Police: Chris Cornell found with ligature mark on throat
DETROIT — After nearly two months of incomplete details, investigative documents from Detroit police help flesh out the final hours of singer Chris Cornell's life.
The reports, obtained Tuesday by the Detroit Free Press, paint a late-night scene of a frantic wife hundreds of miles away, a dogged bodyguard and a crew of emergency personnel futilely trying to rescue the Soundgarden singer, who was discovered unresponsive on a bathroom floor with a band around his neck.
The Associated Press reported that according to the reports, Cornell had a "well defined ligature mark present on the neck/throat area."
The documents offer few new revelations about that night in May, when Cornell, 52, was pronounced dead in his suite at the MGM Grand Detroit. But they do offer the most complete official account to date, with documents including a 911 call, scene photographs, investigators' reports and a statement from Cornell's bodyguard.
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According to the records, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, a call from Cornell's wife prompted bodyguard Martin Kirsten to go to the Soundgarden singer's suite — Room 1136 — to check on him "because he did not sound like he was OK."
Unable to access the locked room, Kirsten kicked open the main door, then did the same with the interior bedroom door.
"I went inside and the bathroom door was partially opened, and I could see his feet," Kirsten told police in a signed statement.
The bodyguard loosened the band around Cornell's neck, then tried to resuscitate the singer by compressing his chest, Kirsten said in his statement.
Additional medical personnel were summoned, and Cornell was pronounced dead at about 1:30 a.m., an hour and 15 minutes after Kirsten was first contacted by Cornell's wife, Vicky Cornell.
Police determined the death to be a suicide, a department spokesperson said. That matches the ruling made public by the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office the day of Cornell's death.
The documents released Tuesday chronicle a several-week investigation into the events of May 18, which followed Soundgarden's performance at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. The death of Cornell, one of the signature voices in modern rock, garnered international attention.
Police photos released Tuesday show the blood-splattered bathroom, the red exercise band presumably used in the hanging and the broken door jamb from the bodyguard's forced entrance. Also pictured were personal effects such as Cornell's Delta airline ticket from New York to Detroit, prescription pill bottles and an acoustic guitar lying on a brown chair.
Dozens of images in the report were blacked out. No photos of Cornell's body were visible.
Officials also released audio of a 911 call placed by an apparent hotel employee at 12:56 a.m. reporting a "nonresponsive guest ... inside of Room 1136."
"The guest was attempting to hang himself," the caller said.
The 911 operator asked: "He's not breathing?"
"No," the caller said.
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Tuesday's documents come amid weeks of uncertainty and speculation about the circumstances around his death. Early on, an attorney for Vicky Cornell said the family was "disturbed at inferences that Chris knowingly and intentionally took his life."
“He didn’t want to die,” Vicky Cornell told People magazine in an interview published last month. “If he was of sound mind, I know he wouldn’t have done this.”
Cornell's autopsy report, released June 2, said toxicology tests detected lorazepam, which is used in the treatment of anxiety and sold as Ativan; pseudoephedrine, a decongestant; naloxone, used to counter effects of opioids; butalbital, a sedative, and caffeine in his system. But the report revealed the drugs "did not contribute to the cause of death."
Cornell, who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 180 pounds, was in a torn gray T-shirt and black underwear, according to officials. No note was found at the scene.
As the events surrounding Cornell's death unfolded that night nearly two months ago, Vicky Cornell was on the phone seeking updates, the bodyguard told police.
"She told me that she called the front desk and they hung up on her," Kirsten's statement said.
She called back a couple minutes later, another person answered and told her he was hearing about the incident, he said.
MGM Grand Detroit "has assisted fully with the investigation into this matter," spokeswoman Yvette Monet said in an email to the Free Press. "Out of respect for the family, we will not be providing any information beyond the information that we have already provided to authorities.”
Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Elisha Anderson on Twitter: @elishaanderson
