More than a year after the shocking death of Chris Cornell, there is still no clear picture of what happened on the night the charismatic Soundgarden singer was found dead in his Detroit hotel room on May 18, 2017. The state's coroner ruled the incident a suicide, and while drugs reportedly did not contribute to the cause of death, there were seven different medications found in Cornell's system at the time of his passing.
The details surrounding Cornell's case will be probed in the Reelz channel's Autopsy: The Last Hours of Chris Cornell, which will look at the theories about his passing, including suggestions that head trauma may have played a role. In May, Cornell's widow, Vicky, told the Detroit News that she did not agree with the coroner's ruling of suicide, which came just hours after the singer died from asphyxiation caused by a rubber exercise band tied around his neck.
“This has left me and my family still looking for answers, but at the same time, set off this whirlwind of conspiracies,” Vicky Cornell told the paper. “Some of the people are just fans looking for answers, but some of them are conspiracy theorists who have said the most vile things to my children and me.” She noted that when she spoke to her husband the night he died, he was "slurring his words [and] he was on and off incoherent," likely from taking a double dose of the anti-anxiety drug Ativan, of which the side effects can include suicidal thoughts.