In the blunt words of Seattle journalist Richard Lee, “Kurt Cobain was murdered.” Lee and a merry...

In the blunt words of Seattle journalist Richard Lee, “Kurt Cobain was murdered.” Lee and a merry band of Cobain-conspiracy theorists have created a circus atmosphere among Nirvana devotees (as well as a few book deals for themselves) with their “shocking new evidence” and chock-full-of-holes allegations. They claim that Cobain’s ambitious wife, Courtney Love, arranged to blow off poor Kurt’s head. The motive? A dead Cobain is a more profitable Cobain.

The Smoking Gun: There’s no shortage of “proof,” so why not start with a trustworthy source like Eldon “El Duce” Hoke, of the Los Angeles punk band The Mentors, who claims that in December 1993, Love offered him $50,000 to knock off her hubby. A slightly more eyebrow-raising nugget comes from Canadian journalist Ian Halperin, who says there were no fingerprints on the shotgun—obviously, it’s tough to wipe away your prints with your brain on the floor. Halperin and Tom Grant, a private detective, also maintain that the heroin overdose of Kristen Pfaff (the bassist in Love’s band, Hole) two months after Kurt died was—surprise!—not an O.D. Somebody whacked her because she knew too much. And then there’s Michigan stockbroker-turned-conspiracy-peddler Bradley Barnett. He claims that he met Kurt in a Melvin-and-Howard scenario a few days before Cobain’s death, and Kurt told him that he’d overheard Courtney plotting to rub him out.