Courtney Love and Frances Bean Cobain have asked a Seattle judge for graphic photos of the late musician to be kept private, after a lawsuit claimed that they could prove Kurt Cobain was murdered. 

The mother and daughter have written to the court explaining the pain it would cause them if the photos were released. Frances Bean said in a statement: “I have had to cope with many personal issues because of my father’s death. Coping with even the possibility that those photographs could be made public is very difficult. Further sensationalising it through the release of these pictures would cause us indescribable pain.”

Cobain continued by talking about the harrassment she suffers from fans who are obsessed with her late father and wrote about how this would be exacerbated by the release of his death photos. She described how one fan broke into her house in California and waited three days for her to be in, because he “believed my father’s son had entered my body”.

Courtney Love wrote: “Public disclosure would reopen all my old wounds and cause me and my family permanent — indeed, endless and needless — pain and suffering, and would be a gross violation of our privacy interests. I would never be able to erase those haunting images from my mind. I cannot even imagine the enormity of the trauma this would cause me, not to mention many others.”

Judge Theresa Doyle will decide whether to uphold their requests on Friday, and will hear arguments about whether they should proceed with the trial, put in place by Richard Lee, a TV show host, who doesn’t believe that Cobain died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1994.

The police looked at the photos in 2014, but concluded that the photos were underwhelming and showed no evidence for any new conclusion about Cobain’s death to be drawn. 

H/T the Seattle Times