A Question Mark: An Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Elliott Smith

by Alyson Camus

In the early 2000s, Elliott Smith was a rising Indie music star, a multi-instrumentalist with a drug habit and a dark outlook on life. His music conveyed the depths of his pain and the heights of his hope. When he died in 2003 of an apparent suicide, the media and his fans were ready to believe. As the facts came out, however, the events of that day weren’t so clear. His girlfriend publicly claimed she and Elliott had had a heated argument, and while she had locked herself in the bathroom, Elliott had stabbed himself twice in the chest, an apparent suicide. A few hours later, he died in the hospital of his wounds. The Los Angeles County Coroner, upon examining the evidence, wasn’t ready to rule on the cause of death. Eighteen years later, the case remains open.Alyson Camus is a loyal Elliott Smith fan with a desire to know the truth. A Question Mark details her investigation into the Oscar-nominated singer’s alleged suicide. The truth behind the events of his death may be a bigger question mark than anyone is ready to believe.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Music

304 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 16, 2021

Reviews

[Claudia Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and thorough (as can be) look at the mysterious death of Elliott Smith. For years (decades tbh) I just accepted that he had committed suicide in a gruesome fashion (that’s what everyone said) and I didn’t even look into it because it was too devastating. Only recently, learning some of his songs on guitar and trying to translate them to piano, have I started reading books about him and man did I fall down a rabbit hole. It all ends with this book and the resources that Camus (I wonder if any relation to my favorite philosopher) compiled over the years and shared online. If you read it thoroughly and look at the autopsy reports and interviews you will also believe that it is suspicious indeed and points, more than anything, at homicide. And then you will grow green in the face every time you see a bullshit comment by Jennifer Chiba or Schultz or perhaps Chiba’s minions and anyone pushing the agenda that Elliott was just a depressed bloke who wanted to end it all. Maybe that sells. Elliott never wanted to fit a brand, be placed in a box, turned into a caricature for his explorative and poetic lyrics. Yet, alas, he has become that one dimensional sad sot by so many people who want to tie a pretty melancholic bow around his life and call it a day. Fortunately there are people like Alyson Camus willing to go against the grain and do the investigating that LAPD has been too lazy and indifferent to do themselves. I do hope this will inspire others to follow in her footsteps and seek justice for Elliott. And yes there are some typos and other things that could be fixed but so what? Some perfectly edited books (most celebs) are ghostwritten crap so who cares if there are a few typos? It’s honest and there’s a desperate need for honesty these days in journalism and publishing. There’s also more substance here than you’ll ever get in the half hazard meandering mess that was Schultz’s bio, and here (thank Shiva) J Chiba isn’t glorified in some bizarre backwards conclusion. I would say more but just read it.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5

Get ready, I've got a lot of thoughts on this one.

Initially I found it interesting, but the further along I got the more frustrated I felt with the author. Partly because of small errors in the text, such as missing periods (.) or footnotes that seemed misplaced, but much of it had to do with the contents of the book itself. While Camus is well aware of her sources credibility (or lack thereof), she criticises other authors for using unreliable, anonymous sources. For example Camus makes some great points that question the narrative Gowing and Schultz have claimed to hear from unnamed relatives of Elliott, but Camus builds her arguments on things she's heard from - you guessed it! More unnamed family members. Who should the reader believe? It's clear that Camus has done extensive research and she explains everything in a way that's easy to understand, but it's also clear in her writing that she isn't an expert. One example of this is how she refers to statistics without discussing possible surrounding factors to the percentages that she's using. On page 62 where she uses the quote: “In the last 12 months more men than women were victims of intimate partner physical violence… Some 21.6% of the male victims in [a] 2001 survey were threatened with a knife, contrasted to 12.7% of the women.” which I believe is a misrepresentation depending on whether the study has used data from REPORTED cases of intimate partner violence, or if the data is from hospital visits. Far from all women (nor men) report their partner in cases of domestic violence, and in the cases that they do they might leave out incriminating details. Therefore my opinion is that quoting this study without discussing eventually important surrounding factors in how these percentages were counted is misleading.

I don't agree with everything she or her sources have to say, but then again the book makes it very clear that its sources are people and you can't agree with every opinion of every person you come across. However, reading what the forensic experts and coroners had to say was very interesting. It's truly vexing that the case wasn't investigated more thoroughly, but as multiple sources said in the book the only thing that could close this old case is a confession.

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alyson Camus delves into the mystery of the death of Elliott Smith and I’m most grateful for it.

[Maddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why oh WHY was this book in the third person?
The investigative work was there, but the language and writing was not great. I understand that the author is french so English might not be her first language, but still.

[Tara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Her preface is basically "it wasn't suicide bc it wasn't suicide". It's written in third person, which is annoying, and all quotes are in italics.

I was interested in what her arguments might be, and I don't think he was murdered any more than I think Cobain was murdered-- just bc your favorite cute musician died by suicide and had a girlfriend/wife, that doesn't mean we should all suspect her endlessly; I'm pretty sure these incidents are investigated by actual detectives and not groupies--but this is just basically a really long fangirl blog. And I know ES fangirling: I named my kid after him.

She needed a severe editor who would tell her that third person weakens her argument even more. It feels fan fiction-y and I probably don't have to say this but a big fat DNF.

OR should I say Tara closed her kindle while rolling her eyes. "I'll write a review about how annoying this book is," she thought.

[Jodie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Los Angeles, California, at 1:36 PM on October 21, 2003, Indie folk rock singer-songwriter, Elliott Smith, died of exsanguination. This extreme loss of blood occurred when his girlfriend, Jennifer Chiba, removed a knife from his chest. Who plunged the knife into Elliott Smith’s heart that autumn day remains a mystery and the subject of the book, A Question Mark: An Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Elliott Smith by Alyson Camus.

As a fan of Elliott Smith, when I learned of his death back in 2003, I was deeply saddened and, quite frankly, shocked. As I remember, it was immediately reported that he stabbed himself in the heart. At that time, I completely accepted the narrative that Elliott Smith committed suicide, but I was aghast that he would mutilate himself in such a brutal way. It was grievous and disturbing to me, but I assumed he must have been completely psychotic and unhinged, and I stopped questioning it until I discovered Camus’s book nearly twenty years later.

While Alyson Camus explores both the suicide and murder theories behind Elliott Smith’s death, I think she definitely favors the murder theory, as do I after reading her book. She interviewed and obtained statements from many different sources, ranging from police, coroners, and criminal defense attorneys to Elliott Smith’s friends and neighbors. I really appreciated Camus’s quest to find out the truth about Elliott Smith’s death. This work is clearly an offering of love for Elliott and a plea for justice for him.

All that being said, I do have some slight criticisms of the book. There was too much anonymity, both of author and sources. The author’s real name is not Alyson Camus, and most of the people she interviewed or obtained information from were basically anonymous. The sources were either identified by first names only or had their entire names changed for the book. Because some people hold the controversial opinion that Elliott Smith was murdered by Jennifer Chiba, who still roams free, Camus felt she needed to protect their identities. However, because so much of Camus’s content was taken from anonymous sources, much of this content found on Elliott Smith fan message boards, it made the book feel less credible to me. In spite of all that, I really did enjoy the book and felt that Camus was balanced in her presentations of both the murder and the suicide theories.

An examination of Elliott Smith’s mental state and history of drug addiction and impulsivity lends support to the suicide theory. In the months preceding his death, Elliott had become very paranoid. He changed the locks on his home, believing his record company, DreamWorks, was breaking in and stealing his songs from his computer. He also believed he was being followed by a white van. Additionally, Elliott had previous suicide attempts, most notably an incident where he impulsively ran off a cliff. At the time of his death, Elliott also would have been suffering a variety of emotional and brain changes as he had tapered off street drugs and some psych meds.

The problem is that the manner in which we are told Elliott committed suicide is just not in keeping with what is known about him or the statistics about suicide in general. As Jerry, Elliott’s rehab counselor reflected, Elliot “... was a heroin addict and if he had decided to kill himself he would have done it with an overdose, that’s what heroin addicts do, they don’t take a knife to puncture their heart” (157). Jerry also said that “Elliott was unbalanced and depressed but he was not psychotic; it would require a psychotic person to do that type of action” (159-160). Others remarked that such an act of violence, even against himself, would have been extremely out of character for such a sensitive soul as Elliott. Statistics also indicate that stabbing is a very rare method of suicide. Camus cites a 2012 study that reports only 7% of people who stabbed themselves with the intention of suicide died, compared to a large number of stabbing deaths in domestic violence incidents that culminated in a woman plunging a knife into a man’s chest.

Furthermore, there are normally hesitation wounds on the bodies of those who committed suicide by stabbing, but Elliott had none. A hesitation wound is a small poke in the flesh made to discover the correct place to plunge the knife. Also, those who commit suicide by stabbing usually plunge the knife into their chests horizontally whereas Elliott’s knife wounds were made from vertical entry points. It is also rather odd that Jennifer Chiba was renowned as having a fascination with knives. Elliott had even once reported that Chiba had threatened him with knives. Camus cites Elliott’s sound engineer, Rick, as relating that Elliot once told him “He had a fight with his girlfriend who was chasing him around with a knife during an argument” (132). In other words, the thought of Jennifer Chiba stabbing Elliott to death in a fit of rage is not so outlandish.

Whether Jennifer Chiba murdered Elliott Smith or not, Alyson Camus stacks up many facts against her that cast real suspicion. On the morning of Elliott’s death, a neighbor identified as Joey recalled hearing Jennifer Chiba scream, “I don’t give a sh*t, f**king die!” at Elliott, followed by a long, eerie silence. Could she have screamed that because Elliott was threatening to kill himself as a manipulation move during their fight? Or did she scream those words and then plunge the knife into his chest? Either way, Jennifer Chiba did not call an ambulance right away and did not ride in the ambulance to the hospital. In fact, she arrived at the hospital over an hour after his death. If she cared about him, wouldn’t she be desperate to be at his side every step of the way? Also, her behavior after Elliott’s death was extremely suspicious. She certainly did not come across as shattered and broken by the suicide death of her great love. She was spotted laughing and gallivanting around town with an ex-lover just days after Elliott’s death. She also capitalized on his death by giving tours of the “death house” before fleeing the country entirely. As Jacob, a criminal defense attorney interviewed for the book states, “Ms. Chiba seems to me to be a pretty serious narcissist and quite possibly a sociopath” (248).

It is disheartening to know that there will likely never be a murder conviction if Chiba did kill Elliott Smith, as I now suspect after reading this book. The death of Elliott Smith remains an open case with the Los Angeles Police Department, and the coroner never ruled it a suicide or homicide. If Jennifer Chiba did murder Elliott, she will likely never be brought to justice. As Jacob remarked, “From the perspective of a criminal defense attorney, if Elliott was murdered by Jennifer Chiba, there is no way there would be a prosecution or conviction without some sort of confession” (239) and, if Jennifer Chiba is a true narcissist sociopath, she will never confess.

Steven Paul Smith. You deserved so much better. Rest in Peace. August 6, 1969 - October 21, 2003.