After struggling with major depression and a gruesome heroin addiction, Kurt Cobain tragically took his own life on April 5th, 1994. He was found in his home in Seattle with a bullet to the head, and a suicide note, white lighter, and heroin paraphernalia next to him. Kurt was only 27 when he died. His note was around a page long, and described how he felt unfit to be in the music business, and that he wanted to get out. Now at the end of his note, in a different looking handwriting, it says "Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your alter. Please keep going for Frances. For her life, which will be so much happier without me." There is some speculation that the top part of the note, which was signed, was in fact written by Kurt, and the end part was added by an outside source. (see bottom paragraph) The note was widely spread and a lot of people tried to figure out for themselves what happened.
The "27 Club" refers to a group of artists who have all died at the age of 27, and some of them had white lighters on them when they died. Some other artists besides Kurt that died at the age of 27 were:
After Kurt's death, Nirvana disbanded. Both Dave and Krist were extremely heartbroken, and for about 2 years straight stretched themselves thin doing interviews and performances dedicated to him. His wife, Courtney Love, still talks about it and has people asking her what happened. After he died, Nirvana released a few previously unheard demos and songs to try and raise money, and they just recently put out a 20th anniversary repress of In Utero.
Even though it's been mostly proven that his death was in fact a suicide, there are some conspiracies that he was actually murdered. The most popular conspiracy is that his wife, Courtney, hired someone to kill him so she could jump into the spotlight. There have been a few people come out and say that she tried to pay them to kill Kurt. Now, obviously these testimonies could be fake, people wanting to get their 15 minutes of fame, but there is some evidence that points towards a murder. Most forensic analysts say there isn't sufficient evidence, but handwriting analysts have looked at his note, and about 2/3 of them say that the note was in fact written by 2 different people. (see above paragraph) Now we can't really know unless someone came out and admitted to it, so his death has been ruled as a suicide.