By Martin H. Rots

When the paramedics arrived at the Samarkand Hotel late on the morning of September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix's lover, Monica Dannemann, was nowhere to be found even though it was her room.  They later testified that the apartment door was open and the small flat was empty with the exception of Hendrix's still body in the bedroom.  Jimi had died in the early morning hours sometime between three and four AM.  He was already cold.

They were much too late.

Upon awakening, Monica went out for cigarettes around ten that morning.  She initially claimed that Hendrix was sleeping soundly at that time and she didn't want to disturb him when she got up.  Upon her return, she became concerned when she was unable to rouse him from his sleep.  Instead of calling an ambulance, she called Jimi's friend, Eric Burdon. Alvinia Bridges answered the phone and advised Monica to call an ambulance.  When Monica called back a few minutes later, she still hadn't called for help.  Eric Burdon told her in no uncertain terms to immediately call for an ambulance, which she finally did at 11:18 AM.  It arrived nine minutes later.

This is where the stories diverge. 

When the ambulance arrived, they found the flat door open, but the attendants claim they found no one but the lifeless form of Hendrix in the apartment.  After an initial examination, they transported him to St. Mary Abbots Hospital where he was declared DOA.  According to Dannemann, she worked to revive Hendrix while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.  When it did, she rode with Jimi to the hospital and was separated from him in the emergency room.  Many years later, a doctor who was present that day, recalled a hysterical woman, possibly Dannemann. 

What happened in the hours immediately after Hendrix and Monica arrived at her flat?  Those who knew with certainty are dead.  According to Monica, she prepared a meal of tuna sandwiches for the two of them and they washed it down with some red wine before retiring.  Jimi sat up in the bed and wrote a poem/song while relaxing before he fell asleep.  Eric Burdon later misinterpreted it as a suicide note, which started the suicide legend.  Those who knew Hendrix at that time say it is unlikely that Hendrix committed suicide.  The post-mortem medical exam found he had consumed nine Vesperax tablets from a container of forty-two.  Suffering from chronic insomnia, Hendrix had built up a tolerance for pharmaceuticals over the years.  If his intention was to kill himself, it seems that he would have taken all the tablets.  He was tired from touring, but not depressed.   That night he told Monica he wanted to sleep for, "a day and a half."  Burdon later recanted his original statement regarding the circumstances of Hendrix's death.

Dannemann revised her story so many times that her testimony lacks credibility.  While it is possible she was just the victim of a poor or distorted memory, there is also the possibility that she was trying to conceal the truth, albeit poorly.  The question remains as to what motivated her to change her story so often.  Was she addled by drugs, frightened or simply possessed a poor memory?  We'll never know as she committed suicide in April, 1996

In 1999, James "Tappy" Wright, a former Jimi Hendrix roadie, wrote a book called Rock Roadie in which he claims that Hendrix's manager, Mike Jeffrey, confessed to ordering Hendrix's death so he could collect on a large insurance policy he had taken out on the musician.  Jeffrey allegedly made the confession to a stunned Wright in the months immediately following Hendrix's death.  The publication of Wright's book caused a furor among the conspiracy theorists.  The big question being why he had maintained silence for almost thirty years.  At the time of the book's publication, Dr. John Bannister, Hendrix's attending emergency room physician, stated that the amount of wine found in Hendrix's lungs and in his hair and clothes was consistent with the claim of murder.  Was it possible that Jimi died from being water boarded with wine?  No one mentions any bruises or defensive wounds on Jimi's body.  It is unlikely that Jimi, a former paratrooper, would meekly succumb to his assassins without putting up a fight, unless he was heavily drugged.  If his murderers were able to easily subdue and murder him, why would they leave a witness like Dannemann?  In a situation like this, swearing someone to secrecy is an insufficient means to insure silence.  There is really only one way to make certain someone doesn't talk, but inexplicitly, Hendrix's alleged murderers don't chose to permanently silence Monica.

Mike Jeffrey had a shady past.  The former manager of the Animals had made all their earnings disappear into his personal bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.  After selling millions of records and making hundreds of personal appearances, the Animals were broke at the end of their relationship with their manager.  He also claimed to be a former British intelligence officer and bragged about his organized crime ties.  The day Hendrix died, Jeffrey was in Spain on business.  Could he have been involved in the death of Hendrix?  Possibly, but Jeffrey isn't around to defend himself as he died in a plane crash in Spain in 1973.

The big problem with the insurance policy scam theory is that insurance companies don't just hand out multi-million dollar checks without looking into things first.  In spite of stories of Jeffrey paying off business debts and living the high life soon after Jimi died, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of an insurance company issuing a check or ordering an inquest into his death.  This casts suspicion on the whole theory.

Clearly, Dannemann knew more than she told.  An examination of Hendrix's body indicated that he had died between three and four that morning.  This disputes Dannemann's claim that Hendrix was alive when she returned with her cigarettes around 10:30 AM.  Dannemann's account of that night changed so many times that she was deemed an unreliable witness. 

What was she trying to hide?

Perhaps she was trying to clean the apartment of drugs before calling the authorities.  Maybe she herself was so high when she discovered Jimi had died that she needed to regain her composure.  It's easy to imagine her making the call, leaving the door open behind her and watching the ambulance arrive from down the street.  It's hard to believe that neither of the ambulance men recall anyone other than Hendrix, let alone a tall, blonde German woman, at the apartment when they arrived.  The two police officers summoned to the scene had similar recollections.

So what happened and who was involved?  The insurance murder on the orders of Mike Jeffrey seems unlikely.  If Jimi was trying to commit suicide, why didn't he take enough of the Vesperax to do the job?  He had plenty.  A habitual insomniac, Hendrix was familiar with barbiturates and their effects.  His body also had a high tolerance for the drugs. 

Perhaps the Vesperax was just a distraction.  Perhaps the real drug that killed Jimi was something special that wasn't going to show up in analysis.  Maybe the confusion that surrounds his last hours was desirable to certain people.  The deaths of Mike Jeffrey and Devon Wilson soon after Hendrix himself died was certainly convenient.  Monica Dannemann was the patsy.  She had no idea of the dynamics unleashed around her and dealt with them poorly until ending it herself.

There is another possibility, another theory based on conjecture, but no less plausible than the existing stories.  It has been suggested that Hendrix was killed by agents of the United States government.  Perhaps these agents took things into their own hands and went well beyond their orders and conducted a rogue operation to rid the world of Jimi Hendrix and a few of his contemporaries.  In the end, maybe it wasn't the Vesperax or the wine, or Mike Jeffrey or Monica Dannemann that ended Jimi's life.  Maybe someone close to him arranged his last exit under the direction of people who knew how to do these things discretely.   

My book, The Woodstock Conspiracy dramatizes the theory I arrived at after ten years of research into the deaths of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin.  To find out what I learned, order a copy today by following the link on the Home Page.