Vicky Cornell, the widow of legendary musician Chris Cornell, has told the Detroit News that she believes the medical examiner in charge of investigating her husband’s death held a “botched investigation.” She believes that much of the scrutiny the family has faced in the time since Chris’s passing is a result of the outcome of the investigation and the way it was reported. It has been nearly a year since the former Soungarden singer’s death and the family is still looking for answers.
“This has left me and my family still looking for answers, but at the same time, set off this whirlwind of conspiracies,” she explained. “Some of the people are just fans looking for answers, but some of them are conspiracy theorists who have said the most vile things to my children and me.”
Cornell refers to the autopsy report saying, “Drugs did not contribute to the cause of death,” calling the statement completely misleading. “The poor choice of phrasing has misled the public to believing he was of sound mind and body,” she said. “So some conspiracy people think if Chris wasn’t impaired, he would never have killed himself, and so he must have been killed — and then they start getting into the rest of the holes.”
Dr. Richard Cote of University of Miami agrees with Cornell in a thought out summary stating, “There is clear evidence of drug ingestion leading to impaired behavior. The drugs that were found — and their levels — strongly indicate doses that would impair mental and motor function individually, but have much more powerful effects when found in combination,” wrote Cote. “Under the circumstances, I conclude that terminal events occurred while under significant mental and motor impairment.”
Cornell’s death took place on May 18, 2017 in Detroit, Michigan and Rolling Stone revealed a report obtained by the Detroit News that Chris admitted to Vicky on the phone the hour before his death that he had taken extra medication causing him to slur his words.
Vicky Cornell added that, “If you add it all up, he was on these prescription drugs that should have never been prescribed. It caused a relapse … I think it was, unfortunately, the perfect storm, a combination of factors that made him go manic. Had the medical examiner looked at all these factors, maybe they wouldn’t have concluded it was a suicide in just an hour and a half.”
“We’re human beings. This is real life. We’re not characters in some film. I lost my husband. My children lost their father. We’re in a lot of pain, and we have to deal with these people coming after us. If the autopsy report was thorough, I believe some of this could have been avoided,” she stated.
Fans, friends and family will be able to pay their respects to Chris Cornell’s memory and music on Friday May 18 at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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