Even though Kristen Pfaff's death in June 1994 was attributed to a heroin overdose, rumors have persisted in the years since that she was a victim of foul play.
Wikimedia CommonsKristen Pfaff was the bassist for the band Hole.
In the summer of 1994, Seattle was a city in mourning. That April, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain had died of suicide at the age of 27. Local musicians were still reeling from the loss when another of their own died young that June. Then, Kristen Pfaff, the bassist for the band Hole, was found dead in her bathtub. Like Cobain, she was 27 years old.
Though Pfaff’s story is far less known than Cobain’s, her life — and death — had a huge impact on the Seattle music scene. Pfaff was creative and gifted and, like many musicians in Seattle at the time, struggled with an addiction to heroin. Though she had been working to get clean, Pfaff had been seemingly enticed by old demons. Drug paraphernalia was found near her body, and her death was attributed to a heroin overdose.
That said, not everyone believes that that’s the full story of Kristen Pfaff’s death. Fringe theories in the aftermath have suggested that something else happened that night, something that had to do with Pfaff’s bandmate, and Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love.
From Janitor Joe To Hole
Kristen Pfaff was born on May 26, 1967 in Buffalo, New York. According to the Seattle Times, she was interested in music from a young age, and studied classical piano from age five to 14.
But as a teenager, Pfaff also developed an interest in rock-n-roll. While attending the University of Minnesota, Pfaff founded the rock band Janitor Joe. And when Pfaff toured with the band, she caught the eye of Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson of the band Hole, who were looking for a bassist.
YouTubeKristen Pfaff playing with her first band, Janitor Joe.
“She was in a band called Janitor Joe. We saw her play, and she was amazing,” Patty Schemel, the band’s drummer, recalled to SPIN in 2014. “She was just cool. Her playing was heavy, and she was knowledgeable, and she had command of her instrument. When she played, that was it: We knew.”
Though Pfaff was reluctant to leave Janitor Joe, her father convinced her that joining Hole would be a good career move. So, in 1993, Kristen Pfaff moved to Seattle — and helped define Hole’s sound.
“She joined the band, she moved to Seattle, and that’s when all the songs came to life, literally,” Erlandson, who briefly dated Pfaff, recalled. “She was the star of her band and so she was bringing that to Hole and that created sparks in everybody; we all saw an even greater potential than before.”
‘I Know How To Live’: The Life of Kristen Pfaff by Guy MankowskiKristen Pfaff and the members of Hole: Eric Erlandson, Courtney Love, and Patty Schemel.
In April 1994, the band released the critically acclaimed album Live Through This. But the album’s release was marked by tragedy. Just a week before it came out, Love’s husband Kurt Cobain died of suicide.
And just a few months later, Kristen Pfaff died too.
Kristen Pfaff’s Struggle With Heroin
Not long after Kristen Pfaff moved to Seattle, she began to consider leaving Hole and moving back to Minnesota. Her father told the Seattle Times after her death that Pfaff did not “like all the trappings,” that came with being on a major record label and “thought it was a little out of her control.” What’s more, Pfaff had begun to struggle with an addiction to heroin.
“Kristen and I would get together, and we were always trying to keep the amount of drugs we were doing secret,” Schemel told SPIN.
But Pfaff had begun to seek help for her addiction. In the winter before her death, she attended a drug rehabilitation program. And Pfaff decided it would be best to move back to Minneapolis, away from the raging drug scene in Seattle. But in June, she returned to the city to get her things.
Unfortunately, Pfaff would never return home.
Terry Schemel/Da Capo PressPatty Schemel, her mother, Courtney Love, and Kristen Pfaff before a show.
On the night of June 15, 1944, Kristen Pfaff gathered her belongings in preparation for leaving the next day. According to Far Out Magazine, her friend, Paul Erickson, offered to sleep in her car to ensure that no one stole her things. He was in the car around 8:30 p.m. when Pfaff’s bandmate Erlandson, swung by. And when Erlandson left roughly 30 minutes later, Erickson went into Pfaff’s apartment to check on her.
He purportedly heard her snoring in the bathroom, which didn’t strike him as unusual – Pfaff was known to fall asleep in the bath.
But when Erickson returned to the apartment the next morning, he found Kristen Pfaff dead. According to the Washington Post, she was kneeling in five inches of water with her head and shoulders hanging over the tub. Nearby, a cosmetic bag held syringes and other drug paraphernalia.
Pfaff’s friends and family were shocked by her death. Not only was it a new tragedy on the heels of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, but Pfaff’s loved ones believed that she’d stopped doing drugs.
Schemel told the Seattle Times that she thought Pfaff had stopped using, and Pfaff’s father stated: “It’s my understanding at the present time my daughter was not using drugs.”
However, Kristen Pfaff’s cause of death was found to be “acute opiate intoxication.” The bassist had apparently died of an accidental overdose.
But not everyone accepts that story.
How Did Kristen Pfaff Die?
Wikimedia CommonsKristen Pfaff’s gravestone in Buffalo, New York.
Though Kristen Pfaff’s official cause of death was determined to be a heroin overdose, her mother has never accepted the official story of her daughter’s death. Far Out Magazine claims that Janet Pfaff even pushed for her daughter’s death to be investigated as a homicide, as Janet insisted that her daughter was not using drugs when she died. What’s more, several pages of Kristen Pfaff’s journal were purportedly ripped out, which struck many as strange as well.
In the aftermath, fringe theories have circulated online suggesting that Courtney Love had something to do with Pfaff’s death. Just as some have claimed that Love killed Cobain, Internet rumors suggest that Love also orchestrated Pfaff’s murder, ostensibly out of jealousy.
However, there is no evidence for this. Kristen Pfaff’s death at the age of just 27 was seemingly just the latest in a series of heroin overdoses in Seattle, as her death came after the fatal overdoses of Andrew Wood, the lead singer of Mother Love Bone, and Stefanie Sargent, the guitarist for 7 Year Bitch.
Sadly, Pfaff’s death seems to have been a tragic accident.
She was “bright, personable, wonderful,” her father told the Seattle Times on the day after her death, “very, very talented, smart, and she always seemed to be in control of her circumstances. Last night she wasn’t.”
After reading about Kristen Pfaff’s death, take a look at these photos from Seattle’s grunge scene. Then, learn about the so-called “27 club”, the celebrities, including Kurt Cobain and Kristen Pfaff, who have died at the age of 27.
