Original subtitles

- Our next guest is an Academy Award- nominated

singer/songwriter.

Here's Elliott Smith.

- Elliott Smith was groundbreaking

and absolutely talented.

- Someone who had wild success

beyond anything he could imagine.

- His most famous song, "Needle in the Hay,"

became popular after it was used

by Wes Anderson in "The Royal Tenenbaums."

- Elliott Smith tapped into emotions

that a lot of people have a hard time expressing.

That's a really rare talent.

It just doesn't make sense.

- Music news... Singer Elliott Smith has died

in an apparent suicide.

- I think the rumor is that

he either stabbed himself in the chest

or that he was murdered.

- The death report gets into some of the injuries

that were witnessed at his time of death.

- Who stabs themself in the chest twice?

Like, suicide? What are you talking about?

The imagery is just... It gives me the chills.

- The issue wasn't the cause of death.

The problem is that we had to assign

a mode or manner of death.

- It's easy to kind of go down the rabbit hole

that Elliott Smith was murdered.

- In terms of Jennifer Chiba,

the police have looked at her so much.

If there was a problem, they would bring her in.

- Did Elliott actually stab himself,

or did somebody else stab him?

Everyone who knew Elliott deserves to have the truth

known about how he died.

- 911 emergency.

- The official narrative doesn't tell the whole story.

- You really have to look at everything.

You still have to go down that rabbit hole.

You still have to go down that path.

- When a celebrity dies,

the search for answers moves online,

and the truth may be one click away.

At 12:18, on October 21, 2003,

a woman frantically calls 911 from a house in the Echo Park

neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

- 911. What is your emergency?

- Her name is Jennifer Chiba,

and she tells the dispatcher that her boyfriend,

34- year- old indie rocker Elliott Smith,

is lying on the ground,

bleeding profusely from two stab wounds in his chest.

At 1:00 P.M., paramedics arrive.

They rush Elliott to USC Medical Center,

but it's too late.

At 1:36 P.M., Elliott Smith is pronounced dead.

- Musician Elliott Smith died yesterday

in an apparent suicide.

- Elliott Smith's tragic death shocks the music industry.

- Rest in peace, Elliott Smith.

- Early reports suggest Smith killed himself,

which is based on a statement

given by the only other person in the house

with him at the time, his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba.

Chiba tells police that after a particularly bad fight,

she locks herself in the bathroom.

Minutes later, she hears a scream

and comes out of the bathroom to find Smith

with a kitchen knife sticking out of his chest.

But the violent nature of his death

immediately breeds suspicion by fans.

- When Elliott turned around,

she saw that he had a knife plunging to his chest.

- I think the rumor is that he either stabbed himself

in the chest or that he was murdered.

- In 1998, Elliott Smith becomes a household name

when his song "Miss Misery" is nominated for an Academy Award.

Smith's performance of "Miss Misery" at the 1998 Oscars

is a defining moment for the musician.

But his professional journey

started 15 years earlier in 1983,

when 14- year- old Elliott Smith grabs his guitar

and leaves his home in Texas

for the burgeoning indie music scene in Portland, Oregon.

- Elliott Smith performed in, you know,

a number of bands in Portland,

then, you know, turned some heads and word of this guy

whose act was so different from what the scene

was at that time really started to get attention.

When you make up a song,

it's going to sound like how you feel,

whether you want to shout at the devil

or whatever you want to do.

- In the '90s, Elliott Smith thrives in Portland

and establishes himself

as one of the city's most successful and unique artists.

Smith's personal lyrics of alienation

and self- doubt deeply resonate with fans.

- Elliott Smith was a tortured soul.

First time I heard his music, it struck a chord with me.

Like, this is a kind of moody sound.

This is how I feel sometimes.

- My name is Nelson Gary.

I did spoken- word poetry over a guitar track

on "Coast to Coast," "From a Basement on the Hill."

You know, he wrote from such an open, vulnerable, and raw place.

He was very authentic as not only a singer/songwriter,

but also as a person.

- I don't really care where I fit into anything

or if there's anything to fit in to.

It's just... I like music, you know?

That's... That's the thing.

- Aside from being a brilliant songwriter,

he was a tremendous intellect.

Oh, he was insightful.

He was smart.

You know, he could be funny.

He was interesting to be around.

- In 1999, Smith relocates to Los Angeles and signs a deal

with DreamWorks Records,

his first contract with a major label.

It's a huge career success,

but Smith's apprehension with fame

and the mainstream music industry

is apparent from the beginning.

- I don't know if being as well- known as he was,

was what he had hoped it would be.

I know that there was an overall sense of discontent

with a major label,

what he felt about corporate rock, corporate music,

and how it was squelching his creativity.

- I'm not coming from this little ghetto

of rampant sentimentality, you know, that's associated

with, like, certain kinds of singer/songwriters.

I'm just trying to be real.

- He's wrestling with dual identity,

and I think, like so many other artists,

he just didn't know how to negotiate everyday world

of who he was as a normal person and what it meant to have

that huge talent that inspired people.

If you're living those two worlds all the time,

you become confused about your existence.

- The way he carried himself was generally very depressive

with a certain level of anxiety.

- On January 6, 2004, the Los Angeles Coroner's Office

releases Elliott Smith's autopsy.

The cause of death isn't surprising... two stab wounds

to Smith's chest.

But the manner of death is surprising.

- The police ruled it a suicide prematurely.

- My name is Dr. Lisa Scheinin.

I was the medical examiner who autopsied Elliott Smith.

The issue wasn't the cause of death.

The problem we had is that we had to assign it

a mode or manner of death.

This is obviously not a natural death.

It's not an accident.

So our choices were homicide or suicide.

In the end, without overwhelming evidence for a suicide,

we could not in good faith say that this was a suicide,

and we decided that the best thing to do in this case

was to leave it undetermined.

- Elliott Smith's case remains open to this day,

and the ambiguity of the coroner's report

causes a frenzy online.

If the coroner can't definitively rule it a suicide,

then foul play is a real possibility.

- When I when I read that Elliott Smith had two stab wounds

and that it was still an open case

and it hadn't been ruled a suicide, I was like,

"What?"

I am what you would call an Internet sleuth.

My work was featured in a documentary called

"Don't F with Cats," where I hunted down a killer

that was uploading videos to the Internet.

And my motto is, the Internet is the new crime scene.

I'm attracted to the Elliott Smith case

because I empathize with him in really deep and meaningful ways.

I have my own mental health struggles.

I was recently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

I also have diagnosed depression,

and I've gotten to places in my life

where I didn't see a pathway out.

So because I empathize so well with him,

I really want to find some answers.

- As an investigator, I always want to find the truth

for each of my victims.

And every victim deserves to have the truth

known about how they died.

I have a background in military counterintelligence,

but I also have a background in forensic science

and criminal justice.

So I'm going to sift through an immense amount of information,

a lot of documents, leads, and other tidbits.

This case fascinates me

because the manner of death is still undetermined,

and so it's of great interest to me to try to analyze

all the facts, evaluate them, and see where they lead.

- Investigators start piecing together details

about the final day of Elliott Smith's life.

- Elliott Smith lived with his girlfriend,

Jennifer Chiba, in Echo Park, Los Angeles, in 2003.

He wasn't in the studio.

He wasn't touring.

He wasn't working.

But the morning of his death, October 21, 2003,

him and Jennifer Chiba are in their apartment,

and it's reported by Jennifer to LAPD

that they started arguing.

They're arguing, and he's, like, being melodramatic

according to Jennifer.

And she's just kind of had enough

and goes into the bathroom to take a shower.

She's in there, and she hears a scream

and she comes out of the bathroom,

and Elliott's standing there with a knife in his chest.

She calls 911, and they walk her through CPR.

- And once they got him to the hospital,

they actually took him into surgery

and tried to repair the perforations to Elliott's heart,

but, unfortunately, it didn't work,

and, at 1:36 that afternoon, he was pronounced dead.

- With an inconclusive cause of death,

the LAPD can't close the case,

leaving the possibilities of both suicide

and foul play on the table.

- What probably bothers me most about Elliott's case

is that it's essentially unsolved.

We do not know how or why he lost his life.

I think there's a lot more investigation to be done

in order to try to determine,

did Elliott actually stab himself,

or did somebody else stab him?

- Because it's open,

nobody in the public can look at the evidence.

Many in the public believe

that Chiba was involved in this murder,

but the facts are that the police have never charged her

or named her as a suspect.

But why is it still an open case?

- Did I believe that somebody,

anybody could stab themselves twice in the heart?

I had a really hard time believing that.

- You can easily jump to the conclusion

that Elliott Smith was probably a victim of a homicide.

- In October 2003, musician Elliott Smith

dies in his Los Angeles home from two stab wounds

in his chest.

When the manner of his death

comes back inconclusive

from the L.A. coroner's office,

many of Smith's fans become convinced foul play is involved.

- There are some pretty diehard Elliott Smith fans

out there who have not accepted

that he actually may have committed suicide.

My name is Justin Ling,

and I'm an independent investigative journalist.

I spend a lot of time trying to uncover and understand

conspiracy theories and why people believe them.

I'm interested in Elliott Smith

just because of the intensity around him.

His fans really, really loved him,

and for a lot of them,

they cannot accept the narrative that he committed suicide.

There's a subreddit devoted to Elliott Smith

with about 18,000 members,

and the question about whether or not it was a murder

or a suicide pops up pretty often.

- It's a grisly death, and the thing fans and sleuths struggle

to accept the most is the idea that somebody would take a knife

and plunge it into their own chest.

- Did I believe that somebody,

anybody could stab themselves twice?

Not once, but twice in the heart?

I had a really hard time believing that.

- Suicide by self- stabbing is not only savage and very painful,

it's also very rare.

- Stabbing oneself as a mode of suicide is very unusual.

I've certainly had suicides where people slit their throats

or slit their wrists, but I can't offhand recall

a person who had stabbed himself as a suicide.

- I'm Dr. Darria Long.

I'm a board- certified emergency medicine physician.

In the Elliott Smith case,

he stabbed himself twice.

Once you've stabbed yourself,

can you override that pain enough

to stab yourself a second time?

- As a criminal investigator myself,

who has been to countless homicide scenes

and suicide scenes, I've never seen one

where the person stabbed themselves in the heart.

So it's very uncommon.

It's a far greater percentage that if somebody is found

with a knife sticking out of their chest,

there was a second person involved

who plunged that knife into their chest.

- One article on a website called Rock NYC compiles the statistics

and shows that less than 2% commit suicide by stabbing,

and, of those, most are in the neck or the abdomen.

- Online investigators turn their attention

to the autopsy report sketches.

They immediately notice something missing

that's usually present in suicide by knife...

Hesitation marks.

- It hurts to cut yourself.

So the person will start and they'll go,

"Ow, that hurts."

It makes you hesitate.

And eventually, if you really want to do it,

you will get up the nerve

and you'll cut deep enough to make it fatal.

But you'll have all of these little,

smaller marks there first.

- And Elliott Smith makes another decision

in the moments before he dies

that's out of the ordinary.

- He's stabbed himself through his shirt.

Most people don't do that.

They will, if not take the shirt off,

at least lift it up and look at where they want to stab it

to make sure that they get it in the right spot.

Maybe feel for ribs

to make sure they're not going to hit bone.

- But the one detail that catches Internet sleuths' attention

is perhaps the most crucial.

In addition to the two stab wounds,

Elliott Smith has other injuries.

- One significant clue to suggest that this may have been

a homicide are a pair of wounds to Elliott Smith's hand and arm.

He has a laceration on his left palm

and a significant cut on the upper part of his right arm.

Given that Elliott Smith was right- handed,

there's no real clear explanation

for how he may have cut himself on that part of his arm.

- One theory is that the cuts are the result of Smith's

desperate final attempt to stop an attacker...

Defense wounds.

- When I first read the autopsy report, I was like,

"Yeah, those are defense wounds."

- So he could have been struggling over the knife

with whoever was coming at him with it,

and, during the struggle, the knife got him in the arm.

- Some fans are quick to dismiss the wounds,

citing that Smith is a known cutter,

someone who intentionally cuts themselves to self- soothe

when they're in psychological pain.

But in the eyes of the coroner, that's not enough to explain

away the gash in Smith's right arm.

- I've autopsied cutters before,

and they tend to use the same area.

It's easily accessible.

They do it over and over again.

He had evidence at autopsy of having cut himself

and also possibly burned himself with cigarettes,

but it was all in the same place, all on the left forearm.

- Elliott Smith was wearing clothes,

did not have hesitation marks, and did have other cuts

which could potentially have been defensive wounds.

- Was it homicide or suicide?

Honestly, I still don't know.

- One thing I kept reading about online

was that Elliott would never kill himself,

he was getting ready to go back in the studio,

and he was full of life,

he was trying to get his career back.

- If Elliott Smith didn't kill himself, online investigators

are left with two theories about what happened that day.

One is from Chiba's own account,

which is that Elliott Smith attempted suicide.

The second is that someone else, in fact,

stabbed him twice in the chest.

- Here you have somebody who you've been arguing with loudly

with a knife in their chest.

What does that look like?

- Investigators look into Smith

and Chiba's relationship for clues.

- As an investigator, it's important to know

and learn about a victim's personal life

because that may hold clues

as to what was going on at the time they died,

and it may hold clues as to how they actually died.

- Basically, all accounts,

their relationship was really unstable.

- It seemed like a very codependent relationship

from all angles, from what I saw.

- Their relationship has been described

as not unlike Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, Nancy.

- To me, the way their relationship

has been characterized, to me, sounds unhealthy.

It does not sound like they had a loving relationship

all the time.

- They would be lovey- dovey and everything's great,

and then the next, they would be throwing bottles at each other.

Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll.

- Investigators uncover one fan who's convinced Smith

did not kill himself, Alyson Camus.

She wrote a book on Smith's death, and her website,

Justice for Elliott Smith,

is a repository for anti- Chiba content.

- She's a fan of Elliott Smith,

and she has collected evidence, done interviews,

she's talked to investigators,

and she's curated it all onto her website.

She's a little obsessive, kind of like me,

but she has collected a lot of information

about the death of Elliott Smith.

- And she spends a lot of time fixating on Chiba.

She writes posts with titles like

"The Numerous Knife Tales in Jennifer Chiba's Life"

and "Many people in Elliott Smith's Circle

Were Very Suspicious Early On and Still Are."

- If you only read the autopsy report

and Alyson's investigative work,

you can easily jump to the conclusion

that Elliott Smith was possibly killed.

- I would've been much happier

if the girlfriend had been interviewed again,

because we do have all of these other factors that suggest

that it was a homicidal rather than a suicidal death.

- We have one person with a story, and that's it.

And that is Elliott's girlfriend at the time, Jennifer.

- In October 2003, the acclaimed musician Elliott Smith

dies in his Los Angeles home from two stab wounds

to his chest.

The only two people in the house at the time are Elliott

and his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba.

Chiba claims Smith killed himself.

- So in this case,

we have one person with a story, and that's it.

And that is Elliott's girlfriend at the time, Jennifer.

- Although Jennifer Chiba isn't charged

with any crime in connection with Elliott Smith's death,

many of his fans believe that's not the full story.

- His girlfriend definitely killed him.

And the cops are just like, "Yeah, sure, suicide."

- I challenge everyone.

Go to the Reddit, you know, r/elliottsmith

and then say something about it not being suicide

and see how long you survive.

- The website Ranker has a post

entitled "Elliott Smith Death Conspiracy Theories

That Might Be Crazy Enough to be True."

Not exactly in- depth, but it has like 140,000 views.

The number one... "He Had A Big Fight

With His Girlfriend Right Before He Passed."

- And on the Web, the story of the couple's fight

takes a dark turn.

- Reportedly during the argument, the neighbors overheard

Jennifer scream, "I don't give a shit.

die."

All of a sudden, it just went dead silent.

- Yeah, me and my friend looked at each other like,

"Oh, man. Did someone just get killed?"

- The history was, he had a fight with his girlfriend

on the day of the death,

and sometimes something like that can precipitate people

just getting very extreme.

- The immediate cause of death listed on the autopsy report

is exsanguination or bleeding to death,

according to Chiba,

she pulls the knife out of Smith's chest

when she comes out of the bathroom.

- Is it possible that Jennifer Chiba made the unfortunate error

in removing that knife from his chest

and may have resulted in his death?

Listen, I'm not a medical expert,

but I know enough first aid to know that,

if the knife had remained inside his chest,

it could have stopped the bleeding.

It could have given him a chance to keep that heart beating

and to survive. - It's always better,

if you have any foreign body in the body,

in your chest, anywhere, that you don't move it

because if it's left where it is,

it can either partially or fully plug up the hole that it made.

If you take it out, the person's going to bleed freely.

- Most people who get stabbed in the heart die

within a minute or two.

They only have about a 15% chance of living as it is.

Every second counts

when someone's been stabbed in the heart.

- For years before Smith's death,

Chiba had been working as a therapist

at a family counseling center called Five Acres.

According to Five Acres, everybody who works there,

including their therapists,

would've been trained in first aid and CPR.

- Another detail fans point to is the delay in calling 911.

- So according to this one YouTube channel,

they've actually heard from a relative of Elliott Smith.

And according to this unnamed anonymous relative,

they spoke to Jennifer Chiba after Smith's death,

and Chiba claimed that her cellphone

wasn't working that morning when Smith died.

They point out that this is odd because they spoke to Smith

on the apartment landline just a couple days prior.

- This is 2003.

I don't believe we had gotten to a point

where people were just ditching their landlines for cellphones.

- When police arrive,

unverified reports state that Chiba is once again

locked in the bathroom.

- She locked herself in the bathroom,

and she refused to come out and talk to the police.

- It took quite some time before they could finally coax her out

and to actually do an interview.

People have pointed to this as evidence that she was guilty

or that she was hiding something or trying to cover up evidence.

- I'm Dr. Michael Arntfield.

I'm a professor and criminologist

at Western University,

where I founded the Cold Case Society,

which is an unsolved- crimes think tank.

There is any number of things that could be

going on behind a locked door during an active investigation

that is going to raise red flags with investigators.

- And when detectives are finally able to speak with Chiba,

she produces a short suicide note written on a Post- it Note.

- Found inside the apartment was a handwritten note

"That said," I'm so sorry.

Love, Elliott. God forgive me."

- First thing to know about the suicide note

is that it wasn't dated,

meaning it could have been written at any point in time,

not necessarily the morning of Elliott Smith's death.

On top of that, in the autopsy report,

it transcribes the note as misspelling

Elliott Smith's name... only one "T" in Elliott instead of two.

Now, we don't know if that's an error the medical examiner made

or if that was an actual error in the suicide note,

but if it was an error in the suicide note,

it definitely contributes to the idea

that it may have been a homicide.

People don't tend to misspell their own names.

- Since the case is still open,

the original Post- it Note is locked away in a police file,

leaving unanswered questions

about one of the most important pieces of evidence.

- I wanted to know if they dusted it for fingerprints.

I wanted to know if they brought in a handwriting expert,

but if any of that was done,

those results have been kept confidential

and never released publicly.

- A one- liner suicide note written on a Post- it Note...

I've admittedly never heard of.

Most suicide letters are deliberated.

In many cases, there's multiple letters

left in multiple locations for multiple people.

- As the investigation into Smith's case continues,

they discover another fact that is quite alarming.

Although Chiba gave a statement to police at the scene

of Smith's death,

she's never called in for a more formal interview.

- When I learned that Jennifer Chiba

never was officially interviewed by police, I was astounded.

She is, at a minimum, a witness to a horrific suicide,

and she's never officially interviewed.

I don't understand why.

I think there are so many gaps

in her story that need to be explained.

- I would've been much happier if the girlfriend

had been interviewed again another time,

because how do we know that's exactly what happened?

Maybe what she said was the truth,

but maybe it wasn't,

because we do have all of these other factors that suggest

that it was a homicidal rather than a suicidal death.

- With rising suspicion that Jennifer Chiba is involved

in Elliott Smith's death,

she makes a statement to "MTV News"

shortly after the coroner's report is released.

- Number one, that she wasn't a suspect,

and she felt that she wasn't

because investigators had not reached out to her,

tried to contact her.

But secondly, she also stated that Elliott's family

knew the truth,

and so she wasn't worried about it.

- While doing some research on this case,

I pulled up a statement from the Smith family lawyer.

In 2004, he said very bluntly and very publicly

that the family does not know what happened

and that any indication to the contrary is completely baseless.

- Online investigators also question

Chiba's choice of words.

- Jennifer's language choice in this statement

is common for people who are trying to cover something up.

- I also pulled up a 2004 lawsuit

filed by Chiba against Smith's family,

particularly his stepmother.

The lawsuit is asking for 15% of Smith's earnings

or around $1,000,000.

In the lawsuit, Chiba claims that Smith had promised to

take care of her financially for the rest of her life.

She goes on to say that they were basically living

as husband and wife.

And what's more, she'd actually worked as his manager and agent

for years prior to his death.

- He told his friends, like,

"You'll probably never see me again

'cause I'm going to kill myself."

- He just fell further and further into a dark place.

- I found some information that he was spending

like $1,500 a day on his habit.

- When I heard that he possibly had stabbed himself, I thought,

"Well, plenty of forecasts of that in his music."

- On October 21, 2003,

Elliott Smith, the acclaimed singer/songwriter

best known for writing the song "Miss Misery,"

dies from two stab wounds to the chest.

One of them pierces his heart.

When the coroner's report is released in January of 2004,

many are shocked that the manner of death

is listed as undetermined.

However, some fans are convinced

Smith took his own life despite the violent nature of his death.

- It is incredibly rare

that somebody would stab themselves in the chest

as a way of committing suicide,

but it's really important to note it's not zero.

It does happen.

- Suicides by self- stabbing are incredibly rare

and typically have one of two explanations.

This is either some ritual purpose

or someone being in an acutely psychotic state

with a complete disregard to the pain

and to the trauma that it's going to cause.

This isn't somebody who has developed a well- laid- out plan

as to how to mercifully end their life.

This is somebody acting in a state of mania.

- Most fans who think Elliott Smith killed himself

point to what they widely consider

to be his first suicide attempt as proof.

- When I was trying to find information about Elliott Smith,

I wanted to know if he had other suicide attempts.

A Spin article popped up,

and it talked about how...

When Elliott Smith jumped off a cliff

in North Carolina in 1997,

and he made it sound like no big deal.

He was like, "Yeah, I was running, I saw the cliff,

I jumped, and, like,

the ground was coming up. Whatever."

He just seemed very nonchalant about the whole thing.

Many people call that his first suicide attempt.

- Friends said he had been blunt with them

about his previous attempts at suicide.

As one writer put it,

"You can't say that Smith didn't warn you."

- He told his friends, like,

"You'll probably never see me again

'cause I'm going to kill myself."

He told everybody he knew that he was going to kill himself,

or he told them things that led people to believe

he didn't care about living.

- The stories of suicidal ideation

spill over into his professional life,

as the sleuths find a report

involving his producer, Larry Crane.

- Crane recounted a story where Smith lifted up his shirt

and showed him a pretty bad scar on his chest.

So it's possible that Smith had attempted suicide

by the exact same way previously.

- Anyone who listens to Elliott Smith's music

feels his pain and suffering in it,

and his lyrics tell the story of a man haunted

by the demons of his past.

- That aren't really that many people who know truly

who Elliott Smith was privately.

I believe Elliott did have a history of suicidal ideation.

It's certainly in his lyrics.

I know that it's well- documented that Elliott cut himself.

When I heard that he possibly had stabbed himself, I thought,

"Well, plenty of forecasts of that in his music."

- One of the songs is called "The Biggest Lie."

"You spent everything you had.

Wanted everything to stop that bad."

- Smith was pretty open about his struggle with depression,

and his music includes a lot of content about depression,

but also about self- harm and suicide.

I mean, he wrote a song called "Suicide Machine."

- To better understand Smith's state of mind,

online investigators research his childhood,

and they find stories of a hurt and abused child.

- Elliott Smith had a pretty rough childhood.

His parents split when he was pretty young.

He went to live with his mother and his new stepfather.

And he claims that his stepfather

was abusive throughout his childhood.

That likely fed into some of the mental- health struggles

he had later in life.

- He said that he received different kinds of abuse,

and his stepfather denied it.

I think there was abuse there,

you know, from what he did say in terms of verbally

and physically, that really did hurt Elliott psychologically.

- Elliott Smith was haunted by his past,

and that influenced his mental struggles.

I remember there was an article in Spin.

That article, you know, articulated quite well

that Elliott was troubled

by this relationship with his stepfather.

- In this interview, he goes on to talk about,

you know, how you can mask your emotions with drugs and alcohol.

If you think about Elliott's childhood

and the accusations that he's made against his stepfather

and, you know, this history of ADHD

and depression and self- medicating,

like, was Elliott trying to hide,

like, from his emotions?

- Like many who experience childhood trauma,

Elliott Smith struggles with the after effects

throughout his adult life,

eventually leading to serious drug addiction.

- So when you add in this possible abuse,

he became very addicted to heroin and crack cocaine.

In Spin magazine,

I found some information that he was spending

like $1,500 a day on his habit,

and he drank to the point where he would get drunk and not stop.

- And so this sort of bounces

back to Elliott's relationship with his stepfather.

Like, I think the child abuse

and the low self- esteem is part of it, but, you know,

Elliott was a drug addict. Let's face it.

- When somebody has a substance- use disorder

and they are misusing substances,

that places them at higher risk

for having suicidal behavior.

And oftentimes when people actually go through the act

of suicide, substances may be involved.

- Drugs and alcohol certainly added fuel to the fire

of Smith's suicidal tendencies,

but they weren't directly at play when he dies.

In the time leading up to his death,

Smith is on the road to sobriety.

- The toxicology report confirmed that, at the time of his death,

he was clean.

So that would, on the surface, appear to rule out

this being a substance- induced state of psychosis and suicide.

- His drug abuse got so bad, so bad,

finally, he checked himself into a rehab center in Arizona.

- He was trying something new,

getting clean and sober.

I think there is hope.

I think there is strength in that.

- But for most long- term addicts, getting clean and sober

is only a first step in the journey toward mental health.

- He'd abruptly gone sober, cold turkey,

and this previous coping mechanism was removed.

Whether this might have some bearing on his ability

to keep thoughts, maybe it had for some time, at bay.

Without replacing those coping mechanisms

with something more productive and positive,

he just fell further and further into a dark place.

- He was diagnosed with ADHD as well as depression,

and later, while he was working on his last album,

that manifested into some pretty particular paranoia.

He was convinced that his record label

was paying someone to follow him around

and that they were looking to steal his music.

- He had said that DreamWorks was breaking into his house

and stealing songs from his computers and not paying him

and that he was threatening to kill himself

if they wouldn't let him out of his contract.

He thought that they were following him in a white van.

And this white van appears throughout

for, like, the next year or so until he died.

Is it possible that he had some sort of psychotic break?

Was Elliott's paranoia enough to push him over the edge?

When somebody does kill themselves intentionally,

the reaction is always like

"There's no way he killed himself."

- Jennifer Chiba has been a secondary victim in all of this.

She basically witnessed him die in front of her.

- Instead of blaming Elliott and his mental illness,

they're just going to blame the girl he likes.

- In October 2003, Elliott Smith dies from

two stab wounds in his chest.

Los Angeles police initially call it a suicide,

but later, the L.A. coroner's office rules it undetermined.

Many of Smith's fans agree with the police report.

They think he killed himself, and they blame a history

of childhood trauma and addiction.

- Told me that he was an abused child his whole life

and never really got over it.

- But some fans continue to blame Elliott Smith's death

on his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba,

even though she's never been a person of interest.

- Naturally, when a lot of these theories,

you know, turn on somebody who was with him

at the time of his death, his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba,

they're going to focus on her as the prime suspect,

and that can be really difficult for somebody,

particularly if they're not actually responsible.

- You know, instead of blaming Elliott and his mental illness,

they're just going to blame the girl he likes.

A prevailing theme that I ran into was, like, woman- blaming.

The women are going to take the brunt for...

You know, every time a man kills himself, it's her fault.

- Jennifer Chiba has been a secondary victim in all of this.

She basically witnessed him die in front of her,

and that's extremely traumatic to begin with,

but, secondly, she's been under scrutiny

for nearly two decades now.

She's never been named a suspect,

but she's never been officially cleared.

So she deserves the truth, as well.

- In terms of Jennifer Chiba.

The police have looked at her so much

that, after this many years,

if there was a problem, they would bring her in.

- People obviously are going to believe

what they want to believe.

- The people who believe there was foul play

typically reference Chiba's actions

as proof that she had something to do with it.

According to her own story,

she pulls a knife out of Smith's chest

and, according to unconfirmed reports,

locks herself in the bathroom when police arrive.

But investigators come to understand

the situation differently.

- There's a host of possible explanations

why Jennifer reacted the way she did.

This is a traumatic situation

that would induce anxiety and panic

in even the most well- adjusted of people.

- Is it possible that she was so distraught...

She just pulled a knife out of her boyfriend's chest.

You know, there's going to be blood on her hands.

She's performing CPR.

There's going to be blood from spray.

I mean, she's going to be... Have some blood on her.

Is it possible that she went into the bathroom to clean up?

You don't know if he's dead or not,

but your boyfriend's blood on your hands, literally,

like, the imagery is just... It gives me the chills.

- There may also be another explanation

as to why Smith kept his shirt on when he died.

There was a friend of Elliott's, and he said

Elliott wouldn't be caught dead with his shirt off.

He never took his shirt off.

He didn't like taking his shirt off.

He didn't sleep with his shirt off.

He did not want to... Ever want to take his shirt off.

- And when online investigators look into the misspelling

of Smith's name on the suicide note,

a coroner's spokesperson confirms

this was merely a typographical error.

Online, many fans see Alyson Camus

as the expert on Smith's death,

but sleuths question Camus' motivations.

- Her being such a super fan,

she's a little too invested in Elliott Smith

being, like, the hero.

As far as I can tell, they never met.

They didn't hang out.

- She very, very intensely loved Smith

and seems to be incapable

of accepting that he committed suicide.

- It's important to rely on facts, not feelings,

and when you're looking at things online,

you really have to learn how to filter out all that noise.

And in this situation, those feelings are that noise.

- When people look at this death, they think,

"How can somebody stab themselves?"

And the reality is suicide by self- stabbing is rare,

but it's not nonexistent.

- When somebody does kill themselves intentionally,

the reaction is always like,

"There's no way he killed himself,"

and it's, like, suicide is always a surprise.

If people knew something was coming,

you wouldn't be shocked when it happened.

- In the tragic death of famed indie singer Elliott Smith,

the L.A. coroner is unable to determine

if the two stab wounds in his chest

are the result of a homicide or a suicide.

Investigators and fans alike

are still trying to figure out what happened.

- For me personally, I definitely want the truth, right,

I want justice,

and I want peace.

- If I had to answer today,

I would say Elliott Smith committed suicide,

but I am open to the possibility

that he is the victim of homicide

because we just don't know what we don't know.

There's too many unanswered questions.

- Without a real, new investigation,

unless new information surfaces,

it's unlikely we're going to find anything

that gives us a conclusive and satisfying answer

about how exactly he died.

It still looks like, at this point,

Elliott Smith died of suicide.

- The fact is the case remains open,

so even though Elliott Smith's fans disagree on what happened

that day in Echo Park, they all agree on one thing...

The case needs to be reinvestigated

and closed once and for all.

- Elliott's case deserves to be reexamined

by the investigating authority, by law enforcement.

If it's considered a cold case,

it deserves to have a new investigator

put on it with fresh eyes.

There is a lot of information out there which we uncovered,

and law enforcement has even more access to records

and documents and people and information.

- Closing this case is important for Jennifer Chiba

and Elliott Smith's family.

I mean, I'm sure Jennifer Chiba

would like to move on with her life

and put aside any doubt that she had anything to do with this.

And then Elliott's family, I'm sure,

just want some peace with the death, as well.

So it's important that we get some answers.

- Elliott Smith was a complicated guy.

I mean, he was a musical and a lyrical and a poetic genius,

but he also lived really intensely,

and he clearly struggled.

At the end of the day, I think people cope with this idea

that there must be some other explanation

for how he died to deal with their own complex feelings

about the fact that he's gone.

- Elliott Smith's legacy is, of course, his music,

but it's also important to know that, after he died,

his family donated a large sum of money

to the Free Arts for Abused Children.

They knew it was Elliott's goal in life

to start a nonprofit for abused children.

He was a very compassionate and thoughtful artist.

His lyrics were meaningful,

they were heartfelt,

and he meant a lot to a lot of people.

- I think Elliott's soulfulness has to do with his struggle,

but I think the music is best speaking for itself.

- I want to make sure that what we remember most about him

was who he was as an artist,

and that's what lives on.

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0