Seattle’s police watchdog has opened a formal review into allegations that the city’s former top cop privately admitted flaws in the 1994 Kurt Cobain death investigation.
The Office of Police Accountability began its probe after receiving a complaint June 28 from a supporter of “Who Killed Kurt?,” a volunteer research group that has been pushing to reopen the case, the group told The Post. The complaint centers on a November 2025 meeting between then-Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes and the group’s representatives at police headquarters.
Michelle Wilkins, the group’s lead investigator, and Mark Larson, a former King County senior prosecutor who serves as its legal adviser, presented Barnes with findings from a peer-reviewed paper concluding that the Nirvana frontman was murdered. During that sit-down, Barnes allegedly acknowledged that forensic evidence collected when Cobain died contradicted what the original police report stated.
The grunge legend was 27 when he was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in a greenhouse at his Seattle mansion in April 1994. Investigators declared his death a suicide within hours. But “Who Killed Kurt?” claims Barnes discussed a critical issue during the November meeting: no blood was found on Cobain’s left hand, the hand the musician supposedly used to hold the shotgun’s barrel near his mouth.
Larson suggested this meant Cobain’s hand may have been placed on the gun after he was shot, according to the group’s account. Barnes allegedly responded, “So that’s the explanation — the hand is placed after the blood-spatter event.”
When the researchers raised concerns about the speed with which Cobain’s death was ruled a suicide, Barnes reportedly told them, “A determination happens after an investigation. Although I wasn’t here at the time, as a trained investigator, we investigate every death as if it’s a homicide, and then we make a determination.”
The SPD announced in January that it would not reopen its investigation, standing by a 2014 cold-case review that also found no foul play. Barnes resigned as chief in July following criticism of his handling of a mass shooting at a Seattle Center food festival that left three dead.
Wilkins recently told The Post she hopes the OPA probe will establish what the department actually did with the researchers’ forensic analysis after the meeting. She also shared with the watchdog an email she sent Oct. 5 stating, “We provided SPD with new evidence that could and should have been subjected to testing. From what we currently know — and we do not know everything SPD did or did not do internally following the meeting — it appears that testing or further investigation did not occur.”
Wilkins continued in that message, “If that is the case, Mr. Larson’s position is that it represents a dereliction of the duty owed to the public. Our position is not that we conclusively proved homicide during that meeting. It is that the issues we presented demand a thorough and fresh look.”
Bev Ireland, researcher and media liaison for “Who Killed Kurt?,” called the OPA investigation “encouraging,” She said, “The multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed report presented to former Seattle Police Chief, Shon Barnes, during Michelle’s meeting with him on November 4, represented extensive new research, scientific and forensic analysis and independent ballistics testing. Work of this nature deserves careful scrutiny and a considered response, not perfunctory dismissal.”
Cobain’s widow Courtney Love has long maintained her husband committed suicide and in 1995 demanded the entire police file be handed over to her with no copies remaining at the SPD, arguing that others sought to profit from the documents. The department refused her request.
Neither Barnes nor the OPA nor the SPD responded to requests for comment.