Jimmy Hendrix 'was murdered' by his manager, claims roadie

Rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager as part of an insurance scam, a new book by one of his former aides claims.

Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit when he was 27 – but the exact circumstances of his death have always been a mystery.

Now James ‘Tappy’ Wright, one of the rock star’s roadies, claims that Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffery, confessed to killing him. Jeffery is said to have made a drunken confession a year after the star’s death in September 1970.


Rock and roll: Jimi Hendrix's death was murder, claims former roadie

An ambulance crew found Hendrix’s body in the Samarkand Hotel in West London, in the room of Monika Dannemann, a girl he had known for just a few days.

Wright claims Jeffery was worried that Hendrix was preparing to find a new manager when their deal was due to end in December 1970. According to Wright, Jeffery said he went to the hotel room and stuffed Hendrix full of pills and wine.

The book, called Rock Roadie, out next month, recalls Wright’s life with various rock stars during the Sixties, including Tina Turner and Elvis Presley.

In it, Wright claims Jeffery, who was married to actress Gillian French, made the confession at his apartment in 1971, two years before he died in a plane crash.

He writes: ‘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.’

He says Jeffery 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.’


Suspect: Michael Jeffrey, pictured here at his wedding to actress Gillian French, is accused of murder

He quotes Jeffery as saying: ‘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.’

Wright claims that Jeffery told him he had taken out a life insurance policy on Hendrix worth $2million (£1.2million) with Jeffery as beneficiary.

The official cause of death was ‘barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit’, and the coroner recorded an open verdict.

This was vital for Jeffery.

Had the cause of death been suicide it would have given the insurers an escape clause.

The ambulancemen who found the body said he was discovered alone in the hotel room, lying in his clothes on his back, with a gas fire burning and the door wide open.

There is no record of who called 999.



John Bannister, the surgeon who tried to revive Hendrix at hospital, said he was convinced he had drowned in red wine. Yet Hendrix had very little alcohol in his bloodstream.

In 1992 he wrote: ‘I recall vividly the very large amounts of red wine that oozed from his stomach and his lungs, and in my opinion there was no question that Jimi Hendrix had drowned, if not at home then on the way to the hospital.

‘At the time I felt that he had either been on sedative tablets, to sleep or otherwise, and that he had imbibed copious amounts of red wine prior to going to sleep. I would suspect that he regurgitated the red wine and drowned.’