedly
already being prepared for divorce by Cobain.
Because the Cobain publicly discussed having a prenuptial agreement, and
because Kurt was clearly in a financially dominant role in the event of a
divorce proceeding, and because Kurt Cobain was known to have been a
doting father with his daughter (while, by some accounts, Ms. Love was a
rather indifferent mother), and because Ms. Cobain was a beloved public
figure while Ms. Love tended strongly to be merely a controversial one,
the effect of a divorce on her career and assets could be presumed to have
been likely devastating. Given her aggressive attempt to denounce her
husband as a narcotics user in the last days of his life, she seems to
have been in a not very good position at all in terms of her relations
with him or her desires to achieve success and greater fame.
Kurt Cobain's death can be said to have had a distinctly beneficial set of
results for Ms. Love. Her well-publicized romantic endeavors with other
rock musicians since his death demonstrate that she is likely
none-too-grieving in a personal sense, and financially speaking, her
outlook has turned around very suddenly. Negotiations for a motion
picture about her husband's life and featuring music over which she now
holds copyright (once probate is completed) could net her tens of millions
of dollars in a very short period of time, and her status as a "survivor"
of their marriage rather than an outcast puts a sunnier spin on her public
persona and career opportunities. Given the examples of other major rock
celebrities who have died young and left a substantial body of work to be
exploited, it is clear that the ultimate value of the estate should not be
considered less than possibly more than a hundred million dollars as it is
marketed over many years.
Love's apparent false reporting of the missing persons report, in at least
as much as impersonating Cobain's mother and incorporating all of the
elements that were to play a part in his death discovered 4 days later
(shotgun, heroin, suicide) all cast her role in his death under grave
suspicion. Add to this what looks like possibly a self-engineered arrest
for narcotics by the Beverly Hills, California police later that week (the
perfect alibi for anything is being in jail at the time it happens) in
which substances and paraphernalia thought to be narcotics and illegal
materials (prescription pad, syringes) were all explained away by her
attorney as harmless, and also Ms. Love's very active public relations
campaign to eliminate doubt but that Cobain's death was a suicide (she
claims he attempted suicide in Rome a month before his death, although his
(page 16)
physician in Italy has clearly expressed an opposing opinion).
The picture that begins to develop when you take these factors
and many others into the scenario gives a weight of circumstantial
evidence that is hard to ignore. Among others who should be
appropriately investigated concerning their roles in all of this
is Michael DeWitt, the "nanny" who flew to Los Angeles the day before
Kurt's body was discovered.
In Conclusion
This report is only an overview of the key points in the matter of the
death, apparently murder, of Kurt Cobain. In the past 8 months of
investigation into this, I have found that the evidence clearly tends to
point in one direction, that being that Cobain was a homicide victim and
that that fact was concealed through the active efforts of KCME and SPD.
If one is not willing to consider the very real and distinct possibility
of falsification by these authorities, one can get nowhere in discovering
the truth about the death, the murder of Kurt Cobain. Admitting that the
actions of these investigatory agencies must be held to account is the
first step toward correcting their considerable shortcomings.
Kurt Cobain was not merely a "rock star". He was a perceptive and
articulate observer of his time who may have succeeded in using the
rock music idiom as a means of personal expression as well as anyone
ever has. As such, he most certainly will not be forgotten.
Be assured that the circumstances surrounding his death, while not
just yet a part of the mass consciousness, will very soon be known
widely.
Just as any person does, Kurt Cobain deserves justice. In very
many ways, Cobain exemplified Seattle and the Northwest in the
hard-bitten, individualistic character of so many of its natives.
His popularity here was not merely due to commercial success and
popularity elsewhere, people really felt he was one of us.
The way in which the handling of his death investigation was carried
out casts a shame across the character of the official bodies
that govern our locality. In this case, the local agencies have
shown themselves to be uncaring, incompetent, and possibly criminal
in their actions. There is still time, I believe, to largely
correct this situation and to bring those who murdered Kurt
Cobain to justice. Failure to do so can only be considered a
further compounding of the errors already made.
Recommendations
(page 17)
3. Because this case involves evident mishandling of the case
by SPD, and quite possibly deliberate and blatant inappropriate
actions, the City of Seattle should petition for the partic-
ipation of the U.S. Justice Department in investigating this
case, which apparently concerns gross police misconduct
and an interstate conspiracy to commit murder. Because of
what can be presumed to be close personal ties between the
personnel of the SPD and that of local FBI, if the
investigation is to get anywhere, it is probably advisable
that diligence be made to request that investigators
be brought in to investigate this matter from elsewhere,
at least in a supervisory role.
********************************************************************
by Richard Lee
The document examined in these pages is the one that was published in the
English music magazine Vox in September, 1994, which a local police
source has positively confirmed is identical to the alleged suicide note
of Kurt Cobain. Most of this analysis was first discussed in several
weeks of programming of the cable-TV program over a year ago.
A recent effort to gain official disclosure of this document was greeted
by a typically bizarre official reaction. After several weeks of being
referred around to several persons at the Washington State Patrol crime
laboratory in September and early October, I was finally positively told
by the laboratory manager there that despite objections they had heard
from the Seattle Police Department to their releasing this document (and
the "Rome" note Courtney Love had provided to detectives as a genuine
comparison sample of Kurt Cobain's writing) they were prepared to release
it within a week in the absence of any theoretical "court order"
preventing them from doing so. A letter then immediately followed from
that official informing me that they would not comply with the release
that they had just promised. Subsequent phone calls then found this WSP
laboratory manager being very elusive as to why they were reneging on
their compliance with the Washington State Public Disclosure Act, as there
had been no such court order as she had previously indicated would be
necessary to block its release, with the lab manager concluding on one
occasion by saying taken it under her own authority to shield the
document from release.
A two-sentence letter from a Senior Counsel to the Attorney General
of Washington state then arrived, dated October 25.
The purpose of this letter is to let you know
that a lawsuit has been filed to stop production
of the documents that you requested in your
September 18, 1995 letter.
Once the litigation is resolved, I will let you
know as to whether the documents can be produced.
Very truly yours,
CAROL A. SMITH
Senior Counsel
A Senior Counsel of the Attorney General of the State of Washington has
written to inform me that a totally undescribed lawsuit has been filed to
prevent public disclosure of documents that are part of a case of violent
death of a public figure, a case which was long ago closed by police.
This undescribed lawsuit has been filed by some anonymous party with
undescribed standing to do so, having been prompted to sue by unindicated
causes. The Senior Counsel, Carol A. Smith, whose offices are located in
remote Olympia, says she will let me know how the litigation is resolved
through undescribed means, at some totally unspecified time.
Handwriting Analysis
The easiest thing to understand about the alleged suicide note of
Kurt Cobain is that the Seattle Police Department assumed it to
be genuine immediately, having their spokesperson tell the media
the very morning that the body was found that "there was a suicide
note left inside the, uh, the uh, house" (the SPD later said that
the note was found inside the detached garage, next to the body).
There are various psychological and biographical details pertaining to the
lack of authenticity to the note, which I will not address here.
The most startling thing about the handwriting in this note is that there
are very few connections between letters, meaning that this is a very rare
document in which the adult writer has failed to convey any mastery of
cursive styling usually associated with a mature handwriting style. In
fact, it appears that with the exception of several words with a
connection between the double-formation "ee" and an adjoining letter,
there are no cursive movements showing three consecutive letters
formed together without pen-lifts, except one, in line 18, where you will
find "they're" with "hey" connected. This seems very strange for several
reasons:
2. In my own effort to hand-copy a note nearly identical
to this one (using a pen similar to the one said to be
found next to the note), I found that close writing of
very small letters with a ball-point pen causes "blobs"
of ink to "well up" at the tip of the pen, and then appear
as small disturbances when trying to write smooth lines.
This "blobbing" if ink occurred any time there was a delay
of more than a few seconds in continuing to write, for
instance, in moving from right to left to start a new line
in the letter (note, that is). There is almost a complete
absence of "blobs" anywhere in this note, leading one to
believe that the author of the note was compelled to wipe
off the nib of the ball-point as he slowly went along.
This would be the sort of behavior one would expect of
forger, not the author of a suicide note.
3. There are several lengthy examples of Cobain's handwriting
in the 1993 book "Come As you Are: The Story of Nirvana",
which is about Mr. Cobain's life and musical career. Just
as an example of the discrepancies, look at the first two
lines of the draft copy of the lyrics to his famous song
"Smells Like Teen Spirit", i.e., the title and the following
line, "Come out and play make up the Rules", and one can
easily identify (in only 12 consecutive words) 5 different
examples of 4-letter cursive movements, and one 3-letter
combination. In other examples of Cobain's handwriting in
the book, you will find persistent use of lengthy cursive
movement, which is, as is easily seen, entirely absent in
the alleged suicide note.
Another troubling aspect of the alleged suicide note is that the
last four lines appear to be markedly different in size and formation
from the other 36 lines of the writing.
One place to look for clues is in the formation of the letters
"h", "m", and "n", all of which, in normal cursive writing, have
identical concluding strokes:
2. The "me" combinations are also persuasive of a distinct
difference between the main body of the note and the last 4
lines. The first 18 "me" combinations connect, and then in
the last sentence before the salutation ("remember" in
line 34) they do not. The 20th "me" is in line 40, where
they are also totally disconnected, with the letters formed
in such a way that they resemble the formation in line 34.
3. The "ne" combinations show a lack of mastery that is not
demonstrated in the more common "he" and "me" combination
strokes, which the writer (forger) may have more assiduously
practiced. 4 of 11 "ne" combinations do not connect,
("complainer", line 3, "entertained", line 17, and "everyone",
line 22 are the first three). The size and shape of the
overall writing changes between lines 36 and 37. In line 36,
"Courtney" is written with the "ne" connecting, and then
in line 37, only nine words later, "Courtney" is written with
the "n" and the "e" totally disconnected.
Another complete discrepancy between the main body of the letter
and the last four lines is in the combinations of "fo". In the
first 10 examples of "f" followed by "o", the cross-stroke on the
"f" connects clearly to the "o". In lines 38 and 39, however, we see
2 examples of the word "for" in which the "f" and the "o" are totally
disconnected.
The writer seems to have practiced connecting the "v" and he "e", but
without true consistency. In 34 "ve" combinations, 8 do not connect, one
"v" is left out (sensiti e", line 24, and in line 40, the all-capitals
words "LOVE" have no connection between the "v" and the "e").
Combining "ce" with consistency seems to have also challenged the
writer--5 of 13 "ce" combinations do not connect, even in writing
Mr. Cobain's daughter's name, he twice combines "ce" but fails
to do so in line 38. Just as in the writing of the wife's name,
line 36 combines two letters, "ce" in the daughter's name, but
thirteen words later, in line 38, this is changed, with "c" and "e"
separate.
One of the important factors to consider in examining the distinctly
different writing in lines 37-40 is that these are the only statements
that are compellingly referential to suicide or departure of some kind.
The rest of the note seems more like a gripe to Cobain's fans about why,
perhaps, his career might be changing (a Los Angeles Times story
from 2 days before the body was discovered reported that his rock band was
likely breaking up, according to unnamed sources, though it has been
alleged that this story had been "planted" by Courtney Love-Cobain). It
seems that perhaps if evidence (fingerprint, handwriting, or otherwise)
were to be said to be linked to any of the conspicuous suspects by police
investigators, the forgers (presumably persons in the murder conspiracy),
might find a "fall back" defense in saying that they manipulated the
bottom of the note only, say, for instance, after finding the body, as
something to satisfy fan curiosity about his death.
Especially when one compares this lengthy sample to other Kurt Cobain
handwriting samples (in the book "Come As You Are" or even his signature),
one notices the very persistent cursive flow that is interjected
frequently into the genuine examples, and the total absence of many of the
distinctive style-points that characterize genuine Cobain handwriting. It
seems as if some amateur forger tried real hard, within certain
pre-determined limits (dropping challenging style-points like the frequent
use of the capital "A" as a connecting letter) and then ultimately really
didn't do a very convincing job of fakery.
This has been a relatively limited synopsis of findings.
click on the image below to view the alleged suicide note in photocopy
handwriting analysis stuff input 11/13, 11/14. note on video removal
actually posted 8/3/97
In Note Card 2 we see examples of Cobain's use of the capital "A" in the
incorrect manner (that is, not at the beginning of a sentence or a proper
name), frequently as a connecting letter of considerable sophistication,
as seen here in examples from the manuscript of "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
In the several pages of Cobain writing in "Come As You Are", one will have
no trouble finding more than 100 examples of this, though the sole example
in the s-note is the clumsy "BoddAH" in line 1. The forger found this
element of Cobain's writing too challenging, especially as a connecting
letter, and so decided to make no effort at mimicking it.
Note Card 3 shows several examples of a diagonal stroke connecting the two
perpendicular parts of "t", from "Smells Like Teen Spirit". None of these
single-stroke "t"s can be found in the s-note.
Note Card 4 shows a particularly bizarre example of a presumed "Freudian
slip" of the pen which can be supposed to have been intended to be seen
later as indicative of a disturbed state of mind in the author, allegedly
Cobain.
Physically, there is no reason for the darkening of the letters "who re"
in the words "who remembers" (from line 25 of the s-note), as we have
said, this particular ball-point seems to have had a remarkable ability to
resist any of the "welling up" of ink at the tip, almost as if the writer
was dabbing off the nib with a tissue as he went along.
Psychologically, the placement of this "who re" next to the word
"daughter" would be very difficult to account for in the mind of Kurt
Cobain, who, by all accounts, was a doting and even reverential father.
The existence of this strange anomaly and others in the note (including
the various show-business references in what was supposed to have been a
very private communication), would lead one to look toward Courtney Love's
possible role in the creation of the s-note. Remember that is was she who
was bold enough to "plug" a major motion picture, called S.F.W., in
which she participated in the music track, in the taped reading of the
s-note on April 10, 1994 (reportedly unauthorized by its producers to do
so), by saying "so fucking what." The song Courtney Love contributed to
that film project was called "Teenage Whore". She is also known for having
tried to popularize the term "kinder whore" in connection with the recent
fashion fad of mature women wearing baby-doll dresses. Because this s-note
was intended to become some sort of ultimate rock-culture statement, its
value as an advertising medium for Courtney Love would seem to be very
substantial.
this is a work in progress--stayed tuned. RLee. 10-22-1995 hey, lookie,
gang, I did a whole page before interruptions did their thing. do stay
tuned. RLee 11-6-1995. pages 9-13 input on the evening of 11-9-95, before
midnight closing. Stay tuned. RLee. Here it is, the completion of the
basic text of last year's report to local officials. As you might guess,
their responses showed them to be less than Confucian administrators. stay
tuned for much more in graphics and text. RLee. ll-10-95, 11:43 pm.
The precise progress of this document has been disrupted somewhat in that
some of the most recent changes and additions were whacked out of the
system due to a glitch in the system of the local server. The entry of the
latest material on the s-note, i.e., the note cards 1-4 scan and notes
date from 1/21/96, and crashed out of the system on Saturday, Feb. 3 at
about 5 pm. I have had to rebuild the comments next to the cards from
memory.(RLee 2/11/96). A correction was input concerning the formation of
"s" in Note Card #1, which now reads "bottom-to-top," not vice versa (RLee
5/18/96). below, i-net headline was not added until 12-8-96.RLee.
typo "94" changed to "93" in c.dc. 5-12-97. RLee.
******************************
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
Internet Column of
February 11, 1996
There is always a lot of new news to impart to those following this story,
much of which makes it onto the cable-TV program but which is not input in
a timely way to the readers of this web site. Believe me, we will keep
inputting new good stuff as we get the chance and as it seems most
appropriate to this format.
We are rapidly approaching our production of the 100th 1-hour program in
the Kurt Cobain Was Murdered TV series. Give us a toast on March
13. Last week we were able to do something new when we followed the
presentation of program #95 with a 30-minute live call-in studio show,
which went, if I do say so, very well.
An even more interesting little event occurred tonight at a local billiard
parlor where I was able to have a brief non-interview with the "Senator",
Krist N. This was at something called the "Washington Music Industry
Coalition's First Annual Celebrity Pool Tournament", and was sponsored by
an astonishingly frank alignment of the usual suspects: MCA, Geffen
Records, Sub Pop Records, and Senator Krist's let's-payola-the-politicians
organization, JAMPAC.
K.N. was to be found at the extreme far corner of the establishment, up a
flight of stairs guarded by a guy who said you had to pay $10 to play
"Celebrity Challenge" pool. I asked him if it was ok if I was a shark,
that is, if it was okay if I wanted to win against the celeb. He chuckled
and said okay and let me through.
As I reached the top of the stairs, K.N. took his best shot, which was to
send a ball high off the table, and another onto the floor. He flubbed
another 3 shots before his buddies set him up to sink the 8 ball real
easy, as it was 3 inches from the pocket with the cue ball conveniently
about 2 feet from it. The "Senator" sank the 8 and headed down the stairs
without saying anything to his hangers-on. In pursuit, I went down the
narrow stair after him, firmly placing a hand on his dark-suit-jacketed
shoulder (this being the traditional attire of the MCA record-executive
gang) and asked him if he thought I was really there because I was
interested in celebrities or what. His response was to cackle in a
high-pitched laugh that I could only call rather canine. I told him I
didn't think too much of his laughing at me, that I hardly thought that
this was an adequate response. I asked him if he still thought I was
"pissing up a tree," which is what he had the nerve to tell me when we had
our last similar encounter last January.
I asked K.N. if he thought I was in this for money and getting no
response, asked him how much money he was thinking of getting out of all
of this. I asked him if he really meant what he said in the Rolling
Stone when he said "Who cares?" about Kurt Cobain's alleged suicide.
This was "Senator" Krist's first statement to anyone in the press in any
way about Kurt's death, unless you count the bizarre unsigned letter he
sent me last January (and which I am mentioning publicly here for the
first time). His sole response of any merit was to say "Some people need
to open their eyes," which seems like the sort of canned comment we've
come to expect from him, sounding as if it were authored by a record
company publicist.
K.N. signaled his security boys and then sort of "waved" me toward the
door with a little "creeping finger" gesture, toward the door. I wasn't
really there to cause a ruckus, but to force a comment or chat from K.N.,
and so I followed, thinking for a moment that he might actually have the
fortitude to speak with me or tell me to bugger off directly, instead of
letting his lackeys do this, which is what happened last year. Nothing
doing. K.N. held the door, said something like "have a good evening",
trying his best to do an evil smile, and may have even gotten a hand in on
forcing me out the door, vigorously aided by four bruiser-types who seemed
to enjoy these moments of brutality. For my part, I made a few choice
comments as I fought back, best characterized by shouting "Who cares!" in
K.N.'s face (he is 6'7" and was, of course, in no danger, with his
muscle-boys doing their muscle-work on me). Shouting "Who cares!", I felt
strangely like Johnny Rotten singing "No fun!", as you might well imagine.
The bruiser in the blue security shirt #818 stayed on top of me, shouting
"I'm gonna beat your ass!" if I didn't flee immediately.
The celebrity pool-shoot, by the way, was to raise funds to "fight
censorship", although apparently this censorship thing in the eyes of K.N.
and company does not have anything to do with the roughing-up, forcible
ejection, and violent threatening of a journalist who was there to ask a
few questions of the one of the event's principal organizers, Krist
Novoselic, the former bass player for the rock band Nirvana, who now is
seeking a career in, of all things, politics.
"The Seattle rock community" indeed.
Richard Lee, 11:11 pm, February 11, 1996.
********************************************
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
Internet Column of
March 16, 1996
-Jim Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins
Now, as of the last few days, with more than l00 editions of the Kurt
Cobain Was Murdered cable-TV program to our credit, we feel that the
monumental aspect of our work on this case is beyond doubt. A common
American cliche would be to say that we can now die a happy man. I
however, will not resort to this hackneyed exclamation of self-
congratulations for several reasons, principally that I am not now very
happy at all, and even less accepting of the idea of my imminent death.
To say that I am discontented with the idea of becoming some sort of next
figure in "Seattle rock" to die mysteriously is not to say that I don't
often get the creeping feeling of this distinct possibility. Two very
mysterious clusters of homicides have been well known to have been
developing in this town for several years--murders or likely murders of
persons involved in rock music, and persons who are apparently being
murdered by the Seattle Police Department. As someone who was close to
Kurt Cobain likes to call certain situations, this is a "dollars to
doughnuts" wager, that is, that whoever these persons are who are going
around doing these killings, the last thing they want is some guy going
before many thousands of television viewers every week to talk about it.
My particular reason for pondering my own mortality this evening has a lot
to do with events I managed to live through this afternoon. One of the
particularly horrifying features of my life as the sole investigator of
the Kurt Cobain murder these two long years has been that I am keenly
aware that the sorts of people who are distinctly implicated as possibly
behind the Cobain murder--the Mafia, show-business sleazos, the Seattle
Police Department--are not the at all the kind of schemers who like to sit
back and do nothing as they are being criticized. Rather, they are the
sort who like to exert pressure immediately, brutally if suits their
needs. I have felt long overdue for retribution.
Nevertheless, I have persisted in doing the weekly one-hour program,
and last week, following our 100th edition, did our 2nd effort at a live
phone-in presentation, where viewers can call in with questions. One of
the dangers of this sort of impromptu show is that I may let slip some
comment that I wish I hadn't said, particularly in the realm of possibly
letting go with some clue as to how some adversary might find a way to
find me and do harm (this is actually a continual concern, as I am always
recognized when anywhere in public, and it would be easy enough for some
gossipy observer to mention to the wrong person where I might be
frequently found).
Foremost among all of my concerns is that I will be murdered by the
Seattle Police Department. As the local organization that exercises an
active interest in who-is-killing-whom and which has its eyes and ears
everywhere (even as it is coordinated by such feeble brains), they are the
most likely entity to set me up for a murder, or to just do it themselves.
As described in the Compendium Document part of this web-site, in 1994 I
received 2 letters from persons calling themselves "Sam and Robert", who,
without a doubt, were actually some gang of Seattle Police who had decided
that they would get active in trying to intimidate me. The principal
implication of this harassment was that, as they wrote, "your murder"
might occur soon, and that the Seattle Police were certainly not going to
do anything to investigate it. Despite my notifying local and federal
authorities of this situation, no response indicating that they might
consider this as police misconduct or corruption has been forthcoming.
But these are hardly the most improper actions of the Seattle Police
Department. Only 8 days ago an inquest jury handed down no recommendation
to prosecute homicide in the case of the death of Edward Anthony Anderson,
a 27-year-old black man who was shot by police outside his residence on
January 15, the national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King. My
understanding of the incident was that this took place at night in a
well-lighted yard area, with the victim, who is alleged to have been
fighting with his wife, lying flat on his back when he was shot through
the spine at the neck, at a distance that the authorities themselves say
was only about 1 foot. The officer's videotaped testimony showed him to be
claiming that the Glock .40 caliber gun just "discharged", and when he
looked at his hand, his trigger finger was still "indexed", meaning that
his claim has been all along that the gun shot itself, as if the gun was
defective (the police technicians who tested it found no such defect).
This means that neither the officer nor the Seattle Police Department were
able to offer an explanation, and yet the inquest jury recommended no
prosecution. The 31-year-old white officer smiled as he described the gun
firing itself, and has offered no apologies. Most disturbingly, Seattle
Police Chief Norm Stamper, who (along with Mayor Norm Rice) put the deadly
Glocks (with a notoriously light trigger-pull) in the hands of the
trigger-happy local police (announcing this new acquisition, strangely, the
week Kurt Cobain was killed), declared last Wednesday that no punitive
action will be taken against the officer, only that he will be reassigned
to a new precinct, and, most importantly, given more training on how to
handle that extremely dangerous firearm.
My program last week had a good deal of commentary and video footage on
that case, and in the call-in part of the program, I even took the risk of
mentioning several items that later caused me concern as they might
contribute to the general security threat I live under. I said why be shy
about mentioning the case of a woman who was arrested (for minor charges,
possibly traffic infractions) only months ago by Seattle Police and was
soon found strangled in a holding cell with her own shoelaces, a "suicide"
as the police and local media called it. I also mentioned that I saw a
young kid talking to his mom about the High Times cover story on
Kurt Cobain at the Tower store a few days earlier, a site which I have
photographed often in video (they have been displaying Nirvana merchandise
very conspicuously there). I also stated to a caller that I had never
been to jail in Seattle and I certainly hoped to avoid the experience.
Today I went to the magazine rack at Tower Books shortly after 1 pm, and
within minutes of my entering the store, two policemen followed, standing
close to me among the magazine racks. (I should explain that I always
carry a cheap 110 mini-camera these days, and that only this week I took
several photos of a woman examining the High Times cover story, an
event that undoubtedly caused gossip among the Tower personnel). Officer
S. took a position among the music magazines, only a few feet away from
me. I took my camera out and tried to photograph him in the same frame as
the Kurt cover story, although the flash may not have gone off. I said
quietly, "Hi, officer" and was somewhat curious that neither his being
photographed nor my saying "hi" caused him to look my way. I took a copy
of Record Collector and started to look at it on the rack opposite.
Officer S. went over to officer L. and said, "Hey, I'm gonna take a look
at this Kurt Cobain thing," and returned to his former place. I got a
flash photo of him standing in front of the Kurt face on the magazine
cover, an then a particularly good snap of him (from behind him, over his
shoulder, but with his big Seattle Police arm-patch obvious) having opened
up the 2-page spread with the headline "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" I put the
mini-camera away and resumed looking at Record Collector.
A minute later Officer S. was standing very close to me, with a firm
grip on my right elbow, acting very angry. He asked me something along the
lines of what did I think I was doing. He said that I could not just go
around taking pictures of people in public. I said that I have been doing
this for years and my belief is that it is perfectly legal. He said that
it is not and asked me where the camera was (which was in my pocket). I
said hey, it's still a free country, to which he answered with a definite,
"No, it's not." I said, what do you mean, it's not a free country, and he
immediately insisted, "You're coming with me outside," grabbing my left
arm and putting it into a half-Nelson position, pushing me through the
many book-and-magazine shoppers there. I made mildly loud protestations of
"hey, what's the problem?" and "what did i do, take a picture?" to call
attention of the witnesses to this strange event. I protested to him,
"Hey, I am a professional journalist. I have the right to take a picture."
His response, full of irony for me now, was "If you're with the Seattle
Times or the Seattle P-I you're a reporter, but you're not,
you're nobody!"
Outside, Officer S. walked me about 20 feet from the door (away from
witnesses) and said, "You're under arrest. Put you hands behind your
back." I asked, "What for?" and Officer S. immediately grabbed the hair on
the back of my head and forced my head down, slamming me down on one knee.
He immediately tried several times to perform some sort of "judo"-type
movement of snapping my head very quickly to the side while gripping my hair,
which, it was immediately apparent to me, was intended to make me lose
consciousness like a knockout punch. This didn't work, though, and so he
started pulling my hair in various ways and trying to force my face to the
pavement, which I tried to prevent by keeping a hand between my face and
the sidewalk. he was screaming, "Hands behind your back!" and I started
shouting, "Help!" loudly and repeatedly.
It is interesting to note that his partner was absent for this scene and
did not show up for about five minutes. I was shouting to various
witnesses that "I am being abducted by Officer S.!' and "This is a
political kidnapping!" In retrospect this might seem weird to some, but
the entirety of Officer S.'s behavior and his attempt to snap my neck in
particular left me with the distinct impression that Officer S. would not
mind at all killing me. It also occurred to me that the whole of the
situation was a set-up, and that they had something very particular
already planned for me, perhaps a many-days-long session of imprisonment
and intimidation, perhaps worse. As I shouted Officer S.'s name and the
fact that I was being abducted, Officer S. tightened the handcuffs as far
as he possibly could, and when this failed to silence me, he started
twisting my fingers in various ways to try to torture me to silence.
Officer S. was still alone, with, against standard procedures, his
partner, Officer L., apparently still hiding in the book store, and so 2
witnesses, a middle-aged black woman and a young white male, came forward
and started asking Officer S. a few questions about why he was torturing
me underneath the jacket that he had pulled back over my wrists. The woman
perceptively mentioned that this was obviously a case in which there are
"very powerful people involved", and the young man soon mentioned that he
knew who I was from the TV show, too. Officer S. never made such an
admission.
I must have shouted Officer S.'s name and the claim that this was a
political abduction about 20 times, with all sincerity, I assure you, and
with the numbers of people who were witnessing this, I started to feel
more secure in terms of probably not facing imminent death. A police car
showed up in a few minutes and officer S. and the driver, Officer C.,
taking me over the sub-station at the foot of the Space Needle. (Officer
L. showed up only momentarily at the end of the scene, before I got in the
car, having not participated actively in his partner's strange arrest, as
if they had worked this out between themselves beforehand).
Once inside the sub-precinct, I was put into the single holding cell there
and treated to the usual insults and shake-down as they emptied my
pockets. When I pointed out to Officer C. that phony arrests of
journalists is a primary characteristic of fascist regimes, Officer C.
said that obviously that shouldn't bother me, since "that's the kind of
thing that Communists do, too." They left me in the holding cell and
started to examine my personal effects, showing ape-like fascination with
my Seattle Police Department press identification and a small notebook
that they scratched their heads as they tried to read. (I had never been
asked to show any form of identification until I was in the lock-up).
When I shouted repeatedly through the glass that my hands were numb from
the handcuffs, they had lots of laughs about this and Officer S. even
pulled out a tin of tobacco and started sucking on some as he played with
his ear, as if he was hard of hearing. After 10 minutes of shouting
through the glass that every officer there was legally liable if I would
become permanently disabled, they sent Officer S. in to loosen the cuffs
on my badly swollen wrists.
Within the first 20 minutes or so, Officer S. was on the phone explaining
the situation to someone in a rather apologetic manner, then actually saying
he was sorry to call this person at home at the conclusion of the call.
Eventually, the supervising Sergeant, Sergeant L., came in and tried to
make a relatively calm inquiry about the accusation of Officer S. that I
was guilty of resisting arrest, although I stated that the only physical
resistance I ever offered was to try to keep my neck from getting broken.
It was explained by Sergeant L. that the officer's actions were
precipitated by feeling threatened by my actions. He said that Officer S.'s
version of he incident was that I had been "in his face" with the tiny
flash camera, and that he had been "blinded" by the light of the flash
and thusly felt that this was perhaps some sort of an attack. When I told
the sergeant that the photo was taken from over the officer's shoulder,
and that I had resumed reading Record Collector when he approached
me from behind, this was explained away that he considered turning away
from him a "furtive action" that was accompanied by the suspicious
activity of my putting a hand in a pocket. The sergeant's rationalization
of the officer's actions were described in terms that are quite similar
to the description of events as we in Seattle so often hear when a person
is shot because they allegedly have a TV remote-control or a cigarette
lighter in their hands. The sergeant's implied meaning was quite true--I
should probably consider myself lucky, after all, under these described
circumstances, I could have been shot to death.
Eventually, the conciliatory Sergeant L. tried to characterize the
whole thing in terms of a misunderstanding, and actually said that I was
legally obligated to consent without objection to arrest "on suspicion."
On suspicion of what charge, though, I asked, and he responded, I kid you
not, "on suspicion of engaging in suspicious activity," with no sense of
irony. He attempted to explain Officer S.'s actions as basically a result
of his "training," as if Officer S. was just some big angry dog that had
to act without thinking.
That is the easy interpretation of the event. I would say that part of
my feeling about the whole incident was the impression, backed by many of
the nuances that I have related here, that this was some kind of a set-up,
and that grave danger was narrowly averted. But it is so very hard for a
reporter, acting in the best tradition, to pass up a bit of the truth, or
for a photographer to resist going for that dangerous shot that tells the
whole story.
A clear flash photo of a uniformed Seattle Police officer reading the
headline, "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" is precisely what I captured, even
while a voice inside was telling me that this was risky, that the whole
thing seemed like bait for a trap. The likelihood that I will ever be able
to display this photo is very small. After the 3-and-1/2-hour ordeal, I
was released by Sergeant L. who returned my personal belongings, minus the
camera, of course. He stated that this was being "held for evidence" in my
trial for this incident, and that Officer S. had already left the building
on the mission of delivering the camera to the West Precinct station. He
asked if I was sure that there was really film in the camera, as if this
might emerge as an explanation for missing photographic evidence. As I
explained to the sergeant, the photographic evidence in the camera would
prove absolutely that I was never "in the face" of Officer S., "blinding"
him with a flash, and therefore I had a hard time believing that he would
allow this evidence to exist, proving his whole story a lie. This is, of
course, similar to the treatment of the physical evidence in the case of
the murder of Kurt Cobain--they will fight in court for their presumed
privilege of concealment of records, especially photos and tape, and if
one were to win release of this evidence in court, it would not be
surprising to find it missing, destroyed, or altered.
It is not overstating the case to say that the Seattle Police Department
seems to enjoy killing people, both in the hearts of its killer officers,
and in the intent of the administration that implies approval of its often
murderous enforcers. The officer who killed Edward Anderson has performed
a service to the more homicidally-inclined of the members the
department--he has proved that the Seattle Police are above the law, in
the matter of killing unarmed civilians, and by inference, everything
else. He has also shown that the controversial police chief, Norm Stamper,
is not about to resign or do anything of the kind upon the occasion of
the first person to fall victim to the inevitable--the "accidental"
shooting of a person with the deadly Glock with the light trigger-pull and
no "safety" device. Mayor Norm Rice, who joined in with enthusiastic
support of Stamper's idea to buy these inappropriate arms (for an
estimated $385,000) at a time when other police agencies were trying to
get rid of Glocks, has not let his complicity in Edward Anderson's death
dampen his ambition--he is now running for the office of governor of the
state of Washington. "I will run on my record, and I will run on my
principles!" he shouted in announcing his candidacy.
Just what the guiding principles are in the government of this city, as
demonstrated particularly by its police department, cannot be easily
ascertained. I would say that the best description in brief is that we are
under the rule of a government which wants to prove its devotion to
ambition has no boundaries, including the sanctioning of murder.
The murder of Kurt Cobain was no aberration, rather, it was more in
the way of business as usual.
Richard Lee, March 17, l996, 1:59 am. revision input
3-17-96, concl. 12:51 pm.
***********************************************
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
as reported
April 10, l996
(an Internet posting of the video content and commentary from the cable-TV
program)
I know that there must be a good deal of curiosity over the type
of television documentary that I've been producing for, as of this
evening, an even 2 years now, and so I thought I'd come down to the cafe
tonight to send out a description that will enable readers to imagine
some of the style of the series.
What follows is an item-by-item list of the video items that comprised the
first 3/4 or so of the show last week, followed by the prepared commentary
that appeared at the conclusion, as has been the basic format of the
program for the last 104 editions. Thousands of segments of video float in
and out of the program to build a weight of evidence that the viewer can
find persuasive without "voice-over" narration, which would tend to, as
Kurt said about song writing, make things "too obvious."
These video items appeared, following the opening titles:
2. A close-up of a British rock-mag article headlined "Kurt Cobain to
be Laid to Rest at Last" and which names the Forest Memorial Gardens as
the place Kurt Cobain's ashes will reportedly be buried April 7.
3. A minute or so of some very strange video of what looks like a red
Ferrari with Courtney Love as passenger speeding down Interstate 5. The
license plate on the car is from Washington state, and reads NIRVANA. The
superimposed date on the video footage is April 7, 1996. Music from
Bleach blares from my car stereo.
4. Brief slow-motion footage of a german shepherd guard-dog approaching
menacingly.
5. A hand-held piece of footage of the camera going up the hill of the
park next to the Love-Cobain house. The peak of the garage in which Cobain
is alleged to have died juts up above the tall bushes. A
several-minutes-long interview follows with Michelle and Danika, two
teenagers with "Goth" make-up who at first express admiration for Courtney
Love, but apparently begin to have doubt about this as our discussion of
the likelihood of murder in the case deepens. Danika has brought along a
folded-up photocopy of the official Cobain death certificate, and this
leads to our discussing the bizarre discrepancies in the pathologists'
official assertions.
6. A brief bit of "sampled" video from a local news program: Norm Stamper,
the chief of police here explains about his police force, "What I see in
each of them is heart..."
7. Another bit of "sampled" video from local news: Captain Larry Farrar,
the retiring head of the homicide squad gives a rare interview, in which
he relates a story he finds very funny, (about being approached by a young
military school cadet) saying, "'Are you guys really policemen?' I said,
'hell, yes, son-- FBI.'" He laughs vigorously and bangs his fist on his desk
in delight with his amusing story.
8. An old piece of video from 1992 shows Kurt Cobain and bandmate Krist
Novoselic in an interview at an anti-bigotry benefit in Oregon. Novoselic
says, "You gotta fight back. You know, if you don't care, then you're
worse than the conservative fanatics that are implementing this on
everybody. And you gotta choose sides." The irony in Novoselic's words
should not be lost on viewers who have followed the story with interest.
9. The full-length promotional video for "Lithium" (a montage of the Dave
Markey film).
10. The "key video" of the crime scene in which no blood is seen around
Cobain's corpse's head.
11. The title "MCA Home Video" at the beginning of a tape of Warner
Brothers' production of the 1960s TV classic Dragnet (this was
either the pilot for the series or a high-production-value episode for
theatrical or overseas distribution). "Ladies and gentlemen, the story you
are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the
innocent," the film begins. A man is shotgunned to death in a vacant urban
field. His body is shown in a police photo as actor Jack Webb begins the
narration, "It was Saturday, April 9. We were working the day-watch out of
the Intelligence Division..." This is intercut with close-ups of the front
page of the Seattle Times from Saturday, April 9, 1994, showing
Cobain's purportedly shotgunned body (in part, as you have seen in this
web-site).
12. A close-up of newspaper editorial from March 17, 1996 headlined,
"Stamper Response to Police Shooting", highlighting the police chief's
typically sentimental approach to a crisis: "What I look for is what was
in the heart of the police officer...what was his intention."
13. A close-up from a March 26 neighborhood newspaper detailing my bizarre
arrest after taking a photo of a policeman reading the High Times
in which I am alleged to have "temporarily blinded the officer", (although
the picture was, in fact, taken from behind and to the side of the
officer, making this impossible).
14. A portion of an old Monty Python skit in which police constable Pan
Am gives evidence against a suspect charged that he "conspired to do
things not normally considered illegal...he assaulted myself and 3 other
officers while bouncing around the cell--the end."
15. A few seconds from the TV classic The Prisoner where a citizen
of The Village is forced to give public confession: "I'm
inadequate!...Disharmonious!"
16. A short clip from a local news report featuring Brian Ross of ABC News
stating that he had been hung-up on by the FBI when he recently asked why
they didn't move in to arrest Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber" suspect
earlier, with Ross saying that there seemed to be no "cross-check" of
Kaczynski's name on more than one list of possible suspects.
17. A commercial for a Fox network show called Sliders, in which
adventurers time-travel to alternative versions of history. "Slide into a
dimension where women wear beards, rock 'n' roll doesn't exist, and the
U.S. Constitution has been outlawed," goes the promo, followed by a promo
for the supernatural The X-Files in which "a murder victim returns
to hunt down his killers." A clip from Sliders is shown, in which
an old man relates that martial law was declared in the 1960s, after the
election of J. Edgar Hoover, "the step-father of our country." One of the
adventurers is then seen shopping for records from, as the salesman
explains, "the latest state-approved sounds--Liberace Unplugged, Jim
Morrison sings Irving Berlin, and Kurt Cobain's Christmas
Album."
18. Brief interview with Joel, age 14, and Jamie, age 11, in Viretta Park,
next to the Love-Cobain house. Jamie says, "I think there would be tons of
blood" if Cobain had shot himself on the loft of the garage seen in the
background. The camera zooms on a video surveillance camera mounted on the
Love-Cobain house, as I explain to, Mrs. M., the kids' mom, that Jimi
Hendrix's family just settled for a reported $60-80 million in a court
case concerning royalties, so this is a touchy situation with so much money
involved.
The camera zooms in through a small clearing in the bushes to view a
late-model European sedan entering the gates. A guard shines a bright
light in the lens of the camera from a distance. A minute passes and a
german shepherd guard-dog has somehow emerged in Viretta park from the
Love property, and is approaching me slowly. The guard with the light
appears, and I say, "Hey, hey, hey--attack with a guard dog is attack with
a deadly weapon. That dog is a deadly weapon, my friend. You don't want to
use a deadly weapon on anybody here..." I start to back out of the park
slowly as the guard approaches, and Mrs M. and her kids follow. Mrs M.
(who says that she works as a law-enforcement professional in Canada)
tells me a few minutes later that she heard the voice of Courtney Love
from behind the bushes, as if it was Love in the car and she who ordered
the illegal letting-loose of her attack-dog in the public park.
19. The footage of the video from earlier in the show is repeated, with
still images showing the NIRVANA Ferrari and what looks very much like
Courtney Love in the passenger seat.
20. Footage dated April 7 is shown of the Forest Memorial Gardens, a
shabby, hilly little cemetery in Olympia. It is very unattended, even
though this is Easter Sunday.
21. Similar footage of a somewhat nicer cemetery called Olympic Memorial
Gardens, also supposedly a selected site for Cobain's ash burial. It is
similarly unattended by all but a few persons on this warm, sunny day.
22. Brief news clips of a protest at a local junior high school where
hundreds of students walked out in support of a 13-year-old boy who was
sent home for wearing a skirt to class.
23. Another Sliders clip, showing dialogue between the
time-travelers and alternative-history locals who say that Martin Luther
King, Bobby Kennedy, and comedian Sam Kinison are all political prisoners
on Alcatraz Island. "You wouldn't happen to know who is in cell 54, would
you?" an adventurer asks, as the camera pans to a young Cobainish-looking
guy (the question is left unanswered and the inference is that this may be
a veiled reference to Cobain).
24. A short clip (from Live, Tonight, Sold Out!")of Krist Novoselic
saying, without explanation, in apparent jest, "Kill 'em all, that's what
I say."
25. A non-English-speaking emcee screams, "Nirvana!" to a concert audience.
26. A freeze-frame of Kurt Cobain in a crown, as he appeared in the Rio
concert in Brazil in 1993. (he was wearing a dress, which relates to the
local students' protest and also a sub-plot in the Sliders show,
where the policemen, apparently so-ordered by reputed cross-dresser J.
Edgar Hoover, all wear skirts).
The following is the text of the commentary for April 10,
1996.
--Somerset Maugham, from his Cakes and Ale, Chapter 1.
Of course, now that we are nearing within a few days of the 2-year mark in
this weekly investigation of the murder of Kurt Cobain, the most
persistent inquiry we can expect to be asked by those with a limited grasp
of the situation is why, why, why do we persist thusly?
Those of you who have been with this adventure for any length of time and
who can also appreciate the breadth of implications of the case at hand
will have little need to ask such a question. Without seeming to gloat too
much over the limited extent of our victories here, let me just say that
never did I dream that I'd be walking into such a case that, above
anything else I've ever heard of, much less been involved in directly--
this nasty affair of the Cobain murder--is the ultimate textbook case of
just exactly what is the problem with the growing phenomenon of mindless
corruption and hypocrisy in these United States today.
I am aware that many viewers must find the whole idea of the Cobain death
as the result of a pre-conceived murder plot far more horrifying than that
of the official corporate-media tale that winners are sometimes quitters,
especially in this Loser Generation, but to me this is not so. Not only is
the version of events that Cobain was done in by others more persuasive in
fact, once one disregards the false value of "official" data in the case,
much of which is evidently false, but on an even more interesting level,
the Cobain case as a murder is much more "real", that is, compelling,
because it is in accordance with what one witnesses these days in terms of
greed, ambition, stupidity, and let us not leave out the very important
factor of mindless subservience to authority, even if that "authority" is
not much more than the well-tailored suit and tie of a Los Angeleno
lawyer/record-hustler, or that of the local legal world, where everyone
these days seems to have their fingers crossed that Seattle might decay
into some state of relative anarchy, and thus prove more profitable to
those who need to get paid by cleaning up the legal messes of lives ruined
by lawlessness.
Well, at the very least I suppose that we're all supposed to sleep more
soundly at night knowing that the Feds have finally bagged our era's
Johnny Dillinger, that oh-so-terribly cunning Unabomber "genius", who has
kept the "J. Edgars" scratchin' their noggins for nearly two decades,
despite leaving a trail of clues as to his identity so distinct that it is
no wonder he was so confident that he could get those bastions of
officialdom, the New York Times and the Washington Post, to
give him more column inches than they do to their entertainment reporters.
Just as the U.S. government needs it foreign-policy boogie-men--the
Ayatollah, Kadaffi, and Saddam--domestic policy apparently is much more
easily-ordered when focusing on a mere few supercriminals a la the old
Batman TV series. Rewards are sure to follow, wherever the famed
Una-bummer may go. Made-for-TV-movie celebrations of the
mathematician-turned-backwoods-blower-upper are already reportedly in the
works. None of this highly entertaining crime story would be occurring, of
course, if the X-Files duo had shown up so many years ago and asked
somebody for the short list, maybe just a top 10 list, of the nuttiest
nerds to ever drop out of society after showing signs of losing grip while
working in that targeted building at Berkley.
I guess the argument that we might hear, if any argument were to be
forthcoming, from federal law enforcement would be that they didn't want
to look too closely at suspect Ted Kaczynski because this might be a sort
of staring into the sun of his Constitutional rights, that somehow the
Una-bummer had the right to pursue happiness by any means necessary, until
such time that he was ratted out by his own family, rather than being
taken down by earnest investigators, perhaps like some eager,
young Lincoln, Montana high school investigative reporters who might have
run a story in the school paper someday about how "Uncle Ted" used to be
a Berkley prof, but now he just sits around in his cabin waiting for the
collapse of modern civilization.
We certainly would not want to give anyone the impression that we're
presenting photographic, that is, video evidence, in this series without
appropriate explanation concurrent with the images (such as is standard in
network-TV documentaries, with the use of voice-overs). The most
astonishing footage we have presented this week, as I am sure you have
noticed, is the startling sight of what appears to be the yella-haired and
dark-sunglassed wicked wid, Courtney Love, riding in a Ferrari or Corvette
with Washington state plates reading NIRVANA, being driven around by
someone with a distinct resemblance to one Mr. Michael DeWitt, who is
certainly on anyone's "top 10 list" of conspicuous suspects to have
possibly taken part in the killing of Mr. Kurt Cobain.
As truly fascinating as this footage is--after all, the Courtneyesque
character bears a resemblance in profile, not only to the wid's
distinctive nose, but also apparently of her large-lobed ears, and this
physical resemblance convinced me of the great likelihood of this being
America's most un-wanted rock 'n' roll couple. The fact is, though, that I
managed to track down the owner of the 'Vette-with-the Ferrari-kit-body,
and he says with appropriate sincerity that the blonde is his girlfriend,
and that they have never had anything to do with the Nirvana rock band,
that he got the plate because he just liked the word, so he says.
I am not truly convinced of this, but I will say that the sincerity of the
'Vette owner is strong preliminary evidence that I am not being stalked by
the weird widow in the flesh, which, believe me, I rather felt was the
case before reaching the car's owner by phone. It occurred to me that
perhaps I was being baited by the temptation of a photographic find, such
as I believe that I was baited by that policeman who walked into Tower
Books and plucked up the "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" High Times, and
therefore, I did not pursue the foreboding Ferrari (as it sped off the
highway immediately after I began filming).
Besides, I figured that if it was you-know-who, I would meet up with her
in Olympia or Tumwater at one of the cemeteries that media sources said
she would be to bury some portion of Mr. Cobain's ashy assets that day,
April 7, Sunday. As you can see, nothing was shaking at either boneyard
this weekend, and even Courtney's favorite local lapdog TV station, KOMO,
reports nothing doing with the singer's soot this weekend, although right
up until this afternoon they have been covering with great enthusiasm the
reported day-by-day saga of the division and distribution of the dust of
Mr. Jerry Garcia. Apparently the plans to bury Kurt Cobain in a down-scale
plot near downtown Olympia were foiled, perhaps by an unwillingness by
many of the principals in the drama, the Nirvana drama, to go along with
this shabbily-conceived disposal ritual.
As to whether I am "stalking" Ms. Courtney Love-Cobain, an
accusation I am rather suspicious she has tried to circulate, I would say
that without a doubt, I most certainly am not. I did, as you can see,
spend a short time in Viretta Park, about an hour's worth, this weekend,
as it was the anniversary of the discovery of the body, and this was a
modest-sized event last year. So enraged was the wicked wid at my presence
there, so it seems, that she pulled into the driveway in her car of choice
and ordered, within 90 seconds, her security man to let loose the
schnitzen guard-dog into Viretta Park, which is public property, a
public park.
You notice on the tape that I state in no uncertain terms that I consider
this an intimidation with a deadly weapon, which is a crime. If you think
that this is overstating the case, just look at the behavior of a Seattle
police officer last week, who according to Lynnwood police, felt so
threatened by a 65-pound labrador-rottweiler who had wandered onto his
property that he felt he needed to issue a likely illegal warning to the
dog and a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old boy who were reportedly within a few
feet of the dog, by flaunting his pistol, presumably his high-powered
service pistol. This police officer, by the way, was home on "paid
administrative leave" because of an incident only a couple of weeks before
in which he had shot another officer in the foot with his service Glock,
as well as, in that incident, shooting a dog to death. Whether his
warnings, verbal as well as deadly, were issued to the boys or the dog is
not entirely clear, although we might expect that the dog did not speak
English and would not have understood the symbolism of the drawn pistol,
and so we can assume safely that the dog was not the only organism there
being threatened with deadly force in this latest incident.
According to this police officer's standard of conduct, I guess I should
have had a high-powered pistol at the ready there in Viretta Park and
started blasting way until the dog, at least, was dead. I, however, do
not carry a gun, and have no desire to go around killing people, although
the same most certainly cannot be said, according to what we now know,
about the wicked wid or her many friends in the Seattle Police Department.
(this program, our 104th in the series to utilize exactly this format, a
montage of clips and original video, followed by a lengthy commentary
monologue, was followed by our 4th presentation of a live, half-hour
call-in program).
Richard Lee, entered overnight April 13-14, 1996, concl. 1:55 am.
********************************************
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
Internet Column of
June 30, 1996
Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass
Wouldn't you believe it, it's just our luck, that we get no recess at all
on the KurtWasM project, looking forward to further toil in this matter
for the ages, that has no seasonal boundaries.
Just what the prospects have been for direct answers in this case with so
very many unanswered questions is at the heart of what the public has a
right to expect in a case which will either serve to show the
possibilities of the truth prevailing in a tragedy against all odds in
what we can only observe is very much a fixed game, or, alternatively,
will be a scandal that dies on the vine without fruition, existing as a
vague memory in the minds of a few that perhaps there was some small echo
of a rumor that justice had not thoroughly been served in this case.
Can you say "nevermind?"
Some considerable developments have occurred this weekend in the course of
providing at least a palpable degree of to what extent these unanswered
questions have remained unjustly that. Staying on the trail of the passive
who have provided a distinctly silent presence in this homicide, all the
while making plans for their monumental profits from the artistic oeuvre
of this very accomplished man, has been to try to peer through the
veneer of their publicity appearances to decipher in what way they seek to
confound public perception of the event and in so doing cover their
secreted maneuvers for power in the post-Kurt world.
On rare occasions the denizens of the garrisoned quarters who comprise
the inheritors of the short-lived phenomenon of Nirvana appear in public
to convince us that they are not residing in an otherworldly universe of
freedom from untold profits to date and in the lengthy trail ahead called
the future. When doing so they will try to convince us of their status as
ordinary people with slightly unusual jobs as musicians and marketers in
the growing grunge industry. And grow it will, like you wouldn't believe.
Courtney Love has remained ensconced and unavailable for any unguarded
close-ups by the public for more than 2 years. Her interest in continuing
to reside in Seattle is apparently considerable, and we might opine that
inasmuch as she has the local media securely under her thumb (the
masterstroke of this perfect murder was to give the local media enough
indication that murder was truly the case, all the while assuming
correctly that they would slavishly go along with the official
declarations of the police and corporate lawyers that Kurt was the killer)
her continuing here conveys a sense of her social acceptability and
innocence of any conceivable wrongdoing.
Courtney Love, as far as is known, did not appear at the Planet Hollywood
restaurant opening yesterday, although the close associations her MCA
overlords hold with Planet H. certainly would have rated her an invitation
under any ordinary circumstances. We can only assume that these
corporations understand all too clearly the unusual dangers that any
involvement of Ms. Love in their business affairs represents. She also
failed to make an appearance in the very large Freedom Day parade and
rally in Seattle's Capitol Hill, where she might have assumed a receptive
crowd among gay liberation supporters, many of whom are the only people
costumed in a way that would make her usual attire and exhibitionism look
as if it is tending toward the mainstream. The local gay parades would
make a perfect venue for Ms. Love to do her thing as if it were to be
interpreted as social activism, and to do so along with the Seattle mayor,
a gay city councilwoman, and the female attorney general of the state of
Washington (all of whom marched today). To my knowledge, Courtney Love has
never appeared at any such parade or event.
One can wonder if the word is out on Ms. Love and what she is coming to
represent in the minds of many of the better-informed of the public.
Although she did not appear, the significant event of the day for our
purposes was the quietly-publicized inclusion of Sweet 75, the band led by
ex-Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, which was to provide the big finale to
this day of celebration.
I arrived at the event just after the time that Sweet 75 was scheduled to
go on-stage. The many thousands of revelers had vacated Volunteer Park
before my arrival, and Novoselic's band was obligated to appear before a
crowd of less than 200 in front of the bandstand, with perhaps another 100
persons looking on from a distance. One can wonder if the appearance of
Sweet 75 before such a sparse audience at this event on a particularly
gorgeous day of sunny, mild weather was due to something other than desire
by the attendees to hurry off to someplace less comfortable. Many of
those who did watch this show seemed to be young and not in the typical
leather and lace getups of the gay paraders.
Novoselic played his set without any comment to the crowd at all, which is
tending toward being a singular event in the career of Mr. Novoselic, who
seemed to always be waiting for songs to end so that he could scurry over
the microphone and make his attempts at funny jokes when he was in Kurt
Cobain's band. Novoselic plays both bass and guitar in his band, which is
fronted by a punky female singer, and likes to hold his guitar neck high
above his head as he plucks a single note repeatedly, which should tell
you a little about the band's music. A young blond girl of 3 or 4 was
front-and-center before the stage on an adult's shoulders, being bounced
around as she moved her tiny arms to the music in what looked like
rehearsed participation in the ecstasy of rock, which was received by
rather tepid applause by the young adults there.
I was there to get an earful of the band, yes, but, as you might guess,
for other reasons as well. When the announced last song was in play, I
headed around back for the real reason for my attendance, an impromptu
interview with the newly taciturn Krist Novoselic, who has offered
scarcely a word of response to questions I have attempted to pose in our
last two such encounters.
I approached with camera running as two pre-teen kids were going up to
Novoselic with a "set list" of song titles they had picked up and wanted
autographed. K.N. was changing from a plain white dress shirt (costumed so
that he would look more-or-less like any old musician putting in a weekend
wedding gig) into a non-sweaty rocker's plain black tee. He may have been
easily able to spot me on the lawn with my camera and tripod an hour
before, and seemed psychologically at the ready for our strange meeting.
KN: Hey, it's Richard Lee.
RL: Hey, it's Chris Novoselic.
KN: I gotta sign this and pack up. I gotta go to work. There you go.
Thanks for coming.
KIDS: Thanks. Later.
KN: I gotta go to work.
RL: Really? And what is work for you? President of Nirvana, Incorporated?
(KN is getting into his black Toyota Land Cruiser van and he closes the
door)
KN: (laughs slightly)
RL: You are the president of Nirvana, Incorporated, are you not?
(Raising voice to be heard through car window). What exactly does that
net you on a per year basis?...
(KN starts engine, then rolls down window).
KN: Those are all interesting questions.
RL: Are you a one-third owner, 33.3 percent, of Nirvana, Incorporated?
KN: What I'd like to say, I'd like to say hi to all my friends on
channel 29--
RL: Do you have any friends on channel 29?
KN: Well, I think that, um, (he is looking in mirror and slowly backing
up his van)
RL: I think you had a crowd of about 200 here today--
KN: Well, I think that, uh, I think about public television, that's a
pretty good thing
RL: Yeah, public access is great, but business is even better--
KN: Yeah, there's a difference--
RL: Corporate rock is where it's at, man.
(KN smiles slightly).
RL: You know, corporate rock. 33.3 percent of Nirvana, Incorporated. That
should net you quite a fortune.
KN: (opens mouth to speak with a slight smile)
RL: Oh, yes it will. There's no doubting that. Additionally, I would say
that--
KN: (wagging finger) You're obsessed, Richard.
RL: Obsessed? Really?
KN: Yeah, you know what you should do is--
RL: And you're unconcerned, and that's far worse--
KN: I told you that--
RL: You're unconcerned--
KN: I told you that your theories don't hold water, you know. (he
rolls up window to van)
RL: (raising voice) I think we should discuss ballistics.
(a Roughneck Hanger-on who styles himself like the singer in White
Zombie laughs at this)
RL: The ballistics of how you can shoot yourself with a shotgun and
not spill any blood.
(KN steps out of van)
RL: Is that really possible?
(KN steps around corner of stage structure and out of sight)
ROUGHNECK HANGER-ON: You don't want to get your ass kicked right now, do
ya?
RL: 'Get my ass kicked'? Do you have the legal authority to kick
anyone's ass? I don't think so.
(RL circles around van)
RNHO: No legal authority at all, punk.
KN: (at back of van) You have to, you're just going to have to go
away, I can't--
RL: You understand, Mr. N., that I am asking questions in the public's
interest.
KN: (walking away) Oh, God.
(KN returns, rolling a mid-sized amplifier off-stage)
RL: So, no blood at the scene of the crime. That's something I think you
would be concerned about, I mean, you might stop short of obsession, but
concern, at least, asking the logical questions, would be, I think,
in order, Mr. Novoselic.
(KN gets into van and moves it up a few feet, returning to "go" at the
camera in a sort of wordless assault, making a "talk-talk" gesture with
his hand like it is a sock puppet).
RL: 'You have the right not to remain silent'...Don't touch the
camera--it's expensive. I'm sure you can afford it, (but) I can't afford
to replace it.
(KN makes a small, sudden movement at the camera)
RL: Oh, yeah, well, you're bigger than I am, and I'm sure that, given our
last confrontation, a violent assault is something you'd be happy to
conduct, as long as you had 4 or 5 muscular men assisting you.
(KN "goes" at the camera lens with his "talking hands" gestures,
making odd mouth gestures as well)
RL: What about the shotgun suicide scenario, Mr. Novoselic?
(he turns and walks toward van)
RL: He shot himself in the mouth, and yet there was no blood at the scene
of the crime. And you've inherited one-third of this man's wealth, and yet
you have no questions about the crime scene. You can laugh all you like,
Senor Wences, but I think that most people would find that extremely
bizarre.
(KN does a laughing and knee-slap gesture, twice, apparently in
reaction to my comment about his 'Senor Wences' hand-puppet gestures)
RL: Yeah, you can laugh at it all you like. History will not be so kind to
you, Mr. Novoselic, as to overlook your shortcomings as a human being,
with a simple laugh and a knee slap.
(KN is back at the camera with his hand, as he is still moving between
the various doors of the van, loading small equipment)
RL: I guarantee you, I will make sure that occurs...Running for governor
anytime soon, Mr. Kris, Senator Kris, President Kris?--president of
Nirvana, Incorporated.
(KN smiles at this to RNHO, as if encouraging his further participation
in verbally harassing me)
RNHO: Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up.
RL: Is he the guy that you carry around with you to exert violence--is
that it?
(KN walks up short ramp onto stage)
RNHO: If you want to find out the shit, you go to the Seattle Police
Department, otherwise, shut the fuck up.
RL: Why doesn't he go down to the police department and find out the shit?
RNHO: 'Cause I don't care--you're the fucking one--
RL: yeah--
RNHO: Fuck you, man. Fuck you, see that (he is giving me the
finger)
ROADIE: We are trying to take care of the--
RL: That's right, you've got important business--
ROADIE: Well, we do have a business.
RL: Yeah, you've got a business all right, Nirvana, Incorporated. I'm sure
it'll make you a fortune, too. Be a good soldier.
(KN is coming down off stage)
RL: So who is it that you think made the famous 911 call predicting the
means, manner, and death of Mr. Kurt Cobain on April 4, 1994, the day
before 'he died'?
RNHO: You and channel 9 can suck my motherfucking dick. See it--suck it
man, suck it, there it is, right there. Fuck you.
(KN smiles and then stifles his amused grin)
RL: You think that it was Courtney Love who made the 911 call? Have you
ever bothered to find out?
RNHO: You want some answers, you talk to fuckin', the bitch. That's who to
talk to. Period.
RL: Yeah, that's a good point. Have you ever discussed this with Courtney
Love? Have you ever bothered to ask Courtney Love if she was the one who
made the 911 call, rather psychically predicting the manner, means, and
death?
(KN is back at camera with his hand and making faces)
RL: Mr. shot, 'Mr. Cobain bought a shotgun and may be suicidal. Narcotics
may be involved'. (KN turns away) Do you feel that your former
bandmate was, in fact, a hard narcotics user?
KN: Jesus Christ.
RL: Or is that a question that you refuse to answer?
KN: Jesus Christ! (KN is now on-stage and covering his head in gesture
to show he doesn't want to hear any more).
RL: Jesus Christ, yeah
(after about a minute, he heads off-stage toward me again)
RL: Are you familiar with the organized crime background of MCA, the
corporation for which you now represent in Seattle?
(KN does an odd gesture in opening his mouth and coughing loudly and
repeatedly, as if this is some sort of response to my question, and is
joined by others in doing this)
RL: You do plan to continue to do business with MCA and David Geffen. You
do know that MCA has an organized crime background.
(More coughs from KN and others, and then KN is seen momentarily
sticking his tongue out in telephoto close-up, a rather startlingly
irreverent image when shown in slow-motion, and looking like a comic
rendition of what a garroting victim would look like.)
RL: That's very funny.
KN: Richard, you're so obsessed--
RL: They always said you'd make it big as a comedian--
KN: Come on--
RL: Obsessed?
KN: Go take your mother out to lunch. Go call your mom, say, I love you
mom. Take your mother out to lunch, 'cause everything's going to be okay.
RL: Everything's going to be okay?
KN: That's right.
RL: You mean Kurt's coming back from the dead?
KN: I don't talk about it.
RL: Or his killer will be arrested?
(KN gets behind van)
RL: 'You have the right not to remain silent'. Isn't that the slogan of
your, ah, political organization? 'You have the right not to remain
silent', and yet, two years, now, and you have remained utterly
silent, have you not?
RNHO: What the fuck's up? If you think something's up, you better check
with the bitch with the blond hair, man, these guys ain't got shit to do
with that shit. Okay. Bottom line.
RL: Just a few simple questions. I guarantee you, Barbara Walters ain't
gonna come asking.
STAGE CREW MEMBER: You don't go backstage...
RL: Public interest prevails, my friend...(I show press pass)
(KN again emerges from behind van)
RL: You have the right not to remain silent. I guess your opinions can
remain as jive as they need to be, because, after all, you've got
corporate rock to protect you. You've got many billions of dollars in
private interests behind you. You've got your own fortune of many millions
of dollars. A 33.3 percent holding in Nirvana, Incorporated--a king's
ransom by anyone's standards, I'm sure.
(KN walks by and up ramp to stage)
RL: Were you the president of Nirvana, Incorporated, before Kurt died? No,
I think that's a role you stepped into after he died. Congratulations. Do
you have a concern about the manner of his death?
(KN has retreated to a position 35 feet or so on-stage, and begins to
engage in make-believe casual conversation as he sips a bottle of water)
RL: So apparently your superiors have authorized you to call me
'obsessed' and say little else. Do you really believe that Kurt Cobain
would write such a sappy and insipid 'suicide note'? Or do you believe it
was a suicide note at all? Do you believe it was a letter to his poor fans
about his 'burning, nauseous stomach'? 'I'm just not enough like Freddy
Mercury'?
(I move around to the edge of center stage, about 20 feet from KN, and
keep the zoom lens on him)
RL: Senator Kris, what are you running for? Are you running for Senator?
Are you running for Governor? Of course, you don't have to run for
President, you're already president, of Nirvana, Incorporated. And is it a
33.3 percent holding that you have in Nirvana, Incorporated, a holding
which you most certainly did not have prior to your business partner's
death?
Clearly, a man who profits from the death of his business partner, has a
rather distinct role in history. Profiting from the death of your business
partner. Certainly when Kurt Cobain was alive, you had nothing approaching
a 33.3 percent holding in Nirvana, Incorporated. That is a development, as
of late, shall we say.
What do you approximate the total net worth over the next 50 years would
be, 50 years of copyright, as the president of Nirvana, Incorporated?
Well, let's see, the Elvis Presley estate can manage to net a good 50
million dollars per year.
(KN begins spitting water, as if this is some sort of response to my
questions)
RL: I guess over the next 50 years that might be several billions of
dollars in revenues. Possibly quite a lot more than several billions of
dollars. And yet, when this man died, you had absolutely no questions. You
were on KOMO News 4 the same day saying that it was a 'shame.' Isn't it a
'shame'?
Tell me, Kris, when Kristen Pfaff showed up dead, dead of an 'apparent
drug overdose', an apparent 'self-inflicted' drug overdose, did that give
you any concern at all? Or was she just, as the Seattle Police Department
determined, 'just another suicide', not even worthy of a homicide
investigation, because she was 'just another suicide'. Kristen Pfaff, Mr.
Novoselic, was that suicide, homicide, accidental overdose--what would you
say?
(KN walks to ramp and waves to those he was with on-stage, and opens
door to his new van)
RL: You have the right to remain unsilent, Mr. Novoselic; your own
political organization propagates that idea.
(KN drives away)
******************************************************
******************************************************
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
Internet Column: Election Special
November, 1996
Roger Morris, Richard Milhous Nixon: the Rise of An American
Politician
The matter of context is one of the enduring issues concerning my
treatment of the Cobain homicide case that seems best addressed during
this election season. The physical context of the creation of this
document right now is that the author is sitting on a high stool in front
of a monochrome text-only terminal in this tavern/cafe, at this moment,
only a few feet from a guy who says he just got lucky and had a friend
give him a box of books on Indian law and medicine because he was evicted
and couldn't look after them, including the one he has open now, the Peter
Matthiessen book on the Leonard Peltier case, once banned into obscurity
before it's publication precipitated a frenzy of Hollywood spin-off
docu-drama. And yet, Robert Redford and all of the show business goodwill
millions of dollars can buy with the Clinton administration have yet to
spring the railroaded Peltier from federal prison.
The less immediate context of the Cobain murder is where we find our
greatest interest at this time, while of course understanding that the
more broadly we cast our gaze to perceive the real political events around
us, the more we venture into a zone that many in the corporate press may
use to brand us a "conspiracy nut", the precise term used in the only
notice we have received to date from any national slick-mag.
The physical posting site of this web document unexpectedly overlapped
with the political reality in this last month, when, as I was circling the
block for parking in my Honda 1200, I couldn't help but notice local
political operative Krist Novoselic approaching about a block from here,
walking with a little man in a mac, a lesser in visual appeal than the
gent featured in the first Fab Four movie. I pointed to the alarmingly
close-approaching pol-op with a wagging finger of gotcha, though not
knowing quite what I had gotten the ex-bassist doing. Something unsavorily
political, it was easy able to assume, from the paper name-tag on the
lower-left of the breast of his dark sports jacket.
As it turns out, the event from which he was leaving temporarily was held
right here at this electronic bistro, which was a beer-hoisting thing to
provide last-minute and not-too-conspicuous support from Seattle's film
and music industries for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gary Locke,
who was to win 6 days later. The actual name of the event I have not yet
been able to determine, as this was not something the Locke campaign could
come up with even after looking, and some manner of printed matter such as
an invitation copy that I was assured would be sent by the organizer of
the event, the director of the "film office" for the mayor of Seattle,
never arrived. Perhaps this is no wonder, as she seems to have been kept
quite busy last week with press inquiries as to what went wrong with
another event she found time to organize, that of a rather suicide-tinged
stunt-jump from the Space Needle by a team of parachutists, one of whom
came very close to a most spectacular death, photographed from dozens of
angles, when her device failed to open properly in the low-altitude
plunge. Can you say "diseased-covered Puget Sound"?
The event here seems to have already entered the mythic history of the
post-Kurt world, with even the official rock chroniclers of the town, its
music tabloid, running a page 6 item in which its reporter relates
bellying up to the bar to have a word with the future Guv without much
drama, then stating, "It was a strange moment in a strange evening.
(Cobain murder conspiracist Richard Lee hovered outside)." I suppose I am
to be grateful there were no sly references to my carrying a long paper
package in which I claimed to have curtain rods. (I should point out that
the single treatment in which my work was addressed, 20 months ago, by
this publication, was highly derisive). Not only do I have no magical
abilities to hover, but I was, in fact, completely absent from the
location of the event between its designated hours of 7 to 9 pm, as I was
already committed to attending a meeting of public-access television
producers held 2 blocks away.
The most significant aspect of the occasion of the entertainment
industry's operatives getting together to applaud and hand-off cash to the
future executive officer of the state is best described in relating that
it was Krist Novoselic, in his role as free-speech crusader for his new
organization, JAMPAC, who reportedly emceed and led the event. The truly
awful implications of this should be obvious to anyone who has attentively
read our document here, or any well-informed person here in Seattle, and
certainly to the participants themselves. Far from shying away from the
discomforting indications of literal co-respiration in a dark,
smoke-filled room, Mr. Novoselic, the very first person from the Nirvana
organization to make statements to the press that conveyed that Cobain's
friends and business associates had no problem believing the instantaneous
verdict of suicide on the same day the body was found, was here
appearing to give his rather filthy lucre to Mr. Gary Locke, the
politician in the office of King County Executive, who in action,
inaction, and written statements must be considered to have been the
public official at the terminus point of ratifying the Cobain murder as a
suicide and not possibly anything else.
Mr. Locke, who has been described in a national press source as
"squeaky-clean" recently, has actually lost much of this gleam in the
events developing around his election this month, from the strange
ganging-up of the local media to mischaracterize his Republican opponent
as an extremist, to the growing outrage of the proposed sports-stadium
building projects that have been the centerpiece of his 3-year
administration of the county (the projected bill for which is now starting
to look like a cumulative $1 billion or more), to his direct association
with the Clinton scandal which has undoubtedly chafed the body politic
more severely than any other this year, the John Huang affair.
I would not want to be seen as inaccurately portraying the scene here in
Seattle for those who might not read between the lines effectively, so let
me remind you that what is occurring in the minds of the populace and in
the reality of events itself in our town is not very well represented by
what one sees in its news media. Despite the glee with which media
entities across the political spectrum (from, let's say the presumedly
liberal Newsweek to the conservative TV host John McLaughlin)
greeted the Huang scandal as good stuff to show that they were out to
protect the nation from the sort of lobby interests Ross Perot rails
against, the candidacy of Gary Locke, who has been long fawned-upon as a
local golden boy of ethnic politics, was not seriously called into
question by the media because of a Huang-organized fund-raiser for Locke
in Los Angeles or a similar event in Washington DC, both in the final
weeks before election day (only one article reached newsprint here and
likely only one television report was done). Like many significant
occurrences here, its journalistic instruments of record simply chose not
to report this obvious story, perhaps because it so conspicuously relates
to Locke's special status as a possible key to the further financial
propping-up of the Democrats into the future.
If this week's events at the APEC conference in the Manila are indicative
of the rudderless American foreign policy with China in general, with
president Clinton chumming up with Jiang Zemin and promising an exchange
of presidential visits despite no progress on human rights issues,
Clinton's behavior with fundrasing domestically and among Asian
corporations may indeed leave a very strong perception that the human
rights of Americans are as much a moot point with him as those of Chinese
citizens.
The American embracing of as the man to watch in China actually went into
full swing here in Seattle, when we played host to the APEC conference 3
years ago. Jiang was given a mighty friendly reception by everyone but
the many heartfelt protesters, even being taken for a rather surreal trip
to visit an average American home of a Boeing worker (a big soft-toy for
the kids was brought in by Jiang), and an hour long press-conference was
held in which he fielded questions we can imagine he would not entertain
at home, where he has been famously anti-free-press (our program, Now
See It Person to Person, aired this event in our 5-part coverage of
the APEC conference). More recently, in the second and final debate with
Mr. Dole last month, Mr. Clinton seemed incongruously tawdry in the rather
somber discussion of issues when he declared an industry-by-industry
foreign trade policy which sounded awfully suspiciously like Clinton
shilling for those who support him best, offering, in what drew an
eye-rolling response from a televised audience member, that "Now all we
have to do is, is focus on those things that we're real good at and make
sure we're gettin' a fair deal. We just had a pretty serious dispute with
China because they were copying our CDs...We said, you know, if you want
to keep doing business and selling your products over here, you're going
to have to stop pirating our CDs."
Our new governor-elect, Gary Locke, also has had big ideas for a long time
about how Washington state is better to look Eastward (culturally, that
is, across the Pacific) than otherwise. In a brief interview I conducted
with him at the APEC, the newly elected King County Executive was eager to
speak in terms that endorsed the Clinton victory on NAFTA in congress the
day before, despite much dissent about the glad-handing with which Clinton
seemed to be buying votes in congress with big promises that would
persuade legislators to ignore their own best instincts about what even
freer "free-trade" might mean for the American people. "I think that we
can be very proud, immensely proud of our globalism," Locke said of the
state. "And so our future now, and our destiny rests with the Pacific Rim
countries...Our genesis has been with the Pacific Rim countries," he said,
commenting on the state's history of immigration from the East.
In practical terms, Locke was eager to put across that "Infrastructure is
very high on our agenda," and in the precise same words he used 3 years
later to herald his projection that "many millions of additional people"
would be arriving soon, said transportation investment had to be great for
"not just the movement of people, but the movement of manufactured goods
and products." Part of his concentration, he said then, would be on
prospective improvements to the Port of Seattle, saying of his perception
of the Port, "If (products) are stymied in transportation gridlock and we
can't get them off the docks to the warehouses or from the warehouses to
the docks," then we would lose our Pacific port's competitive edge.
Locke has not had any project initiated during his term to improve the
Port in any way, and his comments, ill-defined then as they were in the
same rhetoric this election, seemed to have to do with dreams of new
highways in a further-developed Washington, and perhaps an ambition to
dabble into Port affairs more substantially (which are under the executive
authority of the elected Port Commissioner). Although we should perhaps
greet his public policy position as merely similar to the wide-eyed wonder
of a youngster who is looking at maps in the National Geographic
and sees the dynamism if trade in timber and Hyundais, Locke might do
better to consider the implications of the global heroin trade route
described in Alfred W. McCoy's classic The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia (first published in 1972 and 'revised and expanded' in
1991) wherein one sees a direct line from Hong Kong, the recognized
heroin distribution capital of the world, and the place of Mr. Locke's
parentage, and Seattle's port.
Although the local DEA has long asserted that there simply is no Chinese
heroin problem here, after all, what they seem to find in the street busts
is black-tar heroin sold by poor street dealers, many of whom are of
Mexican nationality, hence the term Mexican black-tar heroin, in fact,
what is called China White is also known to be widely available. The fact
of the Port of Seattle being a major importation point for Chinese heroin
is widely-known, though this only came to light in any official way
because of a highly unusual 1994 bust headed by U.S. Customs, which then
stated that their several kilos was a mere example of the billions of
dollars in Chinese heroin that comes into the United States through
Seattle. While you might call into question the fairness of my bringing
up Mr. Locke's Hong Kong roots in this way, consider that a computer check
of local publications shows Mr. Locke never having made any statement
whatsoever about King County's legendary street traffic in heroin or its
status as a heroin port of call in his 3 years as King County Executive,
despite his having a large police force (650 officers) under his
authority. Simply put, he has never made the merest effort to state his
opposition to the heroin trade, and the national reputation of the
trafficking here has ballooned.
A slightly more mundane but more solid complaint of taint to our new
governor's way of doing business is to look at his way of running his
campaign organization. Hardly seen to be stinging from the scant local
attention paid to his lightly-attended Huang fund-raiser in Los Angeles,
Locke has also not been outed by the media here as having grabbed for
campaign money with reckless aggression. In my rather informal perusal of
some of the disclosure forms available at this time, it was easy to see
the Locke campaign playing fast-and-loose with state and federal law in at
least four areas:
2. Contributions from out-of-state companies presumably not doing
business in Washington. When asked about the many modest-sized
contributions from out-of-state business concerns, the chief treasurer for
Locke's campaign claims that she did not know that a company needs to have
a physical address of business in-state to give money.
3. Likely gifts from foreign lobbyists who are foreign nationals.
The large number of large contributions from the Washington DC area
leads us to believe that if examined closely, Mr. Locke's methods would
involve the same sort of laxity in insisting on contributions from U.S.
citizens only for which Mr. Huang has become so widely-known.
4. Conflicts-of-interest contributions. The general nonchalance
with which questionable gifts were apparently considered is more profound
in looking at how Locke's campaign accepted contributions from County
employees, the father of a Republican state senator, and even a television
news anchor and a news production executive. The most staggering case of
conflict of interest is this campaign is Locke's accepting $1075 from Mary
Pang, whose son Martin is now rather notoriously to be put on trial by Mr.
Locke's county prosecutor for 4 counts of murder in the January, 1995
arson of the Mary Pang food warehouse.
Accused arsonist-and-murderer Martin Pang may be guilty, or merely the
latest victim of a Frances Farmer funk here that will persist to threaten
ever still. After a week of agonizing to admit the 6-hour fireball at the
warehouse was indeed arson, the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire
Department, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, all of whom
are known to have been long-forewarned about impending disaster at the Mary
Pang building, knuckled under to news leaks and the obvious evidence to
call it an arson. More than a month passed before the local media, in a
highly unusual dissent, named Martin Pang a "suspect" many days before
police agencies were willing to say this, at which time he was en route to
his presumed haven of Brazil. Much Justice Department prestige, including
what looks a lot like a forged confession authored by FBI agents, has gone
into his extradition under provisions to try him for the crime of which
Janet Reno has personally called him guilty--murder.
Perhaps if things start to go poorly for the well-represented Pang's
defense team, they might try a novel defense of his having somehow an
incapacity to comprehend the moral implications of his alleged
arson-for-profit in a take-the-money-and-run world. Only yesterday NBC
aired a report in action-pic star Jean Claude Van Damme defending himself
in court against a charge of recklessness in the arrangements for
dangerous stunts in one of his films in which a North Carolinian novice
actor was injured (Van Damme is seen--in the version of the film that is
in commercial release--slashing out the eye of a stunt fight-opponent, an
African American bodybuilder). His defense for the presumed poor planning
of the scene? "I was in Los Angeles at the time."
Martin Pang and Courtney Love say the same. While Pang undoubtedly
nervously awaits trial in a jail tower a few minutes walk from where I
sit, Courtney Love, who continues to enjoy much favorable media here as a
reputed hometown celebrity, is at liberty and whereabouts unknown, except
that I couldn't help but notice her as the lead story for Paramount's
syndicated Entertainment Tonight tonight, in fact, naively saying
with doe-eyed wonder that she is so very surprised to be receiving the big
"Oscar buzz" she has for her role in the new movie about pornographer
Larry Flynt, the sort of priceless press notice for which undoubtedly arms
were twisted and prices were paid (ET.'s coverage was not entirely
laudatory, calling her "controversial" because her husband was a "suicide
victim"). Krist Novoselic continues to founder with his start-up band,
while spending thousands supporting many Democratic candidates around the
state. Others in the periphery of the Cobain murder have also faired quite
well, with the Soundgarden frontman and perennial suicide-verdict endorser
Cornell (whose associates were at the Locke event here October 30) getting
new major-mag cover-boy status from the publication that labeled this
website "crazy" (two of the editors of which turned down stories on my
Cobain investigation when they were at other magazines in 1994). Gary
Locke is on his way to the residency in the Governor's Mansion he gained
through less-than-honorable means, and Seattle Mayor Norm Rice is very
hotly rumored for a post in the new Clinton cabinet, having met with the
resigning Housing and Urban Development secretary in Washington DC last
week to discuss Rice taking his job (although we may have our
doubts--after all, if Mr. Rice were to go to DC, who could be counted on
to hold down the local lid on the Cobain cover-up?). In a land where they
say death sells and sells, it is not the earnest, hardworking conspiracy
theorist who is so generously rewarded, but at least, in this current
scheme of alternative media, I can now hop into my 1200 and look forward
to being on television in another two hours to tell the story further.
RLee, 9:28pm, 12/2/96
###############################################################
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
November 10, 1996
(134th edition of weekly taped program on this subject)
1. The opening segment is consecutive 2 songs from the MTV
Unplugged program, "Plateau" and "Lake of Fire".
2. Next is the key video, which has been shown each week for 126 weeks, of
the top of Cobain's body's head at the scene of the crime, with no blood
evident.
3. A rapid-edit intercutting of the Seattle Police Department spokesperson
at the scene on April 8 saying, "It was obvious this man was dead from a
shotgun wound to the head" and electrician Gary Smith, who discovered the
body the same day, saying that here merely saw "blood in the ear." This
contradiction is difficult to comprehend.
4. A close-up of the letter from King County Executive Gary Locke of
October 3, 1995, in which he states, "I fully concur" with the bizarre
contradictions forwarded by his subordinates in the King County Medical
Examiner and the review of the autopsy documents conducted by Ms. Sharon
Stewart Johnson of the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health.
5. A close-up of the 1995 Sharon Stewart Johnson letter in which she
states on her page 1 that there was "massive destruction of the head" of
Cobain, and then states on her page 2 that "little blood was present at
the scene around Mr. Cobain's body."
6. A close-up of the death certificate, pausing on the word "perforating"
in the wound description, which is incorrect according to subsequent
descriptions offered by the KCME pathologists.
7. My footage of a Mr. Locke campaigning at the Kingdome, at exactly noon
on Sunday, November 3. Despite years of efforts to build support among
football fans by making preservation of the Seattle Seahawks and their
stadium the centerpiece of his 3-year administration as King County
Executive, upon seeing me, he seemed in quite a hurry to leave the site a
full hour before kick-off time.
Mr. Locke is seen walking with his wife and several aides into a flow
of oncoming football fans streaming toward the Kingdome. I approach him
from the side and move close to attempt to conduct a brief interview with
a facial close-up.
RICHARD LEE: Well, hi, Gary. How are you?
GL: Hi. How are you doing?
RL: Pretty good. Say, sir, I wanted to call your attention to some
correspondence here--
GL: Uh, what are you with?
RL: I addressed to your office--
GL: Who are you with?
RL: Channel 29.
GL: Channel 29. (He evidently now sees the press credentials I have
displayed at chest-level).
RL: And this is the document from this year, rather, October of last year,
where you say you 'fully concur' with the findings of Sharon Stewart
Johnson, that there were no problems--
GL: Excuse me (footballer-like, he dodges behind me to accost some
prospective voters with his greetings).
RL: --with the Kurt Cobain autopsy.
GL: Hi! Hang on for a second. Hi, Gary Locke, running for governor.
MONA LEE-LOCKE, wife of the candidate: (stepping between me and Mr.
Locke) I think you're gonna have to take it up with his office. I'm
sorry.
RL: Been doing that for 2 years, darling.
ML-L: That's okay (pushes at camera).
GL: Thank you. Thank you...(GL chats for a few moments with voters, so
I wait and begin again).
RL: So, sir, I'm wondering if you're aware of the fact that Sharon Stewart
Johnson is not a pathologist. She's not qualified to offer an opinion--
GL: Okay.
RL: --as to the accuracy of that autopsy. Do you understand what I am
saying?
GL: I understand, but it's all under her department, and Dr. Plough--
RL: It's under your department. You are the King County Executive--
GL: Yes, and I stand by my people.
RL:--It is your responsibility to order an inquest in a case of violent
death.
(ML-L takes paper binder of several documents that I gave to GL from
his hand, blocks the camera lens with the binder, then forces the
documents back into my possession).
ML-L: Take this.
GL: Thank you.
RL: Do you understand?
GL: Thank you.
RL: A case of unresolved violent death. And Sharon Stewart Johnson's--
GL: Hi! Gary Locke.
ML-L: I'm sorry. Thank you.
(I am blocked by other Locke supporters but circle around them as the
Lockes do not hesitate to cross King Street to move toward their
chauffeurred vehicle, which is pulling up to the curb for them. I come
from behind and posit one more fact to Mr. Locke).
RL: Mr. Locke, Ms. Stewart Johnson's own document is contradictory--
GL: I haven't seen her document! (GL is climbing into his vehicle)
RL: It says that there was 'massive destruction of the head' (GL slams
door shut) and yet there was 'little' or no blood at the scene of the
crime. (GL, in front passenger seat, is seen in close-up staring
straight ahead, uncomfortably). How is that possible? (His
driver/handler cues GL to waive, which GL does, smiling broadly. RL raises
voice to be heard). You've had 2 years to address this issue, sir. It
involves the violent homicide of the leading citizen of the city of
Seattle! (They quickly drive away, with GL, seen in close-up, strangely
smiling and waiving to a non-existent crowd of well-wishers).
8. An impromptu monologue by Richard Lee in facial close-up at the site
where Locke boarded his utility van, with Lee speaking before a large
clock at this intersection trafficked with football fans going to the big
game. Lee is pleased with his success in capturing the essence of Locke as
a public official who is literally fleeing these questions, and describes
the scene generally as "high noon at the old Kingdome," and advises voters
that "now you know something of the measure of the man," and to cast votes
accordingly.
9. Concert footage of Nirvana performing "Negative Creep".
10. A brief bit of video showing a crowd of young people in front of a
local establishment, with its window displaying a small sign reading
"Private Fundraiser for Gary Locke/Members Welcome". Krist Novoselic,
ex-bassist of the rock band Nirvana and now the president of Nirvana,
Incorporated and president of a political organization he founded in 1995
called JAMPAC, attended this event earlier in the evening, as did Gary
Locke.
11. Several segments of video from the June 30 encounter with Novoselic,
ending with a still image of him sticking his tongue out when asked about
"the organized crime background of MCA."
12. Famous footage of Richard Nixon departing the White House after
resigning, turning suddenly before boarding his helicopter to flash the
"v" for "victory" gesture with outstretched arms one last time. The
footage, from a recent NBC News segment, fades into an image of David
Geffen, with the voice of NBC's Lisa Meyers explaining "...large
contributions that were supposed to be outlawed after the Watergate
scandal. But there is a legal loophole. By law, Hollywood producer David
Geffen can only give $1000 to the president's campaign--his company can
give nothing. But he and his company can legally give an unlimited amount
to the Democratic Party, and have--$525,000 in 2 years.
(also, continuously, from the NBC report) A brief clip of President Bill
Clinton saying, "Thank you, David Geffen."
13. A brief close-up of Nirvana's Incesticide, showing the label
"David Geffen Company" for those who miss the point.
14. A clip from a recent McLaughlin Report, with commentator
McLaughlin explaining over video footage of the principals, "...illegal
Democratic fundraising and the growing stench of it. Huang reportedly
brokered millions in contributions from Indonesians connected to General
Suharto, Indonesia's strongarm dictator, leaving an odor of influence
peddling." The famous footage of fundraiser John Huang fleeing in his car
is shown, as well as footage of Bill Clinton saying, at an event, "Thank
you, John Huang, for being so effective."
15. A close-up of an article in the October 21 Seattle
Post-Intelligencer headlined "Locke Fund-raiser Sideswiped by Huang
Scandal". This was the only article that ever appeared in the local press
about the Locke-Huang connection, and stated that Huang was merely
"loosely affiliated" with a Locke fund-raiser in Los Angeles. Both the
Los Angeles Times and Locke's own campaign personnel described
Huang's involvement as much more--with the campaign saying Huang was its
organizer, and the LAT saying he was a "co-sponsor" whose name
appeared on the invitations. The location of the event is underlined in
the video: the Universal Hilton and Towers in North Hollywood.
16. A clip from a local television station which employs a Washington, DC
correspondent, and which, admirably and exceptionally, reported on the
Locke fund-raiser and the Huang connection on this occasion, a
$1000-a-head dinner at a luxury hotel 2 blocks from the White House.
Reporter Mike Goldfein: "It isn't every fund-raiser that can boast first
lady Hillary Clinton as the star attraction--that's her slipping in the
side door.
"But it has also caused Locke some controversy. A Los Angeles
fund-raiser last weekend was partly sponsored by John Huang, a prominent
Democratic Party fundraiser. Huang was removed from his post last week
after helping the party to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in
questionable contributions from foreign nationals." (Huang is shown in
famous clip of him climbing into his car and driving away, the last seen
of him during his evasive absence).
17. A promo for the local ABC affiliate's Town Meeting in-depth,
one-hour weekly series: "Evidence of intelligent life on Mars--tonight at
6." This leads to the titles for This Week With David Brinkley. The
previous week, the veteran television journalist had shocked many on
election night by declaring Clinton a winner again by sputtering out,
"...another four years of wonderful, inspiring speeches...and more goddamn
nonsense than we've ever seen." among other odd comments. (This was his
last week as the head of the This Week panel before
semi-retirement)
ABC's This Week commentator Cokie Roberts, herself recently cited
in a PBS Frontline report as being very aggressive in pursuing
corporate "contributions" of $30,000 per night as speaking fees from
Philip Morris among others, has harsh words about the idea of electoral
reform, wincing at "talk of a Constitutional amendment to change the way
we finance campaigns. Now, this is the silliest idea--let's 'yuk' up the
Constitution with campaign finance and things."
George Will offers that the Supreme Court has already clearly indicated
its opinion that campaign spending is a form of protected speech, so that
Congress may be ineffective in strong measures. Sam Donaldson adds, "Let
me get back to John Huang--I thought the president in his news conference
was shameless, when Helen Thomas asked him, in the first question about
this, and he immediately threw down a 'race card', saying 'I think it's
terrible the way people are beating up on orientals. I wanted a White
House correspondent to say, Mr. President, just who is it that you have in
mind that you say has been saying that all orientals are bad people?"
18. A clip of CNN reporting on the press conference, with footage of Huang
escaping in his car followed by Clinton asserting, "Now is the time for
bipartisan campaign finance reform."
19. From the Jay Leno Tonight Show, Leno is interviewing comedian
Phil Hartman in his famous caricature of Clinton, who is shown in the
Oval Office with two young women with whom he is "partying." Leno asks
"Clinton" about his recent physical examination, and Hartman, as Clinton,
responds, "They told me I got a touch of glaucoma, but I got something to
take care of that right here." He pulls out a big plastic bag of what
looks like marijuana and kisses it. "Congratulations and good luck in your
second term," Leno says.
19. Footage of Gary Locke giving his victory speech on election night:
"Will our children have the opportunity for a quality education and a good
job? Will they have safe communities and have a pristine environment,
mountains to hike, and rivers and lakes to swim and fish? The answer is
yes! What's the answer? Yes!" he extols his crowd, although the event
appeared to be rather sparsely-attended and the vocal response to his
speech unenthusiastic.
20. A minute from the leading local political chat show on the PBS
affiliate, in their election-week wrap-up. The host asks if there is not
"some small degree of bad blood" between Locke and other lawmakers in the
state capital, and receives a response of "some large degree." The
political reporter from a newspaper in Tacoma says, "Surprisingly, in
politics, there are certain levels of criticism of your opponents that you
don't reach unless you really mean it--and one is to say that you 'can't
trust the person's word'. That is something you rarely hear across the
aisle in politics. Both Dan McDonald and Clyde Ballard say that the have
had personal experiences with Gary Locke where they say they couldn't
'trust his word'." The political reporter for the Seattle Times
seconds this, saying, "Those are the two guys, you know the head of the
House, and the head of the Senate Republicans, are the two people out of
all the legislators during Gary Locke's time in Olympia who dislike him
the most--and who say, you know, 'I can't trust him. He's a liar,' they
say--and you don't hear that (often), I mean, they never said it about
Mike Lowry."
21. A portion of a newscast right after the election showing rising
resistance in the King County Council to actually going through with
construction of a new baseball stadium for the Seattle Mariners (who are
majority-owned by the Japanese Nintendo corporation). The report cites
that the voters rejected taxes in an initiative to fund the stadium at a
cost of only $185 million, and that now the projected cost is at least
twice that amount. Council member Pete Von Reichbauer, who had worked
last year closely with Locke to push the measure with voters and the state
legislature (which overrode the will of voters to authorize funding after
it lost in referendum election), says, for the first time ever, that he
has doubts. "We have too many higher priorities in King County than to vote
for a $400 million baseball park." This is followed by a brief statement
by Paul Isaki, vice-president of the Mariners, "The costs are what the
costs are--it's not that we tried, you know, to design the most expensive
building we possibly could." Isaki is now part of Locke's gubernatorial
transition team.
22. A repeat of the November 3 footage of Locke outside the Kingdome,
which was previously originally aired just 8 hours after it was filmed, 2
days before the election. This is a more tightly-edited version, with a
"rapid-repeat" edit of Locke's unwise blurt as he was getting into the
car, "I haven't seen her document!" Because his name appears at the bottom
of the document as "cc:", i.e., having a copy forwarded to him, this is
extremely hard to believe.
23. A brief portion of footage from an event the next night, in which
local rock musicians perform on election-eve for Locke (the band
Inflatable Soule is seen briefly). Footage seen in a previous edition had
shown a muscular bouncer and bar manager telling me to leave immediately,
as they insisted that Seattle's Pier 70 was owned by a property management
company called "Triad", and that I was trespassing.
A brief bit of footage is shown of Locke inside the facility, turning
around to look directly into my zoom lens when I knock on the window. The
point of the footage is that if Locke was simply to busy to talk at length
the previous day, he had plenty of time to speak this night. He did not,
of course, come out to speak with me, having personally left orders
earlier in the evening to bar my admittance. "Gary says you are harassing
him," his aide had told me, ironically echoing words that John Huang had
used in explaining his lengthy disappearance, that he did not want to be
"harassed by the media."
24. Nirvana plays "Territorial Pissings" from a British TV appearance on
the Jonathan Ross show.
25. The program's title card is show, followed by a the familiar facial
close-up of Richard Lee, delivering the monologue portion of this program
for November 10, 1996.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice.
And though to good I never come,
Inseparable my nose and thumb.
--and this is Dorothy Parker from her Neither Bloody Nor Bowed.
Although in politics one cannot always count on the comfort of being happy
that one has won a clear victory, at the very least, one ought to
assiduously endeavor to brace one's self against the comfort of being sad.
One can always walk, or even limp away from some sincerely performed
effort ready for the next big thing, so long as one has not made the
inexcusable error of, perhaps through some particularly heartfelt moral
indignation, turfing it totally, that is, nose-diving into too, too solid
turf, only to find nose bloodied by one's own weight.
The victor in a election has the spoils of certainty of being propelled
along to the rematch no matter how self-injury-inducing their his
performance in an effort may have been, but occasional examples of
dust-biting winners in democratic processes leaves one wondering the
obvious questions--if this weiner became a winner through no major-league
display of talents, just who is it, do you suppose, that pulled the
strings so that these spoiled boys of our political system were allowed to
win without getting their long pants dusty?
Of course, this sort of thing is well-beyond the powers of the local
reportage gang to convey, even if, after year after year of witnessing the
inexplicable, it becomes within their realm of analysis observe certain
somebodies getting the one-ups through no good attributes of their own.
Really, I wonder, how is it that none of the decaffeinated variety of
pol-coms here in clean-slate city saw fir to even hint, so far as one
might notice, that our new Democratic party governor-elect was helped
immeasurably into office by the half-hearted effort of his buddy in the
sport-stadium adulation business, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, who
would also, in some rather direct way, qualify to be called Mr. Gary
Locke's underling at County government, inasmuch as Mr. Locke has been and
will be for another couple of months, its executive officer. Mr. Maleng
ran for Guv for no particular reason at all--I think his slogan in TV ads
was something like, "He'll be a good governor!", as nondescript as can be,
but still Maleng was bound to pull a certain number of votes from name
recognition alone as the guy on the news all the time fighting crime in
his own rather geriatric way, thusly splitting the white male Republican
vote with the far more dynamic campaigner Mr. Dale Foreman, and clearing
the way for Christian conservative Mrs. Ellen Craswell, whose candidacy
was ridiculed and misrepresented from the time of the wake of her primary
victor by the local punditry.
Four years is an awful long time for us to be stuck with the likes of the
'Locke-jaw', and in such time a great deal may be done to mold our
perception of him as a sort of Asian-American Jack Kennedy, living in the
big mansion, making his luxurious existence one big, happy photo op for
consumption by the vast Asian market, with 'emperor' Gary playing with his
kids in the world's finest public housing, making the occasional trips
abroad to assert the need for crackdowns on renegades that are pirating
Windows '95 and printing up counterfeit copies of Nevermind in
secret mini-factories--if not making the world safe for democracy, at
least making it a little nicer place Bill Gates and Dave Geffen to turn a
buck in nations which otherwise might be caught snickering at the idea of
international copyright legal agreements.
Well-connected and apparently sober, Mr. Locke will find himself quite
solidly situated to endure most of what may come along to try to shake
him, and we can only count on the occasional, inevitable diversion of
seeing him blunder in ways which will be purely indicative of his rather
transparent character. In the debate aired a week ago on channel 5, one
such moment occurred--when responding to a question on welfare reforms,
Mr. Locke slipped that we ought to see what's working in 'other
countries', then correcting himself that he meant other states, though one
was left wondering if, on some subconscious level, he is really very aware
at all that he was running for governor, and not little emperor, of
Washington state.
Mr. Locke's greater blunder, of course, took place the following day, as
you have seen, when he first responded to our questioning on the validity
of the review he ordered on the Cobain autopsy report, with Locke merely
saying, 'I stand by my people,'--as we've said before, the executive
version of 'I was only following orders', then closing his car door with
the incorrect assertion that 'I haven't seen her document!', an
exclamation of his ignorance in this very important affair under his
authority that tells us nothing about the reality of his oversight in the
matter of the murder of Kurt Cobain, but reveals to us very much about the
psychology of this man, Gary Locke.
(end of November 10 program)
****************************
(transcript of the following evening's live presentation)
The program begins with music of "Downer" from an early Nirvana recording
session, and Richard Lee paging through this week's edition of Seattle
Weekly, which features a Charles Peterson photograph of Kurt Cobain in
a club concert, with Cobain's head being cut-off at the top of the large
photo's frame, a discomforting image of photographic decapitation,
illustrating their "Rock Walk: A Guide to Seattle's Musical Landmarks".
Lee also holds up a photo in the issue of Seattle Weekly, of the
proposed Experience Music Project construction, ostensibly a vanity
project to entomb Seattle's rock music history in a museum by billionaire
Paul Allen, and wags his head disapprovingly.
Titles come up over a lengthy selection of relevant video clips:
Now See It Person to Person:
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered (Live)
November 11, 1996
The first video clip is from a debate 8 days earlier between 2 candidates
who are competing for the open position of governor of the State of
Washington. One candidate is Mr. Gary Locke, who was to win 2 days later,
and the other was Mrs. Ellen Craswell, a Christian conservative who
emerged as the victor in a Republican primary with a too-crowded field.
Mrs. Craswell was bullied throughout the campaign by the local media which
characterized her as an extremist, and this was very true in this "debate"
format, in which the political chief for a local television station tossed
softball questions to Mr. Locke while subjecting the middle-aged Craswell
to a battery of questions that were intended to imply her opinions were
bigoted, bizarre, or worse. I merely play clips of some of the questioning
by the host, whose employer is barely holding on to its lucrative
exclusive contract to televise Seattle Seahawks football games, which take
place in the Kingdome stadium, recently renovated in an expensive and
controversial project pushed by King County Executive Locke for a team
which will likely be dissolved if not bailed out soon in a prospective
move by billionaire Allen.
"Can someone who is Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, or atheist expect fair
treatment from a crusading Christian governor?...Your belief about
homosexuality is--do you view it as an illness or as a moral
shortcoming?...And I am curious as to what kinds of programs for the poor
do you think are appropriate? I think you voted against school breakfasts
and against prenatal care for poor, unwed mothers...You sponsored a
measure to castrate sex offenders in return for a reduction in their
sentences?...So you haven't given up your support of the concept of
castration of sex criminals?"
A clip of Locke in another debate before a large audience, making a
statement about his support for a new mass transit system, "...because
we're gonna have many millions of additional people in this region."
Ted Koppel's voice, from a recent Nightline: "Who is John Huang?
Why was he missing for days? And what was he doing for the
Democrats?...(with Koppel's face) You've been hearing his name a lot in
the past few days: John Huang."
Footage of President Clinton saying: "And I'd like to thank my longtime
friend John Huang, for being so effective."
ABC's Chris Bury: "Huang said Hillary Clinton had sent him an indirect
message of support during his 2 weeks of hiding, through friends in the
Asian-American community." Huang, in sworn deposition video: "I believe
that the indirect message coming back was Mrs. Clinton's also saying,
'John is a friend of mine as well.'" (According to the Los Angeles Times,
this was Mrs. Clinton saying that both Gary Locke and also John Huang were
friends of hers, at the Locke fundraising event in Washington DC which
raised a reported $130,000 for Locke).
Locke again: "Because we're gonna have many millions of additional
people in this region."
RICHARD LEE (in live studio): And good evening once again, to the program,
that is, the program the title and the theme of which you well know, given
that you've been looking at the titles for the last 8 or 9 minutes here.
And, well, for those of you who do not tune in on an extremely regular
basis, you may or may not realize that we actually ran the same series of
images, the same video roll there from last week, and that is all for the
purposes of actually kind of taking a bit of a 'victory lap,' I would say,
in terms of having come up with, I think, you know, one of the best
exclusive stories in this presidential campaign year. That is, for those
of you who couldn't piece it together for yourselves from looking at our
video clips selection, and those of you who haven't heard me explain it
before, basically, what we have reported here in the last several weeks is
a rather direct connection between the hottest and most disturbing scandal
in the Clintons' rather piled-high plate of scandal at this particular
time, that is, the John Huang scandal--the lingering question as to why
Mr. Huang and others connected to the Commerce Department and the
Democratic National Committee have, to all appearances, been flying around
the world for the last several years soliciting contributions from foreign
businessmen and government officials for the Democratic National
Committee, even though this is clearly illegal. And those of you who have
seen Mr. Clinton's responses to this scandal in recent days, of course,
you know, if you actually take Clinton at his word, for instance with
David Brinkley yesterday, he added that he feels that the McCain-Feingold
bill is something he definitely supports, except that there needs to be
one more item added to the bill, and that is that we really want to make
sure that it is illegal for foreign nationals to be making contributions
because Mr. Clinton feels that that is something that should be
illegal--when in fact it is already illegal--he is presumably talking
about some further emphasis in the law that would make it further illegal,
but there is no doubt but that it is illegal, particularly in the way in
which the Clinton White House has conducted itself on these issues, it's
extremely illegal. And, you know, the idea of John Huang showing up 65
times to the White House when he is supposed to be at arm's length from
the business of the White House as a political operative for the DNC,
leads one to believe that you're sore of getting into the area of 'bagman'
activity, 'bagman', of course being the terminology for one who handles
cash in an illegal way, most frequently associated with political activity
and campaign contributions, (makes 'quotes' gesture with fingers)
'campaign contributions', which may occasionally come in the form of cash
and be delivered in the trunk of Mr. Huang's car to the White House.
Otherwise, why was he going to the White House perhaps 65 or more times?
And of course what we're getting at here, is that here in Washington
state, we now have a new governor-elect, Gary Locke, who has participated
in all of this in a rather direct way. He wasn't flying around the world
with John Huang for the last several years, but Mr. Huang organized a Los
Angeles fund-raiser for Mr. Locke, which was sparsely attended because by
then the story had broken and Mr. Huang was on the run from U.S. Marshals,
and then there was a greater level of activity about a week later when
Hillary Clinton was the announced guest, and she did make an appearance at
the Locke-Huang event two blocks from the White House in Washington DC.
And the most important thing about us bring this up on a repeated basis,
that is, covering much of the same material that we covered last week is
that, you know, this is one article that was in the PI (holds up
copy of article), "Locke Fund-raiser Sideswiped by Huang Scandal". This
was the only article that ever appeared in the Seattle press, as nearly as
I was able to find, through a computer search. So, one article on this new
governor of ours being mixed up in this scandal, and one report that was
on channel 7, which we showed you this evening which we've shown you
before.
And those of you who have been paying attention and who have been watching
in recent weeks know that I've sort of tied all of this together in a, you
know, neat little package having to do with the possibility of Seattle
becoming inundated with immigrants. You saw Mr. Locke there, was talking
about 'millions of people moving into the region'--that is something that
he has never defined, what his intentions are. You saw political
cross-examiner Jim Compton there giving Mrs. Craswell the 'what for' about
her religious beliefs, which have been gone over, over and over again in
this election season. And yet, Locke says something about 'millions of
people moving into the region' and there's really not, you know, even word
one asked about, just, you know, frankly, what the hell it is that he is
talking about, where these millions of people are supposed to be coming
from? But the parallel that I drew, is that if you go a hundred miles to
the north, to Vancouver, you do have a quarter of a million people who
have moved in in the last 10 years or so, since it was announced that
mainland China would be taking over Hong Kong. And all of these people, a
quarter-million of them, do come from Hong Kong, and that has never
happened in the US, although it has occurred, to a smaller extent, with
Russian immigrants, a lot of whom are living on the 'eastside'. And, you
know, Russian immigrants have presented certain problems in terms of law
enforcement and their connections to organized crime. And the fact is,
though, that only a small percentage of Russians and Russian immigrants
are believed to have connections to organized crime. On the other hand,
from what I've read, in the Hong Kong population, fully 5 percent of the
general population, male, female or whatever, are believed to be
hard-core, sworn members to the Chinese Traids. In other word, the FBI has
been chasing around Russian speakers since, you know, the Rosenbergs, and
even before there was an FBI, in the early days of this century, the FBI
has been extremely gung-ho about pursuing Russian speakers, so they might
have a bit of a leg-up if in fact there is a Russian Mafia problem, which
the FBI says there is. They may have something of an ability to keep up
with the Russian Mafia, although why they would let such persons into the
country in the first place is obviously a mystery to all of us.
On the other hand, if we're not careful about Hong Kong immigration, what
we're going to end up with is the Chinese Triads, the most feared, largest
and most prosperous die-hard criminal organization in the world
infiltrating the United States on a massive scale. And in an effort to
counteract that, we'll be stuck with an FBI that has rarely even hired
Asian-American personnel, presumably because of the perpetual bigotry in
the hiring practices at FBI. And so if you research it you will find, the
top FBI personnel, including, I think, Director Freeh, that when it comes
to tracking Asian crime gangs, you know, the FBI and the U.S. of A are
simply S.O.L. Just do not have a prayer of keeping up with Asian crime
gangs in any way.
Which is one reason why immigration from the island of Hong Kong is
something that we ought to look at very skeptically, and also wonder if,
in fact, this is not precisely what Gary Locke is up to. That is, he is
talking about it in some respects--his statements on this have not been
defined because no one has asked him to define these things. And yet, if
you look at it in the context of the Cobain homicide case, and other
cases, for instance, we revealed to you, as I am sure no other
journalistic entity has, that Mr. Locke took money from Mary Pang, right?
Why is he doing that? Her son is, possibly guilty, possibly innocent, but
there is no doubt but that he is being prosecuted by the King County
government on a quadruple-murder charge--or whether it is going to be
murder or some other charge might be clearer as early as tomorrow--but up
until this point, it's been called quadruple murder by everyone up to and
including, in a rather improper way, Janet Reno herself.
And in case you think I'm getting carried away reading spy novels or
whatever, here is one article that I found that does pretty succinctly
define what we're talking about. It's from McClean's, a leading
Canadian magazine--it's actually several years old; it's an article from
1991. (reading) 'The richest, most far-reaching, and most ruthless
criminal organization in the world, the Chinese Triads.' These gangs are
called 14K, Kung Lock, and many other names of the Triads.
McClean's states that it is believed that 300,000 of the 6 million
residents of Hong Kong, only Hong Kong, are hard-core, as they say 'full
fledged' Triad members. 'They have a discipline unmatched by their North
American criminal rivals. There has been a steady exodus of top Triad
leaders to Chinatowns in Canada, the United States, Australia, and
Europe.' They are into murder, certainly heroin trafficking, extortion,
and just about everything else.
And I did feel it necessary to point out here that I'm not coming on the
air just rattling out i some xenophobic or worse way about the need for
some sort of cultural stability in this region and the absolute fear that
all of us might have in terms of encountering new immigrants from Hong
Kong in 1997, which rolls around in just a couple of months.
And just to draw this back to the Cobain homicide case, the Cobain murder
case--you know, not only did Gary Locke accept money from, apparently,
many foreign nationals in this election campaign, which is illegal, not
only did he accept money from Mary Pang, which is highly improper if you
ask me, (but) we also caught him last week, the 30th of October, only a
few days before the election, taking a payoff, a contribution, from Krist
Novoselic, the president of Nirvana, Incorporated, and the president of
JAMPAC, which is a music industry, a record industry political
organization that Novoselic formed. And given that both of these guys are
up to their arses in the Cobain homicide in extremely suspect ways, the
idea of them meeting in a smoke-filled room to hand-off a little stack of
money--or presumably, it was done properly in check form--leads us to
believe that Mr. Locke is really capable of anything.
Anything at all--including as we have said, in no uncertain terms, direct
participation in acts of homicide. That is, is Mr. Locke a participant in
the cover-up of the murder of Kurt Cobain? And I would say that based on
these documents, which we tried to hand-off to him, but which he and the
wife more-or-less refused to walk away with, as you saw in the video, the
fact is, that, you know, Mr. Locke is apparently capable of anything. And
so if you think that I am way off-base in alleging, or indicating that I
believe that he would do business with Far East business interests,
including organized crime, well, think twice. Apparently he's doing
business with people who've (possibly) committed crimes very locally, very
publicly, and why it is that we should be asked to tolerate that or
entertain it is quite beyond me. But hey, the guy doesn't even start as
governor for 2 months and already we've got all of this to deal with,
right?
But, in any case, it's supposed to be a call-in show and so we're going to
jump right into that, just so we can keep our word that we're trying to
run the show on that basis.
And so, good evening, you're on the air, and what may we address for you?
CALLER: Ah, yes, I was just wondering, um, I mean, your show is supposed
to be about the Cobain issue, and you're talking about a lot of different
political aspects and things that are going on, and your views are pretty
much 'right on', but I kind of had a question on the Cobain thing.
RL: Alright. And specifically what did you want to know?
CALLER: Ah, yeah, like Krist Novoselic--how was he involved in the
cover-up, if it may be called a cover-up, and the so-called homicide?
RL: Well, as I stated on the show, we try not to repeat ourselves directly
too many times, but I understand that you can have some level of confusion
because it is complicated, so certainly that is a good question (and) we
don't mind repeating ourselves on that issue.
The fact is that Krist Novoselic was on television giving an interview to
KOMO TV, channel 4 on April 8, 1994, the day that the body was discovered.
And on that day, Novoselic, who had been with Cobain ever since the band
was started, and who would be the most inside of inside sources, told
channel 4 that he had 'asked a million questions, and you could ask a
million more'--meaning that he had asked all the relevant questions, and
also that it was a 'shame,' isn't it a 'shame,' and 'we're just all
sitting around brooding about this'--in other words, Novoselic was
basically making a public statement on the day the body was discovered
that he had absolutely no problems with the scenario, that he fully
believed that it was a suicide thing and could not possibly be anything
else.
CALLER: That sounds suspect to me.
RL: Right. Exactly. Why wouldn't he be asking questions at that point? And
then, of course, 2 days later he had a little recorded announcement along
with Courtney Love, so that they appeared to be quite clearly in league
with each other, or in accordance with each other, let's say.
And to bring Gary Locke into this, we handed off this document, this set
of documents to him 8 days ago, last Sunday, and what we were faced with
was the typical obfuscation that we've received from Mr. Locke all the way
down the line in this. Which is th at Locke is 'on board' with this thing
in saying that he 'fully concurs' with the review of the Cobain autopsy
that was conducted by someone in the Department of Public Health, who had
absolutely no expertise in reviewing an autopsy report, and who also
authored a document that says on page one, that Cobain's head. that there
was 'massive destruction' of the head on her page 1, and on her page 2 it
says that 'there was relatively little blood around Mr. Cobain's body'
when it was discovered because the 'head did not burst.' In other words,
she makes directly contradictory statements about whether or not there
were obvious signs of shotgun injury to Mr. Cobain's head--which merely
underlines what we have been saying all along, which is that he did not
die of a shotgun wound, and we have been deceived on this point all the
way down the line.
And just to add the final point in answering your question, which is just
ironic beyond belief, you know, on 2nd Avenue last week, at the Speakeasy
Cafe, there is a fund-raiser--that room is used for many functions, as
many of the political functions around town take place in various
rooms--but it's a dark, smoke-filled room basically, and it was some sort
of music industry thing for Gary Locke, and Novoselic was there handing
off a contribution to him--presumably it was like $1100, which is the
typical contribution from a big organization. Well, you know, what is the
first guy that ratified the Cobain murder as suicide meeting with the last
guy in the process of ratifying the murder as a suicide in a smoke-filled
room 6 days before the election to hand-off probably $1100? It makes no
sense to anyone who wants ethics in government. And we're fresh out of
time but thanks for calling, and we'll see you again sometime soon.
not the end / rl
main chunk installed 11-14-96 without intro or post-script.rlee.
additional material installed 11-15-96, conl. 955 pm, newly including
previously undescribed tongue-out gesture by KN in previous section.rlee.
The Election Special intro was input Nov. 30-Dec 2, with some slight
editing and our first-ever computer spell-check (it was basically pretty
good anyway) on Dec 3, concl. 1148 pm, with small change in tongue-out
description. A post-script on Locke campaign may follow sometime. RLee.
These editing notes are provided for the purposes of guaranteeing that
this website has the integrity, validity, and accuracy of anything you
will find committed to print. RLee, also 12/3/96. minor corrections,
12-4-96. a few corrections on 12/6, including additional copyright notice
below. RLee. "ostensibly" in the last section, "his rather" for "quite
possibly filthy...," and sentence about "green card status" in i-net
column, and a few other minor changes 12-7. RLee. a few non-content
changes in titling, including table of contents at top of site:12-8,
RLee."so" added to "generously" 12-10.rlee.
contents of this page copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 Richard Lee
entire content in parts and in whole copyright 1994-2004, Richard Lee.
more to come soon. RLee.
*************************************************************
*************************************************************
much more to follow. RLee. 1159, began 1020pm , June 30, 96 technical
glitches and time constraints gave me an hour, 1050--1155pm to input (up
to "shotgun suicide scenario"). will finish with much more. rlee, 1155pm,
7-1-96. "interview" material up to KN driving away input 855-1100pm,
7-2-96, rlee. Intro para. 4 changed from "trail" to "maneuver..." and bit
about KN smiling at RNHO added 7-12-96, concl. 526 pm.-- rlee.
--------------------------------------
**************************************
--------------------------------------
About the Author
We have resisted doing this to this point, preferring to let the evidence
convince you on its own merit, but in any case, here we go:
Richard Lee was born in 1963 in New York City and grew up mostly in
Aurora, Illinois. He began his career as a journalist by interviewing
columnist Mike Royko in the newsroom of the Chicago Sun-Times for
his high school paper in 1977. Shortly thereafter he co-founded a theater
troupe which included him as the featured performer in a punk rock band
called Joe Punchpress and the Neo-conservatives.
Mr. Lee became a professional journalist in 1982, starting with a cover
story for the Chicago Reader titled "Playing for Change", which
soon led directly to the Chicago City Council passing a new ordinance to
"legalize" street music and end police harassment of street musicians.
Now See It Person to Person, the weekly cable-television series in
Seattle which includes the Kurt Cobain investigation, began production in
1991 and was first aired in April of 1993. Even before the program had
ever aired, it made national news when Lee was violently assaulted by an
extremist presidential candidate at the conclusion of a 23-minute
interview at a radio station.
A two-part series of reports in 1993 on the program established that the
FBI ignored evidence of the involvement of military personnel and military
arms trafficking in their raid of a skinhead apartment connected to the
bombing of the Tacoma office of the NAACP. Lee proved this more
conclusively in a subsequent year of investigation at the request of a
local news weekly, which then explicitly refused to publish the piece
because of Lee's ongoing public probe of Kurt Cobain's murder.
-----------------------------------------------
(photo) Richard Lee on June 9, 1996, only days before the carriage
house (garage) of the historic Denny-Blaine Mansion, the scene of the
crime, was razed by Courtney Love.
this "bio" input 4-28-96,
concl. 11:07 pm.
photo and caption input
7-7-96, concl. 630 pm. more
to follow. RLee
Law Firm of Carroll, Guido, and Groffman
1790 Broadway, 20th Floor
New York, NY 10019
Reed College on Birth of Pro-sumer
Video and
Sucky Corporate Rock Magazine Writer”
First-ever Memorial Concert, 
...Glocks..., Part B:
Describes Mayor’s Unit as Ready for Action
if It’s Okay To Attack Without Hinting He’s a Cop,
I Kind of Felt The Kick,’ Leading Us To Stick With
‘Pleas? Please Kiss My Ass, How About That?’”
Asserts This Is His ‘Legal Name’ but Will Say No More,
Part in His Internal Charge of Racially-tinged Excessive Force,
Pistol on His Un-uniformed Hip, But Later, Gee,
Tender Target of The Famous Fabulous Footwork”
Joe ‘Buttafuoco’ Bouffiou, Confirms Our Perception
‘Leap or Jump…In Front Of The Car’ for Possibly Less Than 1 Second,
That We Are a Mayoral Wifebeater”
Richard Vincent, Who Has Been to His Home
as Treasurer of His Campaigns, Wherein He’s Known for
‘Psychotic’ and Claims We ‘Pushed’ Him in 2001 and
Because He Didn’t ‘Take the Camera and Smash It,’
Who Does Not Fathom
Nickels Campaign Event
‘For the Love and Adoration of the Communty,’
‘2 Seconds, 20 Seconds’ To ‘Stop the Car and Get To The Mayor…
and Possibly To Harm Him,’
with ‘A Passion for Politics,’
‘For Parties and Stuff,’ 
MAYOR GREG NICKELS: It's good to be here, Kathi.
KOMO-TV: We're gonna talk garbage here in a minute, but first I want to talk to you about this whole rave and subsequent incident, and what you think is going to have to happen. Do you propose changes in the laws at these raves, and any kind of--
NICKELS: You know, Kathi, I'm not. It seems to me that the music was not the issue here. The issue here was that there was a disturbed man who decided he was going to take, to take out people, and he had the firepower because of our obsession with guns in this society to be able to do it...
KIMERER: Professor Fox was charged with trying to help us understand why Kyle Huff did what he did. That was, based on his expertise, his overriding, you know, mission. That’s what we wanted him to do, and he’s an expert, nationally recognized.
LEE: Is he an expert on computers, sir?
KIMERER: He was not charged with analyzing computers, nor to reinvestigate this, this crime.
LEE: He makes no reference to any computer expert that he consulted with.
KIMERER: His job, his expertise, was to help us understand what motivated Kyle Huff to do what he did.
LEE: And the answer he came up with is a Nirvana song, are you aware of that?
KIMERER: I thought that you would find that somehow either ironic, or attractive.
LEE: Well, it’s awfully interesting that the song he refers to actually does not exist, sir.
KIMERER: I don’t, I don’t know Nirvana. I’m a Pearl Jam fan…I think Professor Fox did a superb job, and I think he helped advance our understanding of a criminal mind that would do that horrible, horrible thing up on Capitol Hill. Thanks, Richard.
(KIMERER turns and crosses barrier restricting the public at SPD headquarters building).
LEE: You mean by attributing it to a song by the rock band Nirvana which in fact does not exist (“I Want To Know Now”)...which was never recorded or published by Nirvana? 
RICHARD LEE: Well, Norm Stamper, I have to keep looking over my shoulder here, because as you know, I’ve attended two of your public appearances in the last year, and at both of them I’ve been viciously attacked by gangs of goons that to all evidence Norm Stamper has hired. That is, I stand up to ask him a question, I get about this far, and out of the shadows jump who knows, they’ve not yet been identified clearly to me. When I went to Town Hall in June, a gang of four men and one woman (at this point LEE begins to be heckled by several people who endeavor to interrupt him). Um, I’m speaking here.
HECKLER: What’s the question?
LEE: Um, well, where are the goons tonight, Norm? Evidently you didn’t have the balls to hire goons at the ACLU meeting, because it just points out what everybody knows, which is on the subject of civil liberties, you have an absolutely execrable record. You are a monster when it comes to civil liberties. You made passing remarks that you ‘choked out’ a hundred people when you were in uniform in San Diego—you know, that makes you a serial felony assaulter of those people. (HECKLERS ring in further). If you had revealed that piece of information when you applied to be Seattle police chief, you would have never become Seattle police chief. So you’re a big fraud. And this liberal nonsense you’re spewing about let’s all get high, whatever is in my body is my business is just a lot of rot. Now the fact is, Norm Stamper, that the question that you will not answer is why you are publishing a book with Nation Books, on whose board of directors is Danny Goldberg. Danny Goldberg is Kurt Cobain’s former talent manager—
ACLU OF WASHINGTON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KATHLEEN TAYLOR: (shouting into her microphone unintelligibly at first, to silence LEE) …Can you tell us why you’re on a board with Danny Goldberg? Thank you, that’s the end of the questioning, and as soon as we get this answer--
LEE: Danny Goldberg knows jolly well how Kurt Cobain was murdered—
HECKLER: Hey, we want to talk too, we want to talk too, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down.
TAYLOR: …answer why you are on a board with Danny Goldborg? (to LEE) You’re done. You’re done.
STAMPER: Well, the short answer is, I don’t know Danny Goldberg and I’m not on any board with him.
LEE: Bullllshit! Danny Goldberg is the guy that pimped you into your new career as a police—
TAYLOR: (who has just jumped off the stage to come up behind Lee and shove him firmly enough to knock him off balance): Alright, we’re going (unintelligible)
LEE: Hey, I’ve got my equipment--
TAYLOR: I’ll walk you out.
LEE: No, no, I’ve got my equipment and my notes back there. (to camera) Danny Goldberg is the guy who pimped him into his new career—
TAYLOR: (continuing to shove LEE) You’re walking out. Come on, we’re walking out—
LEE: No, no, I gotta get my property, baby, Kathleen Taylor of the ACLU.
TAYLOR: Go get it, go get it, go get it.
LEE: Executive director of the ACLU is shoving me out because they don’t like my opinions. Because my opinions are too controversial. Danny Goldberg and Norm Stamper are the two people who are most responsible for putting across to the public the myth that Kurt Cobain committed suicide. They are the two, in April of 1994-- (LEE is being booed, jeered, and heckled by dozens of people).
BALDING UNIDENTIFIED GOON: (while grabbing and shoving LEE) You’re being disruptive. You’re being disruptive.
LEE: No, no, no. They’re tossing my equipment around, you dirty fuckers. (another GOON has taken LEE’s second camera and thrown it to the ground in front of him). You dirty fuckers are tossing around my equipment. I have the longest running public affairs television program in Seattle, and you’re tossing around my property and treating me like some kind of a criminal. There’s your criminal! (LEE is pointing to Stamper, and shouting to be heard above the jeering). There’s your criminal! He’s the guy that choked out a hundred people! He’s the guy that started the WTO riots! He’s the guy who’s being paid off with his new career as a writer for assisting Danny Goldberg in hiding the evidence of murder in the Kurt Cobain case!
Well this is what I held up, this is what you didn’t want me holding up last September, so you coordinated an effort, apparently, with the chief, rather the mayor’s personal police detail to have me forcibly removed from these chambers, because you didn’t want me returning to these chambers with this excerpt from the annual report of 2003. As you can see, 573 contact log cases. Elsewhere in the report it’s detailed that these are not investigated—it says that they ‘range from de minimus complaints to nonsense communications.’ Are you aware of any of this? ( no response). Are you standing by your statement of three days ago that, ah, ‘You know, that is a false statistic’—which is what you said before you sped off in your car? (no response). Ah, is this a policy you have for me only, or are you refusing to answer questions of substance on policy matters that you have influence over by any citizen? (no response)
PAILCA: There are. The other category would be, um, Preliminary Investigation Reports, which are reports of complaints that we receive that, that our intake sergeants do some preliminary investigative work on, prior to making a determination, or a recommendation that, um, there is no need for further investigation, that we have the facts that we need to show that misconduct did not occur.
LICATA: And that’s a P.I.R. you refer to?
PAILCA: Right. Right, and those are recommendations coming out of the investigations section that are reviewed by the OPA auditor, Kate Pflaumer, and by myself and, and we concur with those recommendations.
LICATA: So every complaint that’s filed with your department is investigated?
PAILCA: Receives some level of scrutiny and review.
LICATA: The investigation is the P.I.R.
PAILCA: Absolutely.
RICHARD LEE: (from gallery) Ahhh-ha.
PAILCA: And, and every complaint that is received is documented chronologically, each one receives a number, each one is written—there’s a written record of every contact with the office. 
JULIE MOORE: The filing report is in alphabetical order by race, and so when Dean draws a number, whatever number that is, I will put in the lot draw order. And the largest race that we had was for City of Seattle mayor. There was eight candidates. So we’re going to draw eight numbers.
LOGAN: Any questions before we start? Alright.(Without any direct reference to the device to be used for the drawing, Logan pulls the first paper lot from a clear glass ashtray). The first number is five.
RICHARD LEE: Say, Dean, since you can actually see through the pieces of paper there, is it—you’re gonna look away as you grab, right?
LOGAN: Look s like you’re gonna have a record of that, so you can check me on that.
LEE: Well, I hate to be a pain in the neck, but you can look right through those pieces of paper and see exactly what the numbers are.
LOGAN: Well, I’m pulling them randomly, and that’s, that’s—
LEE: Well, why don’t you stir them around a little bit—
LOGAN: --that’s what the law permits. The second number is eight…
LEE: You know they did a thing on KING5 a few years ago about some other county, and--
LOGAN: The third number is two...
(Lee is describing an investigative story on the local NBC affiliate a few years ago which examined another county's elections office for precisely this sort of apparent rigging of ballot positions, in that case with bent and torn playing cards).
MOORE: (concluding)...And could we have two witnesses sign it as well.
LEE: Yeah, I’ll sign it. I was a witness. I’m not signing that I improve, approve of the entire procedure.
LOGAN: It doesn’t say that. It just says that you’re certifying that it was done randomly and that it was accurately displayed—
LEE: Oh, hell, no, I’m not certifying that, dude.
LOGAN: Okay, that’s fine. We’ll have two people who are willing to sign it.
LEE: You could see right through those cards. Less than ideal. If this was Vegas, you’d all be in prison. (Logan laughs). But it’s not Vegas, the standards are much lower…If this was Vegas, people wouldn’t get outta here with their thumbs unbroken. You could see right through those little lots…You know, when, when Julie Anne Kempf was here, at least they used a little plastic tumbler, which is a legitimate gambling device, and not these little scraps of paper—
MOORE: Julie Anne Kempf isn’t here any more—
LEE: (into camera)I know, she’s under indictment, she’s like an accused felon, they’re gonna send her to prison for thirty years or something, but she had a better system than they got for drawing these lots.
LEE: Okay, my turn now. right?
DAVID BREWSTER: I’ll handle it, hang on.
LEE: Well, Dave, I’ve been standing for like 15 minutes here, what’s up? Where’s the civility, babe? Aren’t you Seattle’s number one advocate for civility? Let’s talk about the real Norm Stamper—it’s right here in the paper you used to edit.
AGGRESSIVE WOMAN: (who has approached as Lee began to speak) You need to be called off.
LEE: No, no, it’s my turn, babe. My turn. Don’t touch me.
BREWSTER: Okay, okay…
LEE: (reading from weekly newspaper) ‘Stamper says his favorite stunt was choking people out—
BREWSTER: Richard (these people?) are going to throw you out of here.
A.W.: Okay, you go, if you don’t be quiet.
LEE: --by using a hold that cuts off consciousness, while whispering in their ear—
BREWSTER: Okay, out you go, out you go.
LEE: --you’re gonna die, asshole.’ Now this is from your book, right, Norm Stamper? (to A.W.) Get you hands off me. I want to ask you who you’re working for, Norm Stamper. Who, who’s running Nation Books? Who is, who is Danny Goldberg? Are you working for Danny Goldberg? (to Unidentified Man) Leave my property alone.
U.M.: No, no, you gotta leave.
LEE: Danny Goldberg is on the board of trustees of Nation Books—
A.W.: You’re going.
LEE: Get your hands off my equipment, you moron. I got, I got three or four people grabbing at me here. What is this?
A.W.: Let’s go…
LEE: Danny Goldberg is a very wealthy multimillionaire who used to manage Kurt Cobain’s career, his wife was his personal lawyer—
BREWSTER: (sarcastically) Byyye.
LEE: --his wife was his personal lawyer-- (Lee is being pulled backward against his will by two athletic men) What is this fascism?! What is this bullshit?! Get your goddamn hands off me! You’re working for Danny Goldberg, the multimillionaire who’s on the board of trustees, this is a cover-up that’s been going on a long time, Norm Stamper, and the publication of this book is just a part of the payoff for you, Norm Stamper, and now you got four fucking liberal thugs—get your fucking hands off me, you scumbag--- (in the violent action, Lee’s camera is impacted and turns off as he is then smashed into the exit door with such force that he hurls about 10 feet through the air, completely over a set of four cement stairs, and onto the sidewalk) .
SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT JAN DRAGO: The way I look at it is, if you want peace and quiet, you better live in the suburbs, ‘cause if you want to live downtown, you’re gonna deal with noise. And even if you live in the neighborhoods of Seattle, you’re probably gonna deal with noise…Wait, and let me add just one thing. Well, you moved there, making a choice, and you know what’s there before you moved there.
MAYORAL AIDE AND CITY COUNCIL WANNABE CASEY CORR: I agree with a lot of that…Fundamentally, Jan is correct, if you want to live in the downtown area…that’s your choice.
CITY COUNCIL MEMBER RICHARD CONLIN: I agree with the basic principle that has been annunciated…
CITY COUNCIL PUBLIC SAFETY CHAIR NICK LICATA: When people move downtown, the realtors should be providing them a statement that says you are moving into the downtown area, this is not the suburbs, you should be expecting higher levels of noise…
3-panel Rigid Horizontal
Digipak
Holds 4 Trays, Plus 60-page Booklet” 
LEE: Well, I have no idea what that ‘substantial evidence’ is--
KIMERER: I’m sorry that people disagree with you, Richard, but there is a body of evidence that says very clearly that your idea about all of this is wrong.
LEE: But how can you have an office of investigative—
KIMERER: That was your question—
LEE: --of internal investigations--
KIMERER: I’ve got to run.
LEE: --that does not do an investigation.
KIMERER: I’ve got to run. I’ve got to run.
LEE: Isn’t it true that you do no investigation in two-thirds of all cases? Isn’t that true?
KIMERER: (nearly mumbling) Absolutely no.
LEE: Two-thirds of all cases are ‘contact log’ cases. Correct?
KIMERER: Richard, you probably should get back to the busy activity of interviewing yourself.
LEE: But that is true, isn’t it?
KIMERER: I answered your question.
LEE: You brush off two-thirds of all cases with no investigation whatsoever, including an allegation of murder, participation in a murder by the Seattle Police Department. No investigation, Mr. Kimerer, Deputy Chief Kimerer.
PAILCA: No.
LEE: ‘cause frankly, the way is sounds is, ah, I mean if you had someone building on your home and they said oh well, you know, mistakes will be made, you may be right, you may be all right and we may be all wrong, you know, I think the reaction would be that someone’s doing a slipshod job. ‘You may be right and we may all be wrong, mistakes will be made.’ Is there any clarification you’d want to add to that?
PAILCA: No. Bye bye. (Pailca enters the SPD headquarters building and walks past its security gate. Lee exits the doorway and makes a remark as he crosses the street).
LEE: Yeah, we jaywalked the hell out of that one.
LOCKE: I’ll read your stuff.
LEE: Well, sir, it’s only a hundred words, it’s only a hundred words or so. You can read it right now. It concerns the death of Kurt Cobain and your failure to order an inquest in 1995, sir. You claim that you read a document by (name omitted here) in 1995 which convinced you that there needed to be no inquiry or inquest in this matter, when in fact, sir, her document describes precisely the circumstances under which you should order an inquest, which in this case is a faked autopsy. (Locke enters the executive office building).
LOCKE: (who takes about six strides toward Lee) I tell you what, tell you what—(Locke shoves his hand into Lee’s lens and momentarily clutches the camera, before Lee pulls it back and over his shoulder)
LEE: What, what are, why are you grabbing my camera for, why are you doing that?
LOCKE: (who has just grabbed the blue binder from Lee’s other hand) I tell you what, I will read it. I will read it.
LEE: Okay, well don’t assault me, alright?
LOCKE: Don’t assault me. I’ll read it.
LEE: I never assaulted you, you have assaulted me numerous times, sir. (Locke turns and moves away).
UNIDENTIFIED WSP BODYGUARD: That’s what you wanted.
LEE: Well, he has my property—
U.W.S.P.B.: He’s gonna read it.
LEE: He’s not gonna read it—
U.W.S.P.B.: Yes he is—
LEE: --he just gave it to some woman--
U.W.S.P.B.: You’re interrupting. And he’s gonna read it--
LEE: --in a maroon dress there.
U.W.S.P.B.: And he’s gonna read it—that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?
LEE: It’s my property-- I retain possession of it.
U.W.S.P.B.: He’s gonna read it. He’s gonna read it. And you’re not gonna interrupt this thing, you understand that? You’re not going to interrupt this…
LEE: My property has just, my valuable property, worth hundreds of dollars at least, has just been taken by the governor of Washington, who pulled a strong-arm robbery on me, with your assistance.
from:
LOCKE: Hi.
LEE: Say, I wanted to ask you just a couple of questions--
LOCKE: I’m sorry, I don’t have time to chat with you (Locke holds papers briefly over Lee’s lens).
LEE: Well, it’s more than just a chat, I wanted to ask you--
LOCKE: We’ve chatted about this before (Locke, inexplicably, grabs Lee’s left wrist, briefly).
LOCKE AIDE: Sir, we don’t have time for this right now… (she continues to make such statements, apparently only to interfere with Lee’s taping).
LEE: Not in the last eight years we haven’t, Mr. Locke. Sir, I wanted to just ask you about your handling of the Cobain homicide--
LOCKE: You asked me about that last week.
LEE: And you didn’t provide any answer whatsoever. Why is it, Governor Locke, that when you were King County executive, you endorsed the idea that Dr. Richard Harruff of the King County Medical Examiner’s office could—
LOCKE: I did not, I did not ever talk to you about that at all, and—
LEE: Well, here’s the document sir. Here it is. I attempted to read it to you--
LOCKE: Well then, then, then, we’ll look at it again later on.
LEE: It says, ‘I’-- Hey, hey, hey, hey, what’s this goon doing (a Man In Dark Suit is body blocking Lee as Locke walks away)? You’re going to look at it ‘later’ when, sir? Could you provide a response, so that these goons—
M.I.D.S.: If you want an appointment with the governor, you can go into the office and make an appointment. You don’t have one now.
LEE: They won’t give me an appointment. It’s obvious. Who are you, by the way, the guy that’s shoving his body against me? Who are you? (No response). Are you a law enforcement officer who’s refusing to identify himself? (No response).
To be continued…
(Lee films Locke for several seconds from about 6 feet away. For no apparent reason, Locke walks toward Lee and stands about 2 feet from him, to his left. As Lee’s camera pans, Locke puts his hand in front of his face and very deliberately shoves his hand into Lee’s lens with an audible impact).
LOCKE: Excuse me. (Locke turns around and walks about 20 feet away).
LEE: Well, that was strange. (to Apparent Washington State Patrol Bodyguard) Does he do that often?
A.W.S.P.B.: He’s on a phone call, sir. A little privacy.
(Locke spends about 40 seconds shaking hands, hugging, and talking with well wishers. Lee holds up to the camera a copy of Locke's 1995 letter to him. Locke begins to walk away, rapidly)
LEE: Oh, say, Mr. Locke, could I draw your attention to this document for just a moment?
LOCKE: I really don’t have time, so, so, ah, thank you.
LEE: Okay, well it will only take a minute, sir. This is concerning the Cobain homicide case, which occurred when you were the King County Executive in 1994.
LOCKE: (turning to A.W.S.P.B.): Which car are we in? Alright.
LEE: Sir, could I just ask you to look at the document?
LOCKE: I really don’t have my glasses on with me right now, so I can’t see it. So, ah--
LEE: Okay, I’ll read it to you. It says, ‘Thank you for your letter of September 18, 1995, and a second copy of your report on Kurt Cobain. I have reviewed your written materials as well as Sharon Stewart Johnson’s correspondence to you, dated January 17, 1995’—
LOCKE: You’ll have to really talk to the police department about that.
LEE: Okay, well the thing I wanted to ask you about is this sentence, which is—
LOCKE: Just get in the car, guys. Let's go. Alright, thank you. Bye bye (Locke closes car door).
LEE: ‘I have been informed that Dr. Harruff’s article on shotgun wounds has been accepted for publication’—sir, why don’t you just roll your window down—you have just a moment to answer the question.
(Lee turns on camera’s light and puts lens to the mirrored window. Locke’s hand is momentarily seen raised, as if to block being photographed).
LEE: I have been informed, 'I have been informed that Dr. Richard Harruff’s article on shotgun wounds has been accepted for publication’ (the car pulls away and zooms down the street, as if they are fearful of a motor pursuit) and one will be made available to you.
SPD CAPTAIN MARK EVENSON: Good, Mr. Lee, how you doin’?
LEE: Alright. Say, I was wondering if you could explain a few things to me about your use of some of the terminology in your June 12, 2003 letter? And that is, ah—
EVENSON: The one I wrote to you?
LEE: As you can see here, ‘the information you supplied,’ you write, ‘does not contain any concrete or verifiable facts.’ What, in your view, constitutes ‘concrete' and 'verifiable' facts?
EVENSON: Probably, just information that would be, um, credible. And be something that could be verified reasonably. I didn’t mean to insult you or, embarrass you by that letter, I just think that, you know, based on my analysis of what you gave me, I, I did not feel that it was warranted to ah, to go into further investigation, on the, on your, ah, your inquiry...
LEE: Well, this OPA office that you are now the chief investigator for, was brought about because the same homicide squad, the Don Cameron homicide squad, in 1999 was discovered to have several years (earlier) robbed the personal possessions of Mr. Bodegard Mitchell, who died after being shot by the Seattle police. And that story went around in the upper echelons of the Seattle Police Department for years and years, and everybody, according to all reports and the King County Prosecuting Attorney, everybody knew that this crime occurred, but nobody was motivated to initiate an investigation and a prosecution of the Don Cameron homicide squad.
EVENSON: Let me ask you this—
LEE: --was created because of that scandal.
EVENSON: Let me ask you this, okay. Out of all the agencies that you’ve approached and shared your hypothesis about what happened to Mr. Cobain, how many of them actually did follow up work on, on your inquiry? That’s all I got to say. (Evenson begins walking down stairs).
LEE: (who remains at top of stairs) You didn’t do any follow up work...
EVENSON: Have a good day…
LEE: You’re trying to claim that because you authored a one-page letter, you did follow-up work? You did no investigation, sir.
EVENSON: I know.
LEE: ‘I know.’ That was your response. ‘I know.’ A ‘contact log’ case, Captain Evenson. ‘Contact log’, meaning no investigation was ever initiated.
(Evenson exits the building).
RICHARD LEE: Oh, good morning, Mr. Nickels. How are you today, sir?
SEATTLE MAYOR GREG NICKELS: (Offers no response to Lee, but rather continues to accost children and others and introduce himself, as if he is campaigning for office). Good morning. How are you? Welcome to your library.
LEE: Oh, sir, this document was directed to your office. Sir, could I ask you to direct your attention to this document? (To Unidentified Man, apparently a plainclothes SPD officer) Why are you touching me? Sir? Mr. Nickels? (to U.M.) I, I know but he can be busy with this too. Will you have a few minutes here today, Mr. Nickels? Sir, this is a letter addressed to you personally, at your mayoral office, from last September. Sir, this, this concerns the lack of the ability of the OPA to conduct an investigation into official corruption at the SPD. Why, why are you vacating, Mr. Nickels? (Lee follows but is blocked by U.M.) Excuse me, tall guy. Why are you pushing me, tall guy? (Lee takes evasive action and approaches Nickels again) Oh, say, could I ask, sir, could you to direct your attention to this document, that I addressed to you—
NICKELS: Richard, today is not the day. Thank you.
LEE: Well, sir, when is the day? Because this document was addressed to you last September, and it concerns the lack of the ability of the Office of Professional Accountability to conduct a corruption investigation, sir. Well, briefly, Mr. Nickels, could I ask you, are you familiar with Section 1.009 of the Seattle Police manual, sir?
U.M.: Because you’re interfering.
LEE: Why are you criminals grabbing me? Your foremost promise was to supervise--
U.M.: You asked me a question, don’t you want the answer?
LEE: Yeah, why don’t you call the police? I’ll tell them how many times you and this guy assaulted me. Sir, this is a letter I addressed to you last September. When do you think the time is for you to address these issues? Police accountability, Mr. Nickels, was the central theme of your campaign for mayor in 2001.
U.M.: (Who is aggressively blocking Lee on a narrow ramp and disregarding the safety of a child who is passing on that ramp at that moment). Why are you assaulting me, Richard?
LEE: Who are you, pal? Who are you?
U.M.: Who are you?
LEE: I got I.D. on, do you?
U.M. Yes.
LEE: Who are you—what’s your name?
U.M.: Officer Wall, w-a-l-l. Serial—
LEE: Why are you assaulting me, Officer Wall, w-a-l-l?
U.M.: Why are you assaulting me?
LEE: Mr. Nickels, when might you have a few times, a few minutes of time to address these issues today, sir?
UNIFORMED “LIBRARY SECURITY” OFFICER: Sir, can you come with me for a second? I want to talk to you for a second.
LEE: Well, you’re library security, right?
U.L.S.O.: Yeah. Come on.
LEE: Why are you grabbing me?
U.L.S.O.: I’m not. I’m escorting you out.
LEE: Mr. Nickels, these questions are questions that need answers. You’re not merely a politician, sir, you’re also the chief executive of a corporation known as the City of Seattle. Why are you grabbing me, pal? Let me go!
(At this moment, the two men who are apparently SPD bodyguards begin to move away from being directly in front of Lee, with one watching and scowling as they move away. The camera pans down to show the fist of U.L.S.O. locked around Lee’s wrist, and then his trying to force Lee’s arm into a police hold)
U.L.S.O.: (into radio) Sam One, children’s section, Sam One, children’s section. Sir, I just want to talk to you for a second!
LEE: Talk to me, bullshit, you’re grabbing me!
U.L.S.O.: I want to talk to you for a second, I’m not grabbing you! (as he says this, U.L.S.O. is violently trying again to force Lee’s arm into a police hold, as the camera clearly shows).
LEE: This is an assault!
U.L.S.O.: It’s not an assault!
LEE: Mr. Nickels, this is an assault on your behalf! What do you mean, it’s not an assault?!
U.L.S.O.: I’m not!
LEE: Get your hands off me, you fucking goon!
KING COUNTY EXECUTIVE RON SIMS: Fine, how are you today?
LEE: Ah, say, you’re running for governor now?
SIMS: I am.
LEE: And congratulations on that.
SIMS: Thank you very much.
LEE: And, well, sir I wanted to direct your attention to this document here. It’s addressed to you, and it’s from March 11th, just a couple of months ago. And it’s titled ‘The need for a federal corruption investigation and a public inquest into the Kurt Cobain death case.’ Ah, have you read this document, sir?
SIMS: I have not.
LEE: Okay, well, it’s addressed to you, it was sent certified mail, persons in your office assured me that it had arrived. It concerns the case of Kurt Cobain, the homicide decedent from 1994.
SIMS: Yes.
LEE: And evidence that has developed in recent years that personnel of the King County Medical Examiner took part in the criminal mutilation and looting of Cobain’s body, at the funeral home. This is all based on evidence by Cobain’s wife, who published this in a twelve-hundred word narrative, that was published on the Internet on her personal website. So, there’s very strong evidence, she says that the ringleader of the whole gang that mutilated her husband’s body, and stole his body parts, including all of his hair, that those persons, or the ringleader of that gang that did those crimes, was an employee of the King County Medical Examiner.
SIMS: If that had come to me, I’m certain that my staff would have referred it to the King County prosecutor’s office, and I’ll find out when they did that.
LEE: Well, I did discuss this with someone at the King County prosecutor’s office who said that he was familiar with the inquest procedures, highly familiar with the inquest procedures, and he said, and this was, you know, two months ago, that he’d be looking onto it, and that he’d get back to me, but you know, another 60 days or so has passed,
and I have heard nothing about it. And, ah, let me just ask you about Section 895 of the King County Charter. As you can see, the Section 895 provides that, quote, ‘An inquest shall be held to investigate the causes and circumstances of any death involving a member the law enforcement agency of the county in the performance of his duties.’ And so if this death occurred, whether it was, ah—
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Excuse me, just a second. We’re going to get started.
(SIMS begins to move away from LEE, without a word).
LEE: So, sir, what, well, I don’t appreciate, I don’t know who you are, but I really don’t appreciate your interrupting this important conversation. Why are you blocking me? Why are you assaulting me?
U.M.: Because he needs to—I’m not---
LEE: Nonononononono. Nonononononono. No. No. Give him a chance to answer the question, pal. You’re not the King County Executive.
U.M.: Excuse me, sir, could you please--
LEE: Mr. Sims?
SIMS: I’ll have to get back to you. I have to do this introduction. Thank you very much.
SPD’S DIRECTOR OF OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY, MS. SAM PAILCA: Hi, Mr. Lee.
LEE: I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about conversations we had last year, and, um—
SPD’S PAILCA: You know what, I don’t have time for this right now—
LEE: What, ah, how would you describe Section 1.009 of the police manual?
SPD’S PAILCA: We’ve been over this before Mr. Lee--we’ll talk about it later.
LEE: Okay, well when exactly later would you like to discuss it?
SPD’S PAILCA: Oh, much (laughs).
LEE: Okay.
SPD’S PAILCA: Much.
LEE: Okay, very funny.
SPD’S PAILCA: No.
LEE: Let me ask you this: today, only today, I brought up your comments of June 25th of last year--
SPD’S PAILCA: Right.
LEE: --when discussing the Cobain affair and the likelihood of, ah, police misconduct in that case, including--
SPD’S PAILCA: You were discussing—
LEE: --profiteering--
SPD’S PAILCA: --the likelihood of police misconduct, I wasn’t discussing the likelihood of police misconduct.
LEE: Were you discussing the possibility of police misconduct?
SPD’S PAILCA: I think I was talking with you when you brought up that subject, so—
LEE: But you acknowledge that there’s the possibility—
SPD’S PAILCA: Mr. Lee, I have to go.
LEE: And what you said, and I, I did quote you today in council, I quoted you as saying, ah, ‘Mr. Lee, you may be all right and we may be all wrong—mistakes will be made.’ Now, do you stand behind that comment that you made on June 25th of last year?
SPD’S PAILCA: Absolutely.
LEE: So I may be right, and OPA and all of your investigative abilities may have reached a wrong conclusion—is that correct?
SPD’S PAILCA: The OPA did not investigate the Kurt Cobain murder or any investigation into the misconduct. We did not conduct that investigation. We didn’t find that we had sufficient basis to open an investigation.
LEE: Hmm. Well, that’s why I was asking you about Section 1.009—
SPD’S PAILCA: Okay, I’m, I’m done now. Thank you.
LEE: Which is, it’s hard to imagine, um—this is what Section 1.009 says--
THICK-NECKED MAN WHO ACCOMPANIES PAILCA: Mr. Lee, she said she’s done. Mr. Lee.
LEE: It says, ‘As it is not feasible to expend equal time and energy in investigating all reported crimes, priority of investigation and allocation of resources must be based on the relative seriousness of each reported crime'. Now if the police, the Seattle Police Department participated in the murder of Kurt Cobain, how could there be a more serious allegation than that?
SPD’S PAILCA: (No response).
LEE: Aren’t you flagrantly ignoring the strictures of Section 1.009?
SPD’S PAILCA: (No response).
LEE: Ms. Pailca?
SPD’S PAILCA: I don’t believe so, no.
LEE: Well, actually, I tried to discuss that with you on the phone, and you hung up the phone on me at that point.
SPD’S PAILCA: Right. Because we have a disagreement that is not going to be resolved by further discussion.
LEE: Well, what’s your interpretation of 1.009? Obviously—
SPD’S PAILCA: It’s different from your interpretation.
with ‘A Passion for Politics,’
‘For Parties and Stuff,’ 
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered, as reported May 29, 2004
KCWM: Five Years After
about the TV promo, some other minor changes, corrections, and HTML clean
up on 4/4/99). (ALIGN=LEFT>ALSO, THIS WHOLE THING WAS BOOTED UP AT A NEW ANGELFIRE ADDRESS ON 5/24/01 AFTER BEING DUMPED BY LYCOS FOR LACK OF UPDATE
ACTIVITY AT OUR PREVIOUS ADDRESS OF WA2/RICHARDLEE.
ALSO THEN ADDED HEADLINE ABOUT UR-CONTENT, ETC., TOP COPYRIGHT NOTICE,
AND FINALLY CHANGED ANCIENT EMAIL ADDRESS FROM SPEAKEASY, WHICH, BY THE WAY, MYSTERIOUSLY
BURNED IN A SPECTACULAR BLAZE LAST WEEK, THOUGH CITY OF SEATTLE SEZ IT WAS JUST AN OVERHEATED ELECTRICAL
IT LOOKED LIKE IT COULD HAVE BEEN, ALL IN FLAMES ALL AT ONCE.
IN ANY CASE, GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE SLEAZY S'EASY, WHICH ATTACKED US PHYSICALLY WITH NOVOSELIC GOONS IN
1999 AND THEN INSISTED THAT WE WERE NOT UP TO THE STANDARDS OF THE SORT OF LOWLIFE THEY WANTED
PRACTICING FREE SPEECH FROM THEIR VENUE.
DRAGGED OUT (AND ON VIDEOTAPE!)BY A WEBHOSTER SERVICE WANTING TO REMOVE A CONTROVERSIAL PAGE.
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
"...you're in high
school again..."
Kurt Cobain
Was
Murdered
as reported
October 13, 1995
a product of Mr. Lee's Remington Remette
Richard Lee from the monologue portion of the
program, "Kurt Cobain
was Murdered". 
The rock mags and papers in England have always been hungry for any scrap
of news on Cobain and Nirvana (and still very much are), so I could not
conceive of their failure to contact me as anything but deliberate.
Apparently, it's "Chinatown" over there too, in terms of the rock press
knowing that the way to get by in the nasty and mean world of corporate
rock is to suck up to the living and power-wielding players in the Nirvana
drama and let Kurt's ghost (especially as it functions through my
television program), fend for itself. One exception to this blackout on my
work by the British was the treatment I received in the January 28, 1995
color-slick mag Kerrang!, which did a cover story called "Grunge
Ain't Dead:Kurt-Was It Murder? Shocking Seattle Report!" Though the
Kerrang story did focus on Tom Grant as the star of the wire story,
it also had a short but impressively accurate sidebar article titled, "A
Conspiracy!...So Says a Weekly Seattle TV Show Called 'Kurt Cobain Was
Murdered'!". While Kerrang! may have a very limited circulation in
the U.S., this is not the case in England, and so my perception that I was
being ignored by the Brits was confirmed, as no inquiries from the happy
breed followed. What's the matter, I have been forced to wonder--does no
one watch Rumpole over there?
In April, I posed for a photograph in
the park next to Cobain's house for a photographer for NME at the
commemoration on April 8, and did an interview with one of their stringer
reporters, to whom I provided a copy and a lengthy written explanation of
the semi-famous "death threat" letter I received from Seattle Police
Department personnel, in which she expressed strong interest. Once again,
no follow-up occurred, and NME didn't even run a piece on the
commemoration event.
this is a work-in-progress which will be greatly expanded very soon.
this material was initially posted at the Speakeasy Cafe on October 15,
1995 text to this point--R.L. entire contents of this page copyright
1994, 1995, 1996 by Richard Lee and granted typical international
protections
Richard Lee, P.O. Box 19847 Seattle, WA 98109
mailto:RICHARDLEE2001@HOTMAIL.COM
Introductory Internet Column of October 13, 1995
(transcript of television program)
The "Compendium" Document
Kurt Cobain Was Murdered
An Independent Investigation by Richard Lee
"...another casualty of success..."
Diane Sawyer,
ABC's World News Tonight
April 8, 1994
Mr. Cobain ran away from a California treatment facility
and flew back to Seattle. He also bought a shot gun and
may be suicidal. Mr. Cobain maybe at 11/Denny location for
narcotics.
The SPD could have determined this
discrepancy from their own files: here you can note the startling
difference between how his name was "signed" in the s-note ("suicide
note") and how he signed a fingerprint card from his arrest by SPD on
6/4/93. The difference could not be more distinct.
1. SPD's immediate conclusion that this was a suicide note
and that Cobain had written it was improper and without merit.
1. The City of Seattle and King County government should
take any and all actions necessary to secure the greatest pool
of extant evidence in this case, and to safeguard it from
possible destruction from those who might prefer that it not
exist.
2. The King County Executive has in his power the right to
order an investigation and inquest into the causes and
circumstances surrounding the death of any individual.
Because this case concerns what looks to be, from every angle,
flagrant violations by the pathologists of medical ethics
and common decency, the King County Medical Examiner's
staff could not possibly be employed to investigate their
own work to report gross misconduct. Therefore, experts
from outside the local pool of those whose professional paths
cross with those of the pathologists in question should
be brought in for consultation and/or to conduct the
investigation of this inquest.
This is a still from the key video shot in the short time before the police shielded the scene from view with a tarp. I discovered this footage and aired it for the first time on the eighth program in the Cobain investigation on June 1, l994. Click on for blow-up of image. 
This is a section of the Seattle Times front page from April 9, l994. As with all other known photographic evidence, not a drop of blood is seen. Click on for blow-up of image. 
Click on here for full-motion video of the key video footage, within your system's limitations...(note: our full motion video was posted from 11/13/95 continually until 8/3/97, when we have downloaded it to make room for more new material. In any case, the long-term availability should address any concerns about the authenticity of the video "still" above)
DOCUMENT EXAMINATION OF THE
ALLEGED SUICIDE NOTE OF
KURT D. COBAIN Dear Mr. Lee:
l. This note is said to have been written on a standard-size
piece of notebook paper, meaning that the writing was
very, very small. This would seem to be rather unnatural
in the first place, and would, you would think, force
Cobain into the easiest handwriting style he could manage.
What you find, though, is very tiny letters, individually
written with ending strokes and beginning strokes
nearly connecting, but not quite, with pen-lift involved. This
style seems artificial in the extreme.
l. The writer of the note seems to have practiced making these
letters with a convincing cursive stroke (in a two-letter
combination only) to the letter "e". For instance, in the
first 37 examples of the "he" combination in the note, the
"h" and the "e" connect. In the 38th example, in line 39,
they very clearly do not.
Note Card 1 features 6 of the 7 strongest examples of possible
cursive movement from the s-note. Of these, only "theyre" has a convincing
specimen of a 3-letter movement ("hey"). The other examples appear
strongly to be run-togethers and not cursive movement (briefly, "totally"
and "hateful" involve pen lifts in the "t"s and "f", "because" and
"destructive" would have to include an unlikely bottom-to-top "s"
formation, and "fade" would have to involve using "a" as a connector,
which it is not elsewhere in the s-note). The sole strong example of a
possible 4-letter combination is seen in Note Card 4 in the word "where"
(from s-note line 27). Because the other 29 examples of "r" following "e"
show no sign of cursive connection, we can assume that this is merely a
run-together. and not a very unusual bottom-to-top formation of "r".
DOCUMENT EXAMINATION TO BE CONTINUED ASAP...stay tunedRLee
"But as I reviewed the record, a second more horrifying thought
occurred to me. Perhaps Dallas homicide had systematically altered
evidence not just to nail Oswald in a fit of misguided patriotism. Perhaps
it had behaved as it had intentionally, to protect the
actual killers of both John Kennedy and J.D. Tippit. If that were true, it
would mean that we were dealing with something beyond incompetence, even
beyond cover-up. It would mean that Dallas homicide--or key members of
it--had at worst colluded in the assassination before it happened or at
best actively ratified it afterwards.
1. A close-up of the headline of the Seattle Weekly for the
week of April 3, which featured a front-page headline of a story of
Courtney Love by one of her pet writers, Melissa Rossi. The camera pans
down to show that this is the 20th anniversary issue of Seattle
Weekly, with the main article in the issue headlined (in blood-red)
"Journalism in Seattle" and including an excerpt from a truly awful April
13, l994 piece about Cobain's death onto which the camera zooms: "Like his
songs, his suicide was a masterpiece of torment..." The background music
to this segment is the screaming "Tourette's" from In Utero.
Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-wracking vice a man can
pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit.
It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is
a whole-time job.
The time has come, the Walrus said
To speak of many things,
Of ships and shoes and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and of kings.
If he did not keep the bills Day handed him, he could reason, if
the stream of cash did not appear in the books, it was all somehow not a
political contribution. Most of the lavish 1946 financing was never
acknowledged. Richard Nixon's furtive, mincing attitude toward political
money, the gradual atrophy of ethics that ended so painfully thirty years
later, began in the first campaign.
1. Large contributions from nearly anonymous sources. It was no
problem at all to find 3 contributions of $1000 each from a Charles Liu,
James Bee, and Eric Kung, none of whom provided any address, employer or
any other information (only "MI", apparently Michigan state, was under the
name of Bee). We can assume these donors were not required to demonstrate
U.S. citizenship or green-card status.
When reached 2 weeks ago for comment on these strange discrepancies, Mr.
Locke's campaign treasurer says that she is looking into the
essentially-unidentified gifts and is concerned about this. On the matter
of the Mary Pang gift, she could not comprehend what the problem I
perceived may have been. "Why should Mary Pang have to pay for the sins of
her son?" she said twice, adding that "Mary Pang is an old friend of
Gary's...the Asian community is very tight... We brought up the Pang
contribution in a meeting and it was decided that it was no problem...Gary
had no problem with it." When I offered that if Martin Pang had indeed
torched his parent's debt-ridden business for the insurance money, Mary
Pang could be considered a beneficiary of that crime, she responded, "I
hadn't thought about it that way before." Repeatedly, she described the
role of the campaign in these simplistic terms: "We take the money. That's
what we do."
GARY LOCKE: Gary Locke, running for governor. Thank you.
