Nearly 22 years after Kurt Cobain's death, the Seattle Police Department released photos of the shotgun that investigators said the Nirvana front-man turned on himself.
>> See photos here.
SPD has released more than 100 pages of police reports and photos relating to the rock star's suicide file, but never photos of the weapon, except for certain crime scene photos that reveal a partial view of the shotgun, as CBS News reported.
<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kurt-cobain-suicide-shotgun-seen-in-new-pictures-released-by-seattle-police/">CBS News</a> wrote in its report: "The release of the shotgun photos -- in response to a public records act request from CBS News -- dispels a rumor propagated by conspiracy theorists that the shotgun had been melted down to hide evidence in a supposed SPD cover up of a potential murder."
KIRO 7 first reported in March 2014 that police developed four rolls of film that had been sitting in a Seattle police evidence vault for years. The 35 mm film was processed last month at the King County Sheriff's Office photo lab. Seattle police requested the help because they no longer develop 35 mm film.
Though the pictures have a slight green tint because of deterioration, police said they show the scene more clearly than the earlier Polaroid photos taken by investigators.
"I was requested to look at the case because I'm a cold case detective, because it is 20 years later and it's a high media case," said Detective Mike Ciesynski, who had the four rolls of film developed and conducted interviews. "And there were always these conspiracy theorists out there, and so I was asked to look at the case and review it."
Police said in 1994 that the case was clearly a suicide.
Ciesynski said that is still the case after reviewing evidence.
Cobain reportedly injected himself with a lethal dose of heroin before he was shot. His body was found April 8, 1994 in his Lake Washington home.
The medical examiner determined Cobain had killed himself three days earlier – only days after he had left a rehab facility.
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More than 7,000 mourners packed Seattle Center two days later for a public memorial, where a recording was played of Courtney Love reading Cobain's suicide note. She also attended the memorial and gave some of his clothes to fans.
In 2013, a Seattle Police Department spokeswoman said the department gets at least one request per week, mostly through Twitter, to reopen the investigation.
The public affairs unit keeps the basic incident report on file because of the number of requests, and police have said no other Seattle police case has received similar attention in two decades.
During an interview with Crimesider for the 20th anniversary of Cobain's death, Ciesynski dismissed the murder conspiracy theory, alleging such theories are based on false information.
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Cox Media Group
