A memorial to Soundgarden vocalist and guitarist Chris Cornell is pictured at KEXP on May 18, 2017 in Seattle, Washington. Cornell was found dead in his hotel room in Detroit. (Photo: Stephen Brashear / Getty Images) 
 
 Just minutes after Soundgarden’s concert at the Fox Theatre ended Wednesday night, frontman Chris Cornell was back in his hotel room at the MGM Grand, talking by phone with his wife. 
 
 What Vicky Cornell heard alarmed her. 
 
 Her husband was slurring his words, sounded groggy and kept repeating: “I’m just tired,” according to a family statement and a police report obtained by The Detroit News. 
 
 She asked the band’s bodyguard to check on Cornell, who busted into the room and made a gruesome discovery: the alternative rocker was on the bathroom floor “with blood running from his mouth and a red exercise band around (his) neck,” according to the report. 
 
 Within two hours, Cornell, 52, was pronounced dead. The police report, filed by officers from the Detroit Police Gaming Unit who responded to the scene, describes the final moments of the singer’s life and the start of the investigation into how he died. 
 
 What happened in those two hours is already a matter of significant dispute between a family that doesn’t believe he would have intentionally taken his own life and the Wayne County medical Examiner’s Office, which declared his death a suicide by hanging. 
 
 About an hour before he was found, Cornell had walked off stage with his bandmates about 11:15 p.m. to the raucous cheers of a sellout crowd of more than 5,000 fans. 
 
 Within 15 minutes, Cornell was back in Room 1136 at the MGM, where bodyguard Martin Kirsten helped fix the star’s computer and gave him two doses of an anti-anxiety medicine, according to the police report. 
 
 At 11:35 p.m., Cornell was on the phone with his wife. 
 
 She called Kirsten at 12:15 a.m., and the bodyguard went to the room and found the door locked, the report said. Kirsten kicked the door open, only to find a second door leading to the bedroom suite also was latched — so, the report said, he kicked that door open, too, and found Cornell. 
 
 In a statement issued by Vicky Cornell and attorney Kirk Pasich, the lawyer said the family needs the results of toxicology tests to be sure what happened to the alternative rocker. 
 
 “The family believes that if Chris took his life, he did not know what he was doing, and that drugs or other substances may have affected his actions,” Pasich said. 
 
 In the statement, Vicky Cornell said she spoke to her husband before and after the concert and noticed during the later conversation that he was slurring his words. 
 
 “He was different,” she said. “When he told me he may have taken an extra Ativan or two, I contacted security and asked that they check on him.” 
 
 According to the police report, Kirsten gave Cornell two Ativan pills, “which victim takes for anxiety,” the report said. 
 
 A Soundgarden publicist said band members are not speaking publicly about Cornell’s death. 
 
 Buy Photo Rachel Montgomery holds a photograph of Chris Cornell outside the Fox Theatre in tribute to Chris Cornell. (Photo: Max Ortiz / The Detroit News) 
 
 Officials with Olympia Entertainment, which owns the Fox Theatre, did not respond to a request for comment. 
 
 After hearing from Vicky Cornell, Kirsten walked two doors down to Cornell’s suite, to which he had a key, but found the door latched, the report said. “(Kirsten) called security from hotel phone in hallway ... stating he needs to get into (the) room to check on (the) victim,” the report said. 
 
 “Security stated they can not let him into the room because he is not registered to that room,” the report said. “At this time (Kirsten) kicked in the door with his feet and ... went to the bedroom door and (the) latch had been engaged on this door also. 
 
 “(Kirsten) again called for security but could not gain access to (the) room,” the report said. “At this time (Kirsten) kicked in (the) bedroom door and found victim laying on the bathroom floor.” 
 
 Buy Photo Julie Webber holds flowers and candles in rememberance of Chris Cornell outside the Fox Theatre in tribute to Chris Cornell on Friday, May 19, 2017. (Photo: Max Ortiz / The Detroit News) 
 
 MGM medic Dawn Jones arrived at the room at 12:56 a.m., the report said. “Jones untied the red exercise band from (the) victim’s neck and began CPR on (Cornell, who) was not breathing.” 
 
 EMS Unit 42 was at the scene by 1 a.m. An emergency medical technician also unsuccessfully performed CPR on Cornell, according to the report. 
 
 “At 1:30AM on 5/18/2017, victim was pronounced dead (by a doctor who came to the scene),” the report said. 
 
 Homicide detectives arrived at the room and began their investigation, while another officer phoned Cornell’s wife to break the news he’d been found dead. 
 
 “Victim’s wife ... stated victim is a recovered drug addict,” the report said. 
 
 ghunter@detroitnews.com 
 
 (313) 222-2134 
 
 Twitter: @GeorgeHunter_DN 
 
 Staff Writers Adam Graham and Stephanie Steinberg contributed. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2rzArrF ||||| CLOSE The city of Detroit released a 911 call that was placed from the MGM Grand in Detroit after singer Chris Cornell was found non-responsive in his hotel room. Detroit Free Press 
 
 Musician Chris Cornell, known from the rock groups Soundgarden and Audioslave, performs during a concert at Pinkpop 2009, in Landgraaf, The Netherlands, in May 2009. (Photo: VALERIE KUYPERS, EPA) 
 
 After nearly two months of incomplete details, investigative documents from Detroit police help flesh out the final hours of singer Chris Cornell's life. 
 
 The reports, obtained Tuesday by the Free Press, paint a late-night scene of a frantic wife hundreds of miles away, a dogged bodyguard and a crew of emergency personnel futilely trying to rescue the Soundgarden singer, who was discovered unresponsive on a bathroom floor with a band around his neck. 
 
 Timeline: Death of Chris Cornell, singer's last hours 
 
 The new documents offer few new revelations about that night in May, when Cornell, 52, was pronounced dead in his suite at the MGM Grand Detroit. But they do offer the most complete official account to date, with documents including a 911 call, scene photographs, investigators' reports and a statement from Cornell's bodyguard. 
 
 According to the records, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, a call from Cornell's wife prompted bodyguard Martin Kirsten to go to the Soundgarden singer's suite — Room 1136 — to check on him "because he did not sound like he was OK." 
 
 Unable to access the locked room, Kirsten kicked open the main door, then did the same with the interior bedroom door. 
 
 "I went inside and the bathroom door was partially opened, and I could see his feet," Kirsten told police in a signed statement. 
 
 The bodyguard loosened the band around Cornell's neck, then tried to resuscitate the singer by compressing his chest, Kirsten said in his statement. 
 
 Additional medical personnel were summoned, and Cornell was pronounced dead at about 1:30 a.m., an hour and 15 minutes after Kirsten was first contacted by Cornell's wife, Vicky Cornell. 
 
 Police determined the death to be a suicide, a department spokesperson said. That matches the ruling made public by the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office the day of Cornell's death. 
 
 The documents released Tuesday chronicle a several-week investigation into the events of May 18, which followed Soundgarden's performance at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. The death of Cornell, one of the signature voices in modern rock, garnered international attention. 
 
 Police photos released Tuesday show the blood-splattered bathroom, the red exercise band presumably used in the hanging and the broken door jamb from the bodyguard's forced entrance. Also pictured were personal effects such as Cornell's Delta airline ticket from New York to Detroit, prescription pill bottles and an acoustic guitar lying on a brown chair. 
 
 Dozens of images in the report were blacked out. No photos of Cornell's body were visible. 
 
 Officials also released audio of a 911 call placed by an apparent hotel employee at 12:56 a.m. reporting a "nonresponsive guest ... inside of Room 1136." 
 
 "The guest was attempting to hang himself," the caller said. 
 
 The 911 operator asked: "He's not breathing?" 
 
 "No," the caller said. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 Tuesday's documents come amid weeks of uncertainty and speculation about the circumstances around his death. Early on, an attorney for Vicky Cornell said the family was "disturbed at inferences that Chris knowingly and intentionally took his life." 
 
 “He didn’t want to die,” Vicky Cornell told People magazine in an interview published last month. “If he was of sound mind, I know he wouldn’t have done this.” 
 
 CLOSE Chris Cornell's widow has penned a letter addressed to the late Soundgarden front man days after he took his own life. Vicky Cornell writes in the note published online by Billboard that she's sorry she didn't "see what happened to you that night." USA TODAY 
 
 Cornell's autopsy report, released June 2, said toxicology tests detected lorazepam, which is used in the treatment of anxiety and sold as Ativan; pseudoephedrine, a decongestant; naloxone, used to counter effects of opioids; butalbital, a sedative, and caffeine in his system. But the report revealed the drugs "did not contribute to the cause of death." 
 
 Cornell, who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 180 pounds, was in a torn gray T-shirt and black underwear, according to officials. No note was found at the scene. 
 
 As the events surrounding Cornell's death unfolded that night nearly two months ago, Vicky Cornell was on the phone seeking updates, the bodyguard told police. 
 
 "She told me that she called the front desk and they hung up on her," Kirsten's statement said. 
 
 She called back a couple minutes later, another person answered and told her he was hearing about the incident, he said. 
 
 MGM Grand Detroit "has assisted fully with the investigation into this matter," spokeswoman Yvette Monet said in an e-mail to the Free Press. "Out of respect for the family, we will not be providing any information beyond the information that we have already provided to authorities.” 
 
 Read more: 
 
 Contact Elisha Anderson: eanderson@freepress.com or 313-222-5144, and Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2ufp5ia ||||| FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2013 file photo, Chris Cornell attends the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Los Angeles. Cornell, 52, who gained fame as the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden... (Associated Press) 
 
 DETROIT (AP) — Chris Cornell, one of the most lauded and respected contemporary lead singers in rock music with his bands Soundgarden and Audioslave, hanged himself Wednesday in a Detroit hotel room, according to the city's medical examiner. He was 52. 
 
 The Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office said Thursday it completed the preliminary autopsy on Cornell, but that "a full autopsy report has not yet been completed." A police spokesman told two Detroit newspapers that the singer was found with a band around his neck. 
 
 Cornell's death stunned his family and his die-hard fans, who Cornell just performed for hours earlier at a show in Detroit. 
 
 His family issued a statement through an attorney Friday refuting "inferences that Chris knowingly and intentionally" killed himself, and said that without toxicology test results completed they don't know what caused his death. 
 
 According to lawyer Kirk Pasich, Cornell had a prescription for the anti-anxiety drug Ativan, which he said has various side effects. 
 
 Cornell's wife, Vicky Cornell, said in the statement that when she spoke to her husband after the Detroit show, he told her he may have taken "an extra Ativan or two" and was slurring his words. 
 
 Soundgarden's current tour kicked off in late April and was planned to run through May 27. He was found dead at the MGM Grand Detroit hotel by a family friend who went to his room after Cornell's wife asked him to check on the singer, police said. 
 
 Cornell was a leader of the grunge movement with Seattle-based Soundgarden — with whom he gained critical and commercial acclaim — but also found success outside the band with other projects, including Audioslave, Temple of the Dog as well as solo albums. He was widely respected in the music industry: He reached success in every band lineup he was part of it, his voice was memorable and powerful, and he was a skilled songwriter, even collaborating on a number of film soundtracks, including the James Bond theme song for 2006's "Casino Royale" and "The Keeper" from the film "Machine Gun Preacher," which earned Cornell a Golden Globe nomination. 
 
 "To create the intimacy of an acoustic performance there needed to be real stories. They need to be kind of real and they need to have a beginning, middle and an end," Cornell said of songwriting in a 2015 interview with The Associated Press. "That's always a challenge in three in a half or four minutes — to be able to do that, to be able to do it directly." 
 
 Cornell, who grew up in Seattle, said he started using drugs at age 13 and was kicked out of school at 15. 
 
 "I went from being a daily drug user at 13 to having bad drug experiences and quitting drugs by the time I was 14 and then not having any friends until the time I was 16," he told Rolling Stone in 1994. "There was about two years where I was more or less agoraphobic and didn't deal with anybody, didn't talk to anybody, didn't have any friends at all. All the friends that I had were still (messed) up with drugs and were people that I didn't really have anything in common with." 
 
 But at 16 he grew serious about music, learning to play the drums while also working as a busboy and dishwasher. 
 
 "That was the toughest time in my life," he told Rolling Stone. 
 
 He eventually became a Grammy winner with Soundgarden, formed in 1984 and coming out of the rapidly growing Seattle music scene, which included Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. 
 
 "There's something about Seattle, it's always been a hard rock town, too. I didn't realize growing up as kid that Seattle had much more of a hard rock focus and a guitar rock focus than other cities did," Cornell told the AP in 2011. "It was like a Detroit, only northwest kind of. There's no reason that I would think I know how to define it, but it's always been there." 
 
 The band, which had released hit songs and found success, marked a mainstream breakthrough with "Superunknown," its 1994 album that won them two Grammys, sold more than five million units in the U.S., and launched five hits, including "Black Hole Sun," one of the most popular alternative rock songs from the 1990s. 
 
 The group, formed with guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Hiro Yamamoto, broke up in 1997. 
 
 In 2001, Cornell joined Audioslave, a supergroup that included former Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford. The band released three albums in six years and also performed at a concert billed as Cuba's first outdoor rock concert by an American band, though some Cuban artists have disputed that claim. 
 
 Audioslave disbanded in 2007, but Cornell and Soundgarden reunited in 2010 and released the band's sixth studio album, "King Animal" in 2012. 
 
 Cornell also collaborated with members of what would become Pearl Jam to form Temple of the Dog, which produced a self-titled album in 1991 in tribute to friend Andrew Wood, former frontman of Mother Love Bone. In 2011, Cornell was ranked ninth on Rolling Stone list of the best lead singers of all-time, selected by its readers. 
 
 He also released solo albums, and Nielsen Music said as a band member and solo act, the singer sold almost 15 million albums and 8.8 million digital songs in the U.S. 
 
 His first solo album, 1999's "Euphoria Morning," was a dark album that was initially supposed to be titled "Euphoria Mourning." 
 
 "It was a pretty dark album lyrically and pretty depressing, and I was going through a really difficult time in my life — my band wasn't together anymore, my marriage was falling apart and I was dealing with it by drinking way too much, and that has its own problems, particularly with depression," he told Rolling Stone in 2015. 
 
 Cornell referenced death — and suicide — in 2007 interview with the AP when discussing his single, "No Such Thing." It appeared on his second solo album, "Carry On." 
 
 "The 'no such thing as nothing' line comes from the concepts that humans don't really have a flat line until we're dead. If we are not leading a happy productive life, we are leading probably an unhappy non-productive life. If a person doesn't have enough food, they actually are hungry. If they don't have enough money it's not that they have no money, they actually have something and it's called poverty. There's no just kind of flat lining coasting. You're either going in one direction or in another direction. All that came out of me trying to imagine why somebody would be, for example, a suicide bomber." 
 
 The music industry mourned his sudden death online. Elton John tweeted, "Shocked and saddened by the sudden death of @chriscornell. A great singer, songwriter and the loveliest man." 
 
 KEXP, Seattle's popular independent radio station, paid tribute to Cornell throughout Thursday morning. The station played non-stop songs from Soundgarden and Cornell's other bands and solo work, as well as artists who covered Cornell's material and those who were influenced by him. 
 
 "Seattle's son, Chris Cornell, has passed away," DJ John Richards told listeners. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Fekadu reported from New York. AP Entertainment Writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody and Associated Press writers Dennis Waszak in New York and David Runk in Detroit contributed to this report.
– Chris Cornell kept saying "I'm just tired" in his final phone conversation with his wife, according to a police report with more details on the final hour of the Soundgarden frontman's life. Vicky Cornell, alarmed by how different her husband sounded, called band bodyguard Martin Kirsten, who had to kick in two latched doors before he found the 52-year-old dead on the bathroom floor with "blood running from his mouth and a red exercise band" around his neck, according to a police report seen by the Detroit News. His death was ruled suicide by hanging, but Vicky Cornell says he told her he "had taken an extra Ativan" or two, and she believes the anti-anxiety medication or other substances may have clouded his judgment. According to TMZ, Cornell used a piece of climbing equipment to secure the exercise band to the bathroom door at his suite in the MGM Grand Hotel in Detroit. Less than an hour earlier, the band had played a sold-out show in front of 5,000 fans. Soundgarden had been scheduled to play the Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, Ohio Friday night, Pitchfork reports. Instead, artists including Bush and Live paid tribute to Cornell by covering songs by his bands Soundgarden, Audioslave, and Temple of the Dog. Rolling Stone reports that Rage Against the Machine co-founder Tom Morello paid tribute to his former Audioslave bandmate with a moving poem, which can be seen in full here.