Being as brief as possible in order to not give any more attention to and not encourage other phony stories to be conjured up, identifying the hoaxes concerning this case will make known some of the most common tales being believed and talked about as being truth thus far.
KILLER ALLAN WRENCH
The Allan Wrench story has been by far, one of the most successful hoaxes to date. As it was first being brought about, these people decided to trick Grant. When he wouldn't buy into it and that attempt failed, they turned to chat rooms and message boards, emailing supporters and unfortunately persuading a multitude of people. As for Grant, the undisclosed details of this case made it impossible to fool him, so this one is not going to fool me.
COURTNEY'S DREAM MACHINE
This story was circulated on the Internet in 1995 when a few media sources reported that Kurt had obtained an invention called "The Dream Machine." The reporters falsely claimed the police found one of these "Dream Machines" inside the greenhouse near Cobain's body.
When the truth began to surface and many were learning that most of what they'd been told about the circumstances of Cobain's death was false, Courtney had to come up with something new. So she concocted the Dream Machine story. Then she gathered a small group of pawns, called them "Friends Of Kurt," (also known as "F.O.K."), and sent them out to get publicity for the story.
Grant had been informing the public that Kurt wasn't really as "suicidal" as Courtney wanted everyone to believe. So through her F.O.K. group, Courtney successfully manipulated a few gullible writers to do the story, hoping Kurt's fans would actually believe . . . "The MACHINE made him do it!!" Fortunately, this story was never given much credit and had a very short run.
THE BRADLEY BARNETT INTERVIEW
If you hear a story about "Bradley Barnett", who claims to have interviewed Kurt Cobain in person at the Lake Washington house just days before he was found dead, beware, it simply is not true. The e-mails he sent to Grant , along with his postings on the internet, have proven his "interview story" was false. Grant's information which is not available to the public was used to expose this lie. When Barnett tried to sell his "story" to several magazines, even the gullible rock press would not take the bait.
Halperin and Wallace, the authors of "Who Killed Kurt Cobain," at least to some extent, fell prey to this joker. That was due, in part, to a lack of communication with Grant prior to the publication of their book. He assumed, from thier conversations, that they hadn't taken the Cobain "interview hoax" seriously, so he didn't discuss the false information about Barnett. Since talking to Grant, he believes they've seen the light. Unfortunately, the damage, though slight, has already been done.
COURTNEY E-MAILS
One of the most frequent hoaxes has been Courtney Love imitators who e-mail sarcastic, threatening letters to "The Grant Company". It seems all anyone has to do to convince some that the sender is Courtney Love is to use profanity, make threats and misspell every other word.
There have been two or three legitimate e-mails sent by Courtney to a young man named David Perle. Courtney soon discovered that responding on the internet or making threats by e-mail was not a good idea. They're not even good imitations.
There are a lot of people who have nothing better to do than e-mail letters pretending to be someone they're not, or they claim to have valuable information that is actually bogus. It takes thorough knowledge of the hidden details of a case to be able to weed out pranksters and home in on credible sources. Believing it to be true, they naively respond to deceptive sources and publish fraudulent information.
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