Roadie Claims Jimi Hendrix Was Murdered

Source: Spinner.com
Posted: 06/01/09 6:18PM



Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager, according to a new book by a former roadie. James "Tappy" Wright alleges that Hendix's manager, Michael Jeffrey, once drunkenly confessed to killing the guitarist by stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them down with several bottles of red wine.



Jeffrey -- who stood to collect $2 million as a beneficiary on Hendrix's life insurance policy -- feared Hendrix was planning to fire him in favor of a new handler, according to a report about the book, titled 'Rock Roadie', as reported in Mail on Sunday. Wright claims Jeffrey -- who died in a plane crash in 1973 -- told him in 1971 that Hendrix was "worth more to him dead than alive."



Hendrix died in September 1970. An ambulance crew found the 27-year-old musician's body at London's Samarkand Hotel, in the room of an acquaintance named Monika Dannemann. His cause of death was listed as barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit.



Wright writes that Jeffrey confessed, "I was in London the night of Jimi's death and together with some old friends ... we went round to Monika's hotel room, got a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth ... then poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe ... That son of a bitch was going to leave me. If I lost him, I'd lose everything."