Cross gained access to information for his book mainly from Courtney Love, through email's and supposedly "researched" information over the years for this. As you will see, it seems he has done nothing of the sort and has taken every word of Courtney's as gospel and just prints it.
Everything I will be discussing here has been well known as fact from Tom Grant's site, Frances Barnett's site and numerous interviews from other books. Here is some of what I've found wrong with Cross' research.
CHAPTER 23 - LIKE HAMLET - PAGE 312
Seattle, Washington March 1994
Like Hamlet, I have to choose between life and death.-- From the Rome suicide note. "When Kurt sat down to compose his suicide note in the Excelsior Hotel, he thought of Shakespeare and the Prince of Denmark."
First of all, the heading to this chapter Cross refers to the Rome note as being a 'suicide note', in which we know was NOT, even from Courtney herself, has nothing to do with suicide at all. It was just an unflattering letter to her and talks about divorce. Cross is also stating that this was a direct quote from Kurt, when in fact it's what Courtney told Spin magazine Kurt wrote which she was told from Sgt. Cameron to 'get rid of ' and subsequently burns.
Courtney Love on the Rome note:
"It was on hotel stationary, and he's talking about how I'm not in love with him anymore...and he knows how much I love him...and that like Hamlet, he had to choose between life and death, and he said he was choosing death." (Spin Magazine Feb 1995)
"When he returned the note from Rome to her, Courtney claims Sgt. Cameron told her; "This will never do you any good. I'd get rid of it if I were you." So.......she burned it! (Tom Grant's Murder Investigation Manual)
"Love gave us another note which she said Kurt had written in Rome. She said it was a suicide note, but it wasn't. It was a rambling letter which was very unflattering to her. There are some veiled references which you'd have to stretch to conclude referred to suicide." (Unnamed police officer of the Seattle Police, WKKC?, page 123)
CHAPTER 23 - LIKE HAMLET PAGE 312
(About Rome) "Upon discovering Kurt's lifeless body, Courtney called the front desk and Kurt was rushed to Umberto I Polyclinic Hospital. Love had retrieved two empty blister packs of Rohypnol next to Kurt--- he had taken 60 of the aspirin-size pills, individually removing each from a plastic-and-foil-container."
Here we know this is not true. There is no evidence that Kurt swallowed '50' pills. Dr. Galetta, whom examined Kurt while in Rome with the coma says it was not a "suicide attempt" and refutes Courtney's claim that Kurt swallowed them and they did not pump fifty pills from his stomach. There may have been 50 unwrapped foil packets, or 50 empty foil blisters from a pack found in the hotel room, but that doesn't mean Kurt unwrapped or emptied them. It only means someone unwrapped and emptied the foil packets and wanted this incident to look like a suicide attempt. Kurt survived. Dr. Galletta who was responsible for Kurt's treatment, also issued the following statement:
"We can usually tell a suicide attempt. This didn't look like one to me. He mixed tranquilizers and alcohol and when you do that, you're playing with fire." (WKKC? page 89)
"Cobain doesn't know what happened to him. He hasn't gained complete control of his memory. When he emerged from the coma, he was very hungry and asked for a strawberry milkshake!" (Melody Maker March 12th 1994)
"I'm still pretty freaked over the Rome thing, and need some time to rest and get over it. You'd think they could make a good milkshake, but no." (Never Fade Away, 1994. Dave Thompson mentioned an internet posting by Kurt.)
CHAPTER 23 - LIKE HAMLET - PAGE 315
(After Rome) "He was so fucked up.' Dylan noticed a shift as well: 'He didn't seem as alive. Before, he had more to him; after, he seemed monochromatic."
This we also know is an untrue statement made about Dylan. Even though Kurt couldn't regain memory from the coma in Rome, his best friend Dylan and many other people who knew Kurt at this time maintained he was very stable and happy.
Dylan on Kurt March 30th when they bought the gun:
"He seemed normal...we'd been talking." (Cobain by the Editors of Rolling Stone, page 83)
"No way. A year earlier I would have believed it because of the pain but he wasn't talking like that anymore. He was making all kinds of plans for when he got back from rehab." (Dylan Carlson, WKKC?, page 91)
Dylan telling Grant about Kurt's suicidal tendencies and the Rome suicide attempt:
"No. Kurt said it was an accident." "No, not at all. He's under a lot of pressure. but he's handling things pretty good." (Tom Grant's Murder Investigation Manual)
"Kurt was facing lots of pretty heavy things but he was actually pretty upbeat. He was prepared to deal with things facing him." (Dylan Carlson, Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 15 1994)
"When he talked to me he seemed to be happy." (Iris Cobain talking about a phone conversation 2 weeks before Kurt died, he arranged to go fishing with his grandfather the following week WKKC?, page 91).
CHAPTER 23 - LIKE HAMLET - PAGE 323
"Black tar heroin frequently caused abscesses from the impurities used to cut it. By March, Kurt's arms had scabs and abscesses, which themselves were a potential health danger."
These are pictures of Kurt wearing a short sleeved shirt in Munich, Germany at Terminal Einz on March 1st, 1994. How much more clear do we have to be here?
CHAPTER 24 - ANGEL'S HAIR - PAGES 332 to 335
"Cali passed out Saturday morning from cocaine....As his drug problems had increased and his nanny duties had been curtailed, Cali had become the Kato Kaelin of the Cobain household. 'By that point, Cali wasn't in charge of anything,' Jessica observed,' other than helping get drugs or making sure Kurt didn't die'. That morning Kurt walked into Cali's room and sat on the end of the bed. Jessica woke, but not Cali......Cali momentarily woke up and, seeing Kurt, told him to call Courtney. As Cali fell back asleep, Jessica and Kurt sat silently for a few minutes, watching MTV...."
Here we have in perfect detail that Kurt came into Cali's room, with MTV playing on the television and Cali waking up and telling him to call Courtney. Remember that MTV was on the television set in Cali's room. Cross will also make a mistake here.
(Saturday April 2nd) "Still fried from drugs, Cali thought Kurt's bedside visit was simply a dream. Cali and Jessica were fighting about his drug use, and in a fit of rage he suggested she take an early flight home. He tried to use the $100,000- limit MasterCard Kurt had given him to buy her an airline ticket but the charge was denied. He called Courtney to complain and she told him she'd cancelled Kurt's cards, thinking this would help determine his whereabouts."
Cali saying he believed Kurt coming into the room was simply a dream is ridiculous! If so, how could he have obtained the credit card that Kurt left for him, if it was only a 'dream'? Cali is obviously lying and/or Cross is definitely misleading here, not to mention if Courtney gave him this information, Cross did nothing to research this! The fact is, Cali tells the police that Kurt had come into the room on this morning. As for the 'missing credit card', if this story is true, we now know that Cali had possession of this card and that he was at the Lake Washington house trying to use it!
"That Sunday (3rd), Courtney phoned private investigators in the Los Angeles yellow pages until she found one working on a weekend. Tom Grant and his assistant Ben Klugman visited her at the Peninsula that afternoon...Early Monday (the 4th), Cali and Jessica were in the middle of yet another argument when the phone rang, and Cali barked, 'don't answer it. It's just Courtney and we don't know anything about Kurt.' Jessica asked Cali if he'd talked to Kurt since they saw him. 'What do you mean, since I saw him?' Cali inquired, his eyes widening. Jessica recited the events from Sunday. Cali finally told Courtney Kurt had in fact been at the house on Sunday."
Here again, we have Cali denying that Kurt came into his room on Saturday morning. We also have Cali and Courtney in contact with each other since Saturday the 2nd! She knew Kurt was at the house on Sunday, so why didn't she ever tell Grant this, or to have surveillance watch at the Lake Washington home? Grant maintains Kurt was killed late Sunday evening, April 3rd or in the early morning hours of Monday April 4th. What is Courtney and Cali trying to hide?
"On Tuesday afternoon, Courtney sent Hole's Eric Erlandson to the Lake Washington home to look for Kurt. 'He bursts in the house, like this big lightning bolt, and he was furious at Cali,' Jessica remembered. 'You guys have to help me look,' he ordered. Erlandson told them to search every nook and cranny, because Kurt had stashed a shotgun. He specifically insisted they look in a secret compartment in the back of the master bedroom closet, which Courtney had told him Kurt used. They found the compartment but no guns. They also searched the mattress for a hole Kurt had cut in it to store drugs--- it was empty. No one thought to search the garage or greenhouse, and Erlandson rushed off, headed to the Carnation home."
All we know of that has been mentioned is that Eric was in Seattle meeting up with Courtney, Kat Bjelland and Grant on April 14th to go out to the Carnation property. (Grant arrives in Seattle on the 13th --Grant manual "Trip to Carnation").... There is no other mention of Erlandson being anywhere near the Lake Washington home, let alone Seattle, on the 5th as Cross and Courtney would like us to believe. I've read a few books, but do not see this mentioned anywhere, and to me, this is Courtney making a new story to confuse people and that Cross did not research anything like he claims to have. This is just to prove Courtney likes to spin tales of her own for whatever reasons and people just seem to take her word for it.
(Tom Grant and Dylan Carlson searching the house on the Thursday, April 7th) "At 2:15am Thursday they searched the Lake Washington house, entering through a kitchen window....They went from room to room and found the bed unmade in the master bedroom, but cold to the touch. MTV was on the television with the sound off. Not seeing any sign of Kurt, they left at 3am, without searching the grounds or garage."
Here is where Cross makes another mistake! He says that Grant and Dylan find the bed unmade and MTV on in the 'master bedroom' ( in which is Kurt and Courtney's room) when IN FACT it was Cali's room clearly stated on page 332!
"Upon returning to the Lake Washington house, we gained access through a kitchen window. While we were searching the house, Dylan commented, 'I've never seen the house this clean before.' A television was on in one of the bedrooms upstairs and the bed was unmade. Dylan told me this was Cali's room." (Tom Grant's Murder Investigation Manual)
Along with all of the above, Cross never mentions the stories throughout the years on the murder theories, that there was any other book related to the case, nothing said about the differences in handwriting on the "suicide" note and that the 1.52 mgs of heroin found in Kurt's blood at the time of death was "an amazing feat".
His portrayal of Kurt's final moments in the greenhouse (Chapter 23, pages 339 to 342) were totally concocted. There is no way he could have known what exactly had happened. It also made you feel that if you believed in anything other than suicide, you're just crazy.
