Conspiracy theorists have used an unverified 911 call that said Chris Cornell had a ‘head wound’ to push their conspiracy theories, but a medical examiner who was the first civilian allowed to examine evidence on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and Detroit Police Investiator Charles Weaver have debunked the theory that Cornell had a head wound in a new Detroit News article.
Cornell’s autopsy, performed by the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office, did not mention a head wound.
“Maybe somebody spoke too soon; it happens,” said longtime pathologist Cyril Wecht, former medical examiner of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and chairman of the American Board of Legal Medicine board of trustees.
“If the head wound is not written up in the report or the autopsy, there’s your answer,” Wecht said. “It was most likely a simple mistake by the EMT.”
Wecht has been consulted in a number of high-profile deaths, most famously as the first civilian allowed to examine evidence at the National Archives on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The pathologist testified in 1978 before the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he disagreed with the Warren Commission’s finding that a single bullet killed Kennedy.
“With my work on JFK, I’m not one to dismiss conspiracies just because they don’t match the official story,” said Wecht, a former president of the American Academy of Forensic Science.
“But for someone to have paid off both the investigator and pathologist to omit a head wound from their reports … I don’t think even the CIA could do that.”
Weaver also stressed: “There was no head wound.”
