A new Detroit News article has been published that debunks many of the conspiracy theories surrounding Chris Cornell’s death, which was ruled a suicide by hanging.
Wayne County Medical Examiner’s spokeswoman Lisa Croff said: “We stand by our cause of death,” while Detroit police media relations director Michael Woody insisted there were no signs of foul play.
“We investigated all possible angles, and there were no signs this was anything but a suicide,” Woody said. “But we’ve been getting inundated with different theories.”
One angle conspiracy theorists have pushed is timeline gaps surrounding Cornell’s death, though many of those can be attributed to media misreports.
Police insist to Detroit News that there are no gaps. Investigators looked at the length of the phone call between Cornell and his wife, and the calls the bodyguard made to security. Police also pored through video surveillance footage from the hotel hallway outside the rooms of Cornell and his bodyguard.
After a thorough investigation, investigators determined the timeline was accurate and the bodyguard’s story checked out, Woody said.
The ‘fractured ribs’ during CPR have been another popular topic among murder conspiracy theorists, but Detroit News debunked this as well. A 2014 study by the American Heart Association found that of 362 patients studied, 90 percent suffered rib fractures after CPR.
“In the majority of cases there were multiple bilateral rib fractures, with a median of 10 fractures per case,” the study said.
“People have a problem with celebrities doing this because they’re wealthy and have a lifestyle everyone wants,” Macomb County Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz said. “They say, ‘He couldn’t have killed himself; he’s got fans and people love him.’ But that doesn’t change what’s going on inside his head.”
