Hendrix’s manager murdered him, says former aide

LONDON - A former roadie has claimed in a new book that rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager.

According to James “Tappy” Wright, Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffrey, who stood to collect millions of dollars on the star’s life insurance policy, drunkenly confessed to killing him by stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them down with several bottles of red wine.

Wright says Jeffrey did so because he feared Hendrix intended to dump him for a new manager, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday.

In his book, Rock Roadie, Wright says Jeffrey told him in 1971 that Hendrix had been “worth more to him dead than alive” as he had taken out a life insurance policy on the musician worth 2million dollars, with himself as the beneficiary. Two years later, Jeffrey was killed in a plane crash, reports The Independent.

Hendrix passed away in September 1970. He was 27.

An ambulance crew found his body in the Samarkand Hotel, west London, in the room of a woman called Monika Dannemann, whom he had known for only a few days.

Describing the night of Jeffrey’s confession, Wright wrote: “I can still hear that conversation, see the man I’d known for so much of my life, his face pale, hand clutching at his glass in sudden rage.”

Wright claims Jeffrey told him: “I had to do it, Tappy. You understand, don’t you? I had to do it. You know damn well what I’m talking about.

“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.

“I had to do it. Jimi was worth much more to me dead than alive. That son of a bitch was going to leave me. If I lost him, I’d lose everything.”

Surgeon John Bannister, who dealt with Hendrix at hospital, said he was convinced the star had drowned in red wine, despite having very little alcohol in his bloodstream. (ANI)