Iberia Airways flight number IB504 en route from Palma, Mallorca to London Heathrow on 5th March 1973 never reached its destination. It collided with another plane over France and exploded in midair killing all the crew and passengers. One of the 68 victims was Mike Jeffery who once owned Newcastle’s legendary Club a’Gogo and later managed Jimi Hendrix. Mike Jeffery’s recorded death occurred 29 months and 16 days after the death of Hendrix.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s death in September 1970. As the September date approaches there’s likely to be a fresh batch of books published, films released and TV programs aired about the life and, in particular, the death of Jimi Hendrix. Author Mick Wall was ahead of the game by publishing a new Hendrix biography called “Two Riders Were Approaching” in October last year. The opening chapter of the book recounts the last hours and seconds of Hendrix’s life. The true cause of Jimi Hendrix’s death has been the subject of speculation for decades. Was it suicide, an accident or even murder? Mick Wall’s account is quite specific. “Mike” and a couple of his heavies follow Hendrix and his girlfriend, Monika Dannemann back from a party to her flat. They gain access to the flat and rough up Hendrix a little before ejecting Dannemann. After more physical violence, red wine is forced into Hendrix’s lungs until he drowns.
Mick Wall’s account of Jimi Hendrix’s death may be a flight of fantasy but it’s not new. The murder of Jimi Hendrix by his manager, Mike Jeffery first made the national news in 2009 when James “Tappy” Wright, a former employee of Jeffery, revealed in his autobiography that Jeffery had confessed to the murder some 36 years earlier. However, until the appearance of Mick Wall’s book, I hadn’t seen this murder scenario told in any other Jimi Hendrix biography.
Because of conflicting accounts by so-called witnesses the true facts about Hendrix’s death have never been clear. As time goes by, with key players dying off, it’s becoming less likely that we’ll ever know what really happened in the flat of Hendrix’s girlfriend, Monika Dannemann at the Samarkand Hotel, London on 18th September 1970.
What we do know about Hendrix is that he died in the presence of at least one other person who knew who he was. The death is undisputed – only the cause. The same can’t be said about Mike Jeffery whose death, because of the extraordinary circumstances, was unwitnessed. Furthermore, his body was so disfigured that a proper identification was not possible.
Perhaps you may have come across an 87 year-old man like the man in the photograph (below left) whilst holidaying in the Bahamas, the Balearic Islands or maybe another Mediterranean destination. He would have all the trappings of a wealthy man – the gold jewelry, Rolex watch and expensive clothes. He’d probably have a female companion at least twenty years younger than himself at his side. The most recognisable feature would be a strong aroma of expensive after-shave, Acqua Di Parma, his preferred fragrance since the 1960’s. This is what Mike Jeffery may look like today had he not been aboard flight IB504.
Is there any doubt that Mike Jeffery did actually die on the fated Iberian Airways Douglas DC9, which collided with another Spanish plane over the Vendee area in western France? Everything points to a catastrophic accident with Jeffery being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Furthermore, it would be beyond comprehension to think that the downing of the Douglas DC9 was anything but an accidental collision between two aeroplanes, even though unexplained military coloured paint traces were found on the surviving plane parts.
But if Mike Jeffery was not on board flight IB504 it’s not implausible that he would use the disastrous events to his advantage. After all, he’d learned a trick or two as a member of the British Secret Service in the shadowy world of ‘cold war’ Trieste. His training and his dealings with communist agents would have left him well versed in the art of deception. More recently he’d been ducking and diving with the Mafia over huge debts, problems that would go away if everyone thought he was dead. This could have been Jeffery’s big chance to relax anonymously and live off the millions he’d secretly creamed off Hendrix and The Animals – money he’d stashed away in hidden Bahamian bank accounts and other locations. In short, a tragic set of circumstances and a stroke of luck may have presented Mike Jeffery with a ‘Reginald Perrin’ opportunity.
Let’s go back to the weekend of 3rd and 4th March 1973 and why Mike Jeffery was travelling to and from the island of Mallorca. In the previous week he‘d been arrested and remanded on a warrant because he’d earlier failed to appear in Court on charges relating to a drugs case. His lawyer applied for bail, which was granted. On 2nd March the lawyer asked for an extension to the bail. Jeffery, as the former manager of Jimi Hendrix, was a fairly high profile showbiz person who may well have been in line for a custodial sentence in order to set an example to others. The extension was granted on condition that his passport was surrendered. Jeffery’s legal representative argued that the passport was needed for a short weekend business trip to Mallorca where his client owned several night clubs. Against all odds the judge agreed to the request. He was no doubt unaware that Jeffery was making arrangements to start a new life on the Spanish island and was in the final stages of buying a castle at the costal resort of Banyalbufar. There were no extradition arrangements with Spain at the time so the risk of Jeffery not returning to Court to face trial and possible imprisonment was quite substantial. In other words there was a strong chance that Jeffery would skip bail and not return to the UK at all.
On arrival in Mallorca Mike Jeffery visited his proposed new home at Banyalbufar. He also met up with his assistant, Trixi Sullivan and conducted some business with her in connection with the Jimi Hendrix estate.
Michael Jeffery was due to return to the UK on Iberia Airways flight IB504 from Son Sant Joan airport, Palma, Mallorca on the morning of 5th March 1973. It’s well documented that Jeffery had a morbid fear of flying. According to some sources he would book seats on several flights ahead of his proposed journeys and in an attempt to cheat fate, he would gamble on which flight to take before departure time. However, there is no evidence to suggest that he had more than one flight booked on 5th March. But did he have a sixth sense about the fate of flight IB504 and decide at the airport not to fly that day?
If he did miss the flight, the most likely scenario is that he had no intention of returning to the UK to face trial and a potential prison sentence. So the trip to Mallorca a few days earlier could have been a planned start to his new life on the island known only to him and a few associates. We know that a passport for Michael Jeffery was found on the crash site in France but could Jeffery have given the passport, one of many he possessed, to someone to travel back to the UK using his identity in order to lay a false trail and stall for time? According to Kathy Etchingham, a long-term girlfriend of Jimi Hendrix, another man was due to fly back to the UK with Mike Jeffery on 5th March 1973. That person didn’t appear on the list of passengers issued by Iberia Airways after the crash.
Flight IB504, a Douglas DC-9 took off from Son Sant Joan airport, Palma at 11.24 heading for Heathrow. The planned flight path would take the plane over France to the English Channel and then on to the south coast of England. In March 1973 French air traffic controllers were on strike. Military personnel had been drafted in to cover their role. A lot of airlines were avoiding French air space and were taking longer routes as a precaution. However, Iberia Airways chose to put their trust in the military air traffic controllers and were sticking to their scheduled routes.
Whilst the DC-9 was in flight, a chartered Convair Coronado passenger plane owned by the Spanish airline company Spantax took off from Madrid at 12.01 headed for London. This plane was also routed through French air space.
Just before 12.30pm both the pilot of the DC-9 and the pilot of the Coronado reported to air traffic control that they estimated their respective flights would reach Nantes in western France at 12.52. Military air traffic control attempted to put time and space between the DC-9 and Coronado by issuing instructions regarding height and speed. Poor communications led to misunderstandings and these misunderstanding led to errors by one or both pilots. Unable to communicate with the controllers, the pilot of the Coronado decided to make an unauthorized manoeuver in order to delay his arrival over Nantes.
At 12.52 the pilot of the Coronado felt a significant jolt and struggled to control his plane, which was starting to dive. What he didn’t know was that the wing of his plane had collided with the Douglas DC-9 causing an explosion that had torn the other plane apart over La Planche, 25 kilometers south of Nantes.
Residents of the small village of La Planche reported hearing an explosion and seeing a red streak of light before bodies and aeroplane parts came raining down in thousands of pieces. One woman reported; “We heard a frightful noise. I looked up and saw the sky streaked with dozens of torches while the flaming fuselage crashed less than a kilometer from my house.”
The explosion took place at around 29,000 feet (5 miles). Bodies turned into blocks of ice as they fell and then shattered on impact with the ground. Some were decapitated while others lost limbs. Loose clothing was stripped away during the descent. Initially, the mayor of La Planche was landed with the grisly job of organising the collection of what was left of the passengers and crew. This was done using a tractor and trailer. The corpses and body parts were taken to the corner of a field where they were covered over. They were later placed in makeshift coffins. After some time, the villagers and the gendarmerie from the larger, nearby village of Aigrefeuille came to the aid of the mayor. One villager later commented that dead bodies with fractured bones weren’t easy to carry.
When the human remains had been recovered from the crash site, which included fields, gardens and ponds, the mayor had the task of trying to identify the casualties from a list of passengers and aircrew supplied by Iberia Airways. During his investigation, the mayor concluded that a faceless torso stripped of most of its clothing was probably that of a Michael Jeffery from London. Not long after, Gerry Stickells, who worked for Mike Jeffery as a road manager for Hendrix was contacted. He confirmed that the remains were that of his employer. Stickells neither saw the actual body nor a photograph. He made his judgment from some jewelry he was shown.
Did Gerry Stickells have any reason to lie about the identity of the body? Only if he knew Mike Jeffery was still alive and that this lie would help to cover up shocking events that had happened two and a half years earlier.
You’ll recall from the opening paragraphs above that the latest Jimi Hendrix biography opens by describing Jimi’s murder by Michael Jeffery and some associates. But let’s forget about that for now. Monika Dannemann gave evidence at Jimi Hendrix’s inquest about the circumstances leading to the death. She said that in September 1970 that on the night before Hendrix died they had drunk some wine. Dannemann said when she woke up on the morning of his death it was not immediately obvious that anything was wrong with the guitarist. “He was still sleeping, and so I got my breakfast and had a wash, and went to get some cigarettes because we had run out. When I came back he was still sleeping. I looked at him closely and then I could see something was wrong.” She said she then tried to contact Hendrix’s doctor before telephoning for an ambulance. The call for an ambulance took place at 11.18 am. The coroner closed the case with an open verdict saying there was insufficient evidence to prove that Hendrix had committed suicide.
In the 1970s most people accepted the coroner’s conclusion that Jimi Hendrix died choking on his own vomit after taking an overdose of barbiturates. The World Wide Web was still years away so the main sources of information about Hendrix’s life and death were in newspapers, music magazines and books.
As for Michael Jeffery, his death too, was reported as a tragic accident. He was mourned by his family and friends and buried. In 1973 not too many people outside the music industry knew who he was so he was more or less forgotten – at least for half a decade.
Then in 1978 black author/poet David Henderson published a Jimi Hendrix biography in the States entitled “Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child Of The Aquarian Age”. For most of the book Mike Jeffery is only mentioned in passing. However, Henderson’s book does mention several theories and suggestions about Hendrix’s death including murder. David Henderson also questioned Monica Danneman’s account about the morning Hendrix died, which after the event she had revised many times.
Would David Henderson’s book be enough to start alarm bells ringing in certain quarters? It certainly upset Hendrix’s former long-term girlfriend Kathy Etchingham when she found out the book was going to be published in the UK in 1981 under the title of “’Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky”. She took exception to the way in which Henderson had portrayed her relationship with Jimi. This prompted her to track down and contact Monica Dannemann who she thought had also been given a bad deal by Henderson.
Kathy Etchingham’s liaison with Monika Dannemann didn’t turn out as she’d expected. The more she got to know Dannemann, the more she realised that Dannemann had been less than truthful about the morning that Hendrix had died. Her main concern was that Monika Dannemann did not ring for an ambulance until 11.18 whereas Eric Burdon and his partner Alvenia Bridges reported that they had gone to the flat much earlier, possibly at first light, following a frantic call from Dannemann about Hendrix’s condition. Kathy Etchingham strongly suspected that Monika Dannemann had for many years lied in order to cover up her actions or the actions of others on that fateful morning. Over time it emerged that apart from Dannemann, Eric Burdon and his partner, a lot of other people had been in the flat in order to take away or hide anything that would cast Hendrix and his management in bad light. These people included Hendrix’s roadies, Gerry Stickells and Eric Barrett plus Burdon’s roadie, Terry Slater – all employees of Mike Jeffery.
Kathy Etchingham’s relationship with Dannemann turned hostile. Various court cases took place over the years so their hostilities became very public. Etchingham conducted her own investigation into Jimi Hendrix’s death and eventually handed her findings to the police who reopened the enquiry. In the long run the police failed to find enough evidence to overturn the original 1970 open verdict by the coroner.
Apart from Etchingham, David Henderson’s book was likely to prompt others to question the circumstances of Hendrix’s death in more detail. If any foul play took place in Dannemann’s flat the morning that Hendrix died, then some people would really be worried. And would the book arouse interest about the part that Mike Jeffery played in Jimi Hendrix’s life and more importantly his demise?
Up until 1981, the same year that Henderson’s book was due to be published in the UK, the remains of Mike Jeffery had lain in plot GZ885 at Hither Green Cemetery, South East London. They’d been there since their burial on 19th March 1973. For reasons unknown, the remains were exhumed on 18th April 1981 and cremated. The exhumation was most likely instigated by Jeffery’s father. Other than for investigative purposes, bodies can be exhumed for various reasons; for instance, exhumation sometimes takes place so a body can be reburied near to a recently deceased relative or nearer to the homes of living ones. However, in the case of Mike Jeffery, the remains were cremated without ceremony and strewn in the grounds of the cemetery on the same day they were exhumed. Whatever the reason for the exhumation, the subsequent cremation would ensure that the body parts buried under the name of Michael Frank Jeffery could never be forensically examined.
Although Jimi Hendrix has been dead for nearly 50 years he still has an enthusiastic ever-expanding fan base. His fans range from people who were around in his heyday between 1967 and 1970 and perhaps saw some of his ‘live’ performances through to younger people who have more recently discovered Hendrix and have become captivated by his guitar skills. Some fans are only interested in the music whilst others want to know all about the life and times of Jimi Hendrix and will devour any new books or material that appears on the Internet.
There is likely to be a lot of new Hendrix material published this year, but it’s unlikely that any new evidence about his death will emerge. A lot of the people involved back in September 1970 have now passed on. These include Monika Dannemann, James “Tappy” Wright and Gerry Stickells. It has always been thought that Eric Burdon knows a lot more about the circumstances of Hendrix’s death than he has already disclosed. But to date he has declined to be pressed on the matter, even to the FBI who attempted to interview him on behalf of the British police when they were reinvestigating the death in the 1990s.
Perhaps at some stage someone will make a deathbed confession about a murder that took place at the Samarkand Hotel back in 1970 – a Geordie thug or an ex-associate of Mike Jeffery.
Maybe an ex-pat octogenarian will come forward and surprise everyone or is that just another flight of fantasy?
Hello Roger –
Kudos to you on this very well-written and thought-out piece on a topic of great mystery continuing to circulate in the conscious spheres.
As you may recall, I was most definitely part of the whole picture being depicted in this tale, and tho not directly on the front lines here, was very certainly in the mix and very well aware of the intricacies and nuances of all the protagonists.
The theories – and must say – ALL except for medical and forensic facts, remain just as such, THEORIES – are fascinating, and since I was seriously impacted by these events, I take this all very personally.
Can’t help but start relating to some of these tales as very reflective of two other legendary sagas:
Marilyn Monroe and JF Kennedy.
(Didn’t know Marilyn, but did meet JFK once, in high school, when part of a discussion of his book, “Profiles In Courage” on the NYC Radio/TV Workshop I was part of then.)
I have a feeling these theories will never stop rotating and circulating – maybe forever, as nobody can ever accept their superheroes are possibly also human, and can at some point, miscalculate what is possible to combine and consume – this certainly was a popular activity among the supercharged, gifted superheroes of the times, and even now.
It’s so easy to over-guess, be cavalier about these things, and perhaps fueled by the attentions of beautiful people close by, things accelerate and what may seem possible becomes elevated subconsciously.
My deepest sense of truth tells me that nobody was at fault here, in Jimi’s case, for sure.
He was a powerful spirit, a legend, but also a good and true friend and very gentle and kind.
He over guessed his capacity to handle things he’d been doing for quite awhile. It can happen, and frequently has, in many cases. It only takes once.
In the story of Michael, what you’ve presented here does bear some open speculation, at least.
We who loved him and felt the deep loss of him, always spoke among us as to the possibility that he might’ve just relocated himself somewhere, and was really ok, just hiding.
Wouldn’t that be lovely!
I do like that idea, it does give some comfort, in a way – tho also raises the question as to, if this were so, it might also be sort of like his wry humor to somehow convey this to some of us, send off a little hint, maybe?
We all did, we all waited for “clues” to appear, and as for me, I guess I’ll always wait for some real sign from him – as my story never got a chance to be heard, up till recently.
Michael believed in me, and has kept me going all this time.
The fact I’ve managed to hold on, true to form and purpose, is a miracle and I’m very grateful to the good forces having allowed me to continue.
Your instincts to look into the whole story and revisit the strange and vivid facts and fancies surrounding the story are right-on!
More will be revealed soon …
Sincerely,
Amanda
______________________________________________
Wow! That’s quite a story!
______________________________________________
Yes, David – good interpretation of the scenario, and prelude to what is to come – stay tuned, by all means…
As the story unfolds, in waves,
– AT
______________________________________________
What a story indeed !
Perhaps the most perplexing part of this, that prevents the whole thing being dismissed as a flight of fantasy, is the exhumation of Mike Jefferey’s remains only to have them cremated.
I’ve long thought that Jefferey’s life would make a fabulous docudrama and the thought that he might be out there enjoying his dubiously gotten gains would make for a great ending.
______________________________________________
Well, David – You’ve certainly done some creative thinking here, and much to my liking in terms of the story whereby Michael is actually still with us!
But, how about this for an ending?
The truth.. they say it’s “stranger than fiction – ”
As in, “Michael the Dream-Maker, not a heart-breaker or villain – ”
And no “dubious gains,” but well-earned ones based on having made people’s dreams come true.
In time, along the way, all will be revealed – and I have strong reasons to know Michael would never do anything so terrible and treacherous to anyone!
He was very kind, a sort of “Dutch Uncle” to musicians, (and there’s a funny twist, as my own Uncle actually was Dutch), and Michael held yoga and meditations at his Woodstock home, gave thoughtful little gifts to me and others when going anyplace, was a total gentleman in the highest sense of the word, was whimsical and funny as well as a good mentor to me, and others, strongly believed in me and never stopped wanting to be someone who could make dreams come true.
Among the many things I learned in such intensive acting study (Stanislavski, Lee Strasburg, Wynn Handman) is, in-depth understanding of people and what they call “the spine” of the characters, and learning body language, voice tone, even the smallest inflections can relay so much – but even aside from this, are things he said to me during those times, opening up to me and advising me about all matters in some of our talks in that interesting office of his, and at Woodstock, things he told me – that for certain, the person who experienced these turning points, and bore the aftermath, came to these awakenings and nexus points, would never have been able to do anything so treacherous and vile to anyone.
So, then – how about a real story?
How about the truth?
Interesting twist, for sure!
– AT
______________________________________________
Roger: your piece on the Death of Hendrix was ultra fascinating. I have been conversing for few years with Ian Wright a writer and photographer who covered the period when Jeffries was ducking and diving across the UK and the Balearic Islands.
I was at one time Manager of the Marimba and El Toro and later PA to his erstwhile partner Ray Grehan. Ian was writing a book about that period and he had enough evidence, he thought, to more or less prove that Jimi was in fact murdered by Jeffries and/or his cohorts. According to Ian, Jimi wasn’t a great drinking man so they forced him to swallow some pills and forcibly pouring wine down his throat because Jimi was about to ditch Mike, as his Manager as Mike’s habit of cooking the books were becoming evident.
I tried to call Ian at his home in Las Vegas and he’s no longer answering. Whist we weren’t bosom buddies we were close enough that he would contact me if he moved,
I shall carry on looking for him but your article got me thinking. Could it be? Might he have? No doubt we shall see.
______________________________________________
Wally, I’m sure you, as many other people involved in the scene during this time have your own hopes, dreams and trajectory in life same as we all do – it’s natural.
But to say, speculate, regarding such a horrific deed – “he thought,” and “to more or less prove” must realistically be cast into the same category as “the world is made of green cheese because cheese is popular all around the world.”
And, who is the “they” who would suddenly appear like crazy henchmen jumping into the room and gagging Jimi with wine and pills?
Nonsense at best.
Jimi would sometimes enjoy a glass of red wine when socializing or out on the town.
And this was a tempestuous time we were all in then, people would love and break up and doors would slam and then swing back open again and hug and make up, just like real life.
Again, I was right there in the arena when all this was taking place.
I was a very shy and wary kid, and would’ve bolted way back if sending anything scary. Those very instincts have actually kept me going strong all along.
Good instincts are good to have!
AT
______________________________________________
I really don’t know what planet Amanda thinks she lives on but on planet earth where reality forces people to obey facts and truths it is more than obvious that Michael Jeffery murdered Jimi…There are females who like to use their female thinking habits to create reality the way they prefer and then make everyone else conform to it…It is a silly pollyannish way of thinking or even existing with its noticeable dependency on female frivolity as its means…Clearly Amanda grants herself the privilege of ignoring all the proven facts regarding Jimi’s death and forcing everything in to the solipsistic personal fantasy bubble of her rosy memory of Michael…Michael was a skilled British silver tongue trained in covert deception and intrigue… He was good at what he did and Amanda was not the only person to be fooled by his exploitative instincts…But life and reality don’t work that way and Amanda looks like she’s taking a fool’s promenade through the hellish noman’s land of Michael Jeffery’s murderous treachery while ignoring all the evidence for it and dismissing it with female whims…
On the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock I did a radio show to a 3 million demographic in New York City proving beyond a doubt that the forensic evidence the British government never bothered to process proved homicide…I have consulted with the world’s top forensic pathologists and not one person has been able to refute my claim…
Yes Amanda, more will be revealed. Only a fool would reduce the “lungs and stomach full of wine up to the throat” told to me in person by the attending doctor to “Jimi would sometimes enjoy a glass of red wine while socializing” in order to preserve her woman’s fantasy about Michael and shield herself from the ugly murderous truth…Amanda doesn’t realize Jimi had only a trace blood alcohol content at autopsy…That and the massive amount of vomit were pure signs of forced drowning in wine…Jimi took the pills on his own after Monika set him up to do so under Michael’s orders…Michael got Monika through British Intelligence and CIA…It was a classic black operation where Jimi was fooled by a foreign language label he couldn’t read and told the pills were weak European versions of Tuinol…When he passed-out he was then force-drowned with as much wine as he could hold…Jimi had fired Jeffery 12 hours earlier and Jeffry would have been killed for leading investigators back to the world’s most sensitive covert banks and the illegal Cold War purposes they were being used for…Jeffery was then offed in an evil mid-air collision also choreographed by Intel…Yes, those evil animals kill innocent civilians to cover-up their crimes…
______________________________________________
Well, “Buster,“ actually I hail from the planet Wha – as in whatever you reap you sow – and so, although I’ve printed my name upon these lines, I’m inclined to query as to why you haven’t, so I might inquire – is it Rumplestilskin??
Time is precious we all need to use it for the better good of all and create good in our paths
My thoughts and prayers are with all who inhabit this as well as every other planet –
Your sister in solidarity
Amanda
______________________________________________
I have to say Buster’s “on the money” (sic[k]) ‘for my money’ (there it is again; it’s the “love of” that stuff, not the stuff itself that is the “root of all evil”, and M. Jeffery certainly was ‘amorous’ in that department, but ‘I digress’) . .
My first thought was ‘deliberate plane crash’ to “off” a former ‘asset’ (Jeffery) who had become ‘inconvenient’ (to say the least); concomitant ‘innocent civilian deaths’ not considered important, in fact they make the ‘murder’ aspect disappear behind the ‘tragic accident’ narrative . .
I read somewhere a while back that the Lockerbie crash may have been drawn from the same ‘playbook’; allegedly there was a CIA operative onboard who was about to expose the Iran Contra and other ‘shenanigans’ of ‘rogue elements’ within the CIA – this form of ‘assassination as accident’ may be more common than we imagine . .
As for the ‘female fond memory’ angle: there were some similarly ‘gushing’ comments from a former waitress/dancer (and employee of MJ) after part 2 – I think – of the main piece about the man on this site . .
I want to say: “Let us not withdraw ‘the benefit of the doubt’ fully from MJ”, but a man who – allegedly – was no stranger to ‘insurance fraud’ (Club Marimba fire in Newcastle), and was prepared to kill (a Yugoslav guard) on an “it was him or me” basis, even keeping photos of the dead man’s family, surely had the ruthlessness to carry out what has been alleged re Jimi Hendrix . .
We – or at least I – ‘just don’t know’; not everything can be explained away by the “cock-up not conspiracy” argument . .
______________________________________________
But then again, a number of people have attested to Mr. Jeffery’s ‘diamond geezer/enlightened guru’ character; I wasn’t there so can’t really comment . .
My ‘gut feeling’ is that the ‘conspiracy’ aspect rings true; I just hope it isn’t ‘indigestion’ (of the known facts) . .
For what it’s worth, I have ‘seen’ Mr. Hendrix (his ‘spirit’, if that’s the right word) a number of times over the years, but not ‘to speak to’ . .
I wonder what he would say; at least we have his music and incomparable humour/manners etc. . .
Check out his Last Interview with Keith Altham: laugh-out-loud funny on innumerable occasions, partly due to K.A.’s ‘questions’ – and the main presenter’s ‘social worker’ earnestness – but mostly because of J.H.’s natural genius and spontaneous flair/wit . .
______________________________________________
Of course, if – as has been hinted at in these pages – M. Jeffery wasn’t on the plane that crashed (or was made to crash), this could equally well be explained by his links to mob and ‘intelligence’ interests . .
The JFK assassination allegedly brought together an unlikely ‘hotch-potch’ of similar seemingly disparate elements, united on the “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” principle . .
______________________________________________
I have read some more of Buster’s posts since I wrote the above three ‘comments’, mostly @
https://thevelvetrocket.com/2010/10/03/jimi-hendrix-murdered/
On there he expounds at great length on his version of “Tappy” Wright’s “M.Jeffery-dunnit” ‘theory’, which is covered in the book Rock Roadie; he (Buster) also gets into a ‘heated debate’ with someone called Jason – who is ‘not convinced’ (to put it mildly) by Buster’s ‘line of reasoning’ – amongst others.
At the beginning of the several thousand posts (2010-11) I felt Buster was the ‘voice of – at least some – reason’ and Jason the ‘fruit-loop’, but by the time you scroll down to 2015-16 those ‘designations’ are seeming to ‘swap’, and by recent 2020 posts Buster had disappeared after – arguably – being ‘holed below the waterline’.
I don’t want to ‘nail my colours’ to anybody else’s ‘mast’ at this stage, having discovered:
https://www.rockprophecy.com/hendrix_death.html
This site seems to be worth investigating ‘in depth’ (which I haven’t done yet), and appears to endorse the ‘roadies-dunnit’ ‘angle’, while also listing other possible ‘perpetrators’ and including ‘accident’.
I’d like to apologise to Amanda Trees who was ‘both’ of the female commenters I referred to, not entirely ‘supportively’ (understatement). She was around at the time, and while she may not have been aware of some of the nasty “boy’s stuff” that went on in those days, her defence of M. Jeffery rings (at least mostly) true – I think (but don’t ‘know’; I wasn’t there).
Amanda also hints at more ‘revelations’ to come; I’d be interested to hear those (as I’m sure a lot of people would) as and when they become ‘available’.
There’s also an interesting-sounding film coming out:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/new-jimi-hendrix-doc-explore-rainbow-bridge-film-1970-hawaii-show-2751186
______________________________________________
Your coverage is idiotic, Rick, and gives credit to a nay-sayer troll named Jason whose main input is offhand denial…Being ignorant of the subject as you are you don’t know who “Jason” is or what his background is before crediting him with refuting me – which any intelligent analysis of his input would show he hasn’t come nearly close to doing..Jason was given approval by Jim Hawthorn – a British ex-pat living in France who advised people to go look at his input to see a good example of us “conspiracy theorists” being set straight on the facts behind Jimi’s death…I suspect Hawthorn might be British Intelligence…He has a website that argues Jimi wasn’t murdered…http://hendrix.guide.pagesperso-orange.fr/death.htm
The problem with the Velvet Rocket is it is run by an American ex-pat named Justin Ames who is an internet journalist who posts on that Velvet Rocket website…Justin travels to interesting areas of world conflict over in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and writes articles…I do not know where his funding comes from and would like to point-out that him and his profile conform to a CIA journalist…No intelligent person would ignore that Justin is proferring the position of a person who is trying to stay on the safe side of international politics as a person with great vulnerability in his professional practices…Back in 2010 Justin, like many, caught wind of Tappy Wright’s book and wrote the original article where he took the popular viewpoint that there was no evidence and Tappy was seeking to exploit his connection to Jimi by fabricating the murder claim…I came in and told Justin it wasn’t that simple and explained why…Velvet Rocket was a good place for establishing the high ground and veracity of the evidence as you can see…There were several internet trolls who came in and tried the usual weak denial over those years in the thread and you can see they all exited after having their asses handed to them by yours truly…
Two years ago two dedicated denial trolls named Jason and Ivana showed up in the thread and started entering empty denial rhetoric…There were several murder evidence advocates in that thread who immediately saw what was going on and demanded the site owner (Justin) control his comments section and screen the trolls…Justin refused and accused us of attempting censorship…He then banned all the other murder advocates and made a rule that I was not allowed to question his oversight…That move turned Velvet Rocket over to the trolls and made their contempt and ignoring of evidence the new lowest common denominator…I suspect Justin was worried that himself and his adventures to areas of conflict in the Middle East might be threatened if he himself were seen as a host of government-indicting scandal…Instead of making those trolls answer the evidence they were ignoring Justin handed the site over to them and made a rule that his permissiveness of their trolling could not be questioned…A few months ago I made a protest saying either Justin moderate those two deliberate liars or that was it for me…Justin’s response was to ban me saying I violated his warning that his oversight could not be questioned…The oversight and moderation of any website is very important and is the sole determiner of credibility and content…Somewhere along the line Justin determined that my evidence was dangerous to himself and made the cowardly move of favoring a sick denial troll over one of the world’s top experts…Anyone with common sense can see Jason is making no attempt to credibly answer the facts and is only there to nay-say…Rick foolishly gives credit to Jason and suggests he drove me off with the truth when the real truth is I disappeared because the coward Justin Ames banned me and refused to take moderator responsibility for two denial trolls…There is currently no opposition on that degenerate black hole of mistruth the Velvet Rocket because Mr Ames has blocked all the pro-murder posters…
Rick here is just another internet nut who shows up and ignores 11 years-worth of the best evidence ever posted on the subject and credits one of the more demented liars on the internet with “holing me below the waterline”…Rick of course shows no substantial example of where Jason ever did that via any of Jason’s rank nay-saying entries and offers zero discussion of the actual evidence himself…Rick then offers more of his incoherent, wishy washy overtures sans evidence while referencing Michael Fairchild’s website…Fairchild was one of the first to break-away from the depraved pot smoking paradigm involved with analyzing the facts behind Jimi’s death and actually put cogent analysis to the official story…He then wrote the articles seen in the link Rick provides that was one of the first serious efforts to expose the conflicts in the story…Fairchild worked with Kathy Etchingham in her original investigation and was responsible for initiating what has now been further proven as far as the murder evidence…He also inspired myself and helped me catch up to the true scenario…However Michael had more quixotic interests as far as Jimi and went in a weird direction, later abandoning his murder pursuits for esoteric interpretation of Jimi’s stranger aspects…He made clear that he thought the suggestion Jeffery was involved was ridiculous and left it at Monika…
No Rick, you can’t get away with that that easy and there’s a reason why in the 11 years I have been arguing this on the internet there is not a single person on the planet Earth who has beaten me in an argument over the evidence behind Jimi’s death…You have a set of balls coming in here and just learning about this for the first time and speaking of me that way…And the bottom line is still argument of the details your posts conspicuously lack and proof of the evidence…There is not a single person in the world who has ever bested me in a credible debate over the evidence and many have tried…If you ever dared I would rip you a new one like the rest…
The matter of Jimi’s death is not trivial and cannot be handled in the ill-informed superficial way you offer…It is a subject that must be discussed according to its level of seriousness and scandal and the complexity of its evidence…It is not a subject for fools and trolls and those who only offer internet stupidity and arm chair reference…There’s too many people whose obvious motive is to determine the political temperature of this and take a safe position because they know they have no intention of ever researching the facts or taking a brave stand where they have skin in the game…Jimi tends to attract these types, unfortunately, and it was fully preyed upon by Mssr Jeffery…That’s going to change and I’m going to be that one who changes it for Jimi…
______________________________________________
I am new to this sequence. At first read it seems that someone has cooked up quite a theory about Jimi being murdered by Michael. I happened to also be on the scene at that time and I will attest to Michael being a gentleman. Although I never met Jimi I’ve been the places he’s been. I believe Jimi was typical in that he did too much acid and used heroin or other similar drugs to try and restore a feeling of being on the planet earth.
Yes, I’m sure Michael’s business practices went awry with Jimi. I sense Michael was flying by the seat of his pants while maintaining a townhouse in Manhattan, a country house in Woodstock and keeping things fine for his girl friend. By the way he had one at a time. I’m certain cash was short. He probably did use some funds intended for Jimi un advisedly to keep the showboat on the road.
I know he had a kind heart, was a regular guy with an extraordinary fate.
He was sincere and acted in good taste. Maybe he wasn’t perfect but he certainly wasn’t capable of planning and executing such an horrific murder scenario.
I think the person who has concocted such a scheme is off track.
______________________________________________
After becoming interested in reading about Jimi Hendrix’s life and death after reading David Henderson’s book back in 1981 and then buying up all his records during the 1980s and later on his cds over the last forty years I have at onetime or another believed all the death theories that have been put forward. My theory on what happened is it is known that Jimi Hendrix was last seen alive by a number of people attending a private party in the Marble Arch area of central London at 3:00am on September 18th 1970 after which Jimi left the party with Monika Danneman and was driven back to the Samakand hotel in the Notting Hill area of west London. Jimi was exhausted and needed some sleep badly so Jimi swallowed a number of strong German sleeping tablets belonging to Monika and unbeknown to Jimi the sleeping tablets were of a strong German verity where he accidently overdosed and died sometime between 4:00am and 5:00am before first light which was around 6:00am in September 1970. Monika was then faced with a world famous rock guitarist dead beside her in her bed!. One or maybe two people who were close to Jimi one being Jerry Stickells his road manager have said that they were aware of a ‘problem’ with Hendrix while it was still dark that morning of September 18th. I think it was just a tragic accidental overdose.
______________________________________________
Michael – I am probably the world’s authority on this subject and can back it up…If you had truly deeply studied this like I have you would know that the reason Monika was so desperate to get Jimi out of Kameron’s party at 3am is because she had been in contact with Michael Jeffery back at the Samarkand while Jimi was at the Marble Arch party…We know enough by now to safely assume Monika was working with Jeffery and was under his direction for that whole Samarkand stay…I have recently put out a video on You-Tube of a secret witness who verified that Jeffery had secretly flown to Paris and taken the train over to London on the 16th or 17th…If you view the video of “Selena” on Belgian TV interviewing Monika she said Jimi asked for the pills at 4am…This is accurate so Jimi took the Vesparax barbiturate at 4 to 4:30am…Jimi took 9 Vesparax tablets but pathologist Dr Atholl Johnston said in the recent ‘Perfect Murder’ documentary that Jimi only had 7 tablets worth of Vesparax in his blood at autopsy…What that tells you is Jimi only had the pills in him for 50 minutes or so because peak blood saturation is reached in as little as 1 hour with Vesparax, so Johnston only finding 7 in his blood, after Jimi took 9, means he died in less than an hour…The Underwriter Laboratories case histories for Vesparax overdoses show that persons who took 10 to 15 tablets never died in less than 4 hours…That strict laboratory survey showed that persons who took 1 to 6 more tablets than Jimi never died in less than four hours…As your own words show Jimi died only 50 minutes to 1.5 hours after ingesting the pills…Additionally Jimi had a notorious tolerance for barbiturates that would keep him safe from overdose from only 9 tablets…Beyond that, Jimi was also witnessed having vomited heavily at death…The Underwriter’s Laboratory case study showed that no real Vesparax overdose ever resulted in such profuse vomiting…The reason for that is because a real overdose causes barbiturine paralysis of the gag reflex, which is why people choke on vomit…The massive vomiting seen with Jimi proves he did not overdose and choke on vomit because he had to have a pretty healthy gag reflex to vomit as much as he did…Don’t forget, your own analysis shows Jimi died less than 1.5 hours after taking the pills…I’m afraid that this is court-worthy forensic evidence that something other than the barbiturate caused Jimi’s death and that something else was force-drowning in wine…I am a personal friend of the doctor who tried to save Jimi and he told me Jimi’s lungs were full to the hilt with red wine…Jimi’s autopsy showed a trace blood alcohol content that cannot be reconciled with those lungs full of wine…The only way those forensic particulars are possible is if Jimi had been drowned in wine before his intestines could absorb the alcohol…Any simple detective deductive reasoning would instantly realize the reason Monika first started calling out at dawn was because she had just witnessed Jimi murdered by Jeffery’s thugs…And any simple detective reasoning would realize Stickells never told of the true times and places he was called to also because he knew Jimi had been murdered – and having been apprised of the situation previously from his employment he knew the exact reason and covered it up…Mitch Mitchell wrote in his book that he got a call from Eric Barrett at around 7am telling him “Jimi was dead”…In 1975 Monika went on Caesar Glebbeek’s Amsterdam radio show and said “There were things that could not be brought to the police…The mafia murdered Jimi for sure”…I’m afraid you don’t realize your own arguments prove Jimi was murdered…It is more than proven at this point, as my words above show…
______________________________________________
Evidence analysis is a fascinating practice that teaches you new lessons even after doing it for 12 years…Just recently I realized Jimi’s autopsy doctor, Dr Teare, had secretly protested his being forced to conceal evidence by hiding some very important clues in his autopsy data…It is amazing how you can study a subject for 12 years and not realize something that was right there in front of you all along…In his autopsy Dr Teare mentioned that there were “bits” of vomitus in the small bronchi…The small bronchi are the tiny ducts at the furthest reaches of the lungs that provide ventilation for the alveoli…If you read Dr Teare’s entry carefully he mentions that there were “bits” of vomit in the smaller bronchi and he does not note any vomit anywhere else in the larger lung…I didn’t realize until recently that this was serious forensic evidence for the wine that many people say there was no evidence for…What Dr Teare was trying to tell us was that the vomit was delivered to the furthest reaches of the lungs by liquids that seeped and penetrated as far as they could in to voided spaces like is the nature of fluids…The reason there were “bits” of vomit in the smaller bronchi was because the vomit that was transported there was diluted in fluids and therefore resulted in dispersed bits instead of solid vomit…This is evidence of wine drowning the lungs because, if you pay close attention, Teare did not mention any vomit in the rest of the larger lung…The reason for that is simple…The vomit that was in the rest of the lung was suspended in the wine that flooded those larger cavities and was suctioned out with it by Dr’s Bannister and Siefert…This is slam dunk forensic evidence of the wine because if there was no wine then it would have been impossible for diluted bits of vomit to penetrate as far as the smaller bronchi…Also, if there was no wine then the only thing that could have pushed bits of vomit as far in to the lung as the smaller bronchi would be other vomit…And if there was no resuscitation then that other vomit would still remain in the lung in mass and would have been recorded by Dr Teare…For those who deny the wine to be correct would necessitate an explanation for how diluted “bits” of vomitus, as recorded by autopsist Donald Teare, got all the way to the smaller bronchi with no vomit in the rest of the lung?…The only way for bits of vomit to penetrate as far as the smaller bronchi would be if it were transported there by fluids…And the only way the rest of the larger lung would be clear of vomit would be if the vomit there was suspended in fluids and suctioned out with them…I’m afraid Dr Teare described the exact forensic pattern you would see if Jimi had been drowned in wine and it had been suctioned out at hospital…Furthermore, Dr Teare noted that one of Jimi’s lungs was collapsed…That was obviously the result of forces being applied to the lung that it wasn’t designed to withstand…Lungs are not designed to have fluids forced in to them and then forcefully suctioned out…Another clue that was right in front of us the whole time was the ambulance men noting pronounced gurgling sounds coming from Jimi when they carried him out of the flat…That, of course, was the wine releasing gas pockets as Jimi was shifted around…
The reason the doctors at St Mary’s treated Jimi, even though he was dead for 6 hours, was because there was no one at the Samarkand when the ambulance men got there…The ambulance men are not allowed to declare death so they did what they were required to do and transported Jimi to hospital…The Emergency Room doctors at St Mary’s are also held to a similar protocol and took Jimi the short distance from the ambulance to the equipment necessary to assist him in the Resuscitation Room…There’s a very simple reason why they attempted to resuscitate Jimi even though he was dead for 6 hours…It was because the first thing Dr’s Bannister and Siefert saw was wine flooding up to the back of Jimi’s mouth and they went right to trying to clear it in order to establish an airway…In other words they did exactly what they were trained to do and went right to ventilation…This in itself is indirect proof of the wine because it shows why they went right to resuscitation instead of triaging death… This situational evidence is proof of the wine…When you then add Dr Teare’s description of bits of vomitus in the small bronchi with no vomit in the larger lung it represents irrefutable evidence of the wine and its removal…Siefert and Bannister never considered triage because they were too busy removing a remarkable amount of wine that took up all their attention…They had to remove that wine in order to attempt resuscitation…The Hospital Report listed 11:45 to 12:15 under “Treatment Time”…This perfectly matches the 20 minutes to remove the wine followed by a 10 minute failed resuscitation attempt told to me in person by Dr Bannister…The autopsy sheet also says “Resuscitation Attempt Failed”…The people who are saying there was no wine and no resuscitation are defying a full body of facts that show the opposite…
A researcher interviewed the people at Kameron’s party and found out Jimi felt guilty because those people had bought Thai food for him as a special guest…At 2:45am Jimi went in to the kitchen and wolfed down a large plate of Thai food and that was the rice that was found in Jimi’s stomach at autopsy…It takes 4 hours for food to clear the stomach so with a 5:15 or 5:30am time of death that explains why the undigested rice in Jimi’s stomach was noted by Dr Teare…Jimi was dead for 6 hours before he arrived at St Mary’s…Also, Jimi’s lungs were the only thing that was suctioned at St Mary’s (in order to establish an airway)…They did not waste any time suctioning his stomach so the wine and rice that was in the stomach was still there at autopsy…
Lastly, Chief Coroner Dr Gavin Thurston told UPI reporter Jack Meehan “Jimi’s stomach contents at autopsy showed he had imbibed a large amount of red wine”…Again, I have known this for 12 years but just realized recently that this is also evidence of the lungs being drowned in wine…As England’s top pathologist Thurston was required by civil and medical law to process the disparity between a stomach full of wine and a trace blood alcohol content…It is literally Thurston’s job description to pursue the fact that a stomach full of wine does not forensically jibe with a trace blood alcohol content…If Thurston did his job he would have realized that what caused that stomach full of red wine to not register in the blood was the fact the lungs were drowned in wine and stopped the heart through drowning…In this case a stomach full of wine with a trace blood alcohol content forensically forces drowning of the lungs and is proof of homicide Thurston failed to process…And in the greater context it is therefore proof of corruption of the medical investigation…In my opinion Teare knew this and left us a forensic evidence trail that he knew the clever would figure out…
We’re home now and it turns out there WAS evidence of the wine in the autopsy after all…
______________________________________________
Good Lord “Buster. “, that’s quite an outstanding medical analysis worthy of Sherlock Holmes you’ve presented there !
Very convincing to boot !
After nearly 52 year’s a story is unfolding that you should fashion into book form me thinks.
I wonder if you think that M J is perhaps still alive?
Keep up the fine work and make the world wonder eh.
______________________________________________