by Frank E.
The Ben Statler helmed docu-drama Soaked in Bleach presents the events surrounding Kurt Cobain’s missing days before and after he was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. The film relies heavily on information provided by Tom Grant, the California based Private Investigator who was hired by Cobain’s wife Courtney Love to locate her husband who had walked out of an LA drug rehabilitation facility days earlier.
The Ben Statler helmed docu-drama Soaked in Bleach presents the events surrounding Kurt Cobain’s missing days before and after he was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. The film relies heavily on information provided by Tom Grant, the California based Private Investigator who was hired by Cobain’s wife Courtney Love to locate her husband who had walked out of an LA drug rehabilitation facility days earlier.
The case has
turned many into amateur detectives with the film adding fuel to the
murder theory. However, information presented in the film may not be
as it seems. Along with the heavily debunked claim that Cobain was
injected with a 3x lethal dose of heroin it’s apparent that some of
the experts interviewed for Soaked in Bleach may not be happy with
how their opinion was used to influence the murder narrative.
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| Screenshot from "Soaked in Bleach" |
Carole
Chaski is a renowned forensic linguist and Executive Director of the
Institute for Linguistic Evidence, a non-profit research organization
devoted to research and development in linguistic evidence. She was
asked to analyse Cobain’s suicide note. Viewers watched her
describe the ‘linguistically interesting’ aspects of the final
lines of the note and how they appeared to be from a ‘stereotypical
suicide note’ in comparison to the rest of the note. What the
creators of Soaked in Bleach failed to mention however was that
Chaski agreed with the official suicide verdict. When asked her
opinion on the film and her involvement in it she stated,
“What I
did say is that the note had typical variation of real suicide notes
with the top half being one kind of suicide note and the bottom one
being another (more stereotypically-conceived) kind, both real
suicide notes. My results do not support the conspiracy theory that
Courtney Love authored the bottom portion to make it look like a
suicide note”.
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| Screenshot from "Soaked in Bleach" |
Another
expert interviewed for the film was Heidi Harralson, a Forensic
Document Examiner. Her interview is played out while animation of
letters from the practice sheet appear to be placed perfectly over
the letters at the bottom of the suicide note. Harralson watched a
small part of Soaked in Bleach and stated “Because
I haven't seen the entire film, I can't critically evaluate it other
than to say that I think what I said was mischaracterized through
editing and taken out of context”.
Watching
the film it is clear to see that neither experts are actually on film
agreeing with the suicide verdict or the murder verdict but it is
implied that they question the authenticity of the Cobain suicide
note. The animation featured during the interviews appears to
manipualte the viewers. Having these experts featured in the film
does add validity to the claims of the film but not providing the
viewers a full picture of the experts claims makes their decision
making somewhat cloudy. One fears that Statler's intention for
viewers is to watch the film without questioning the information
provided. Unfortunately, when researched the claims made by Grant and
Statler, those seem empty and without merit.
