In other news, Jim Morrison is still alive.
**Jetblast **- you skipped responding to my post. I am not trolling - my statement is legitimate.
I have a couple of questions about this. The OP has mentioned the “written in stone” autopsy report repeatedly. Are these stone tablets available somewhere on the web? Could we perhaps have a link?
I keep reading that the alcohol level in Jimi’s blood was “low”, “negligible”. What was the exact number written in stone in the autopsy report? Aren’t barbiturates known to greatly amplify the effects of alcohol?
That’s a strange comment.
As much as I admire JH’s talent and innovation, I don’t really care that much about his personal life or how he died. If I knew him personally or knew his family, I’d probably feel differently.
Sure–according to legend, anyway. George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, was supposedly executed by being drowned in a butt of malmsey. From wikipedia (the easy source, but this all tallies with what I’ve read):
1) I don't think I "skipped" anything.
2) I don't recall accusing you of trolling.
3) If you look at the content of what I wrote vs your entries I think you have nerve considering the fact you are bascially saying you are going to skip any kind of serious look into this yourself and are advising me how to go about it and bring a package to you for your approval. I think you would have done better confronting the direct points instead.How about my questions in post 63 concerning the availability of the autopsy report and the actual number for his blood alcohol level? Do you have any update on those?
I actually agree with that.
My sources were people who had already examined that and were speaking in a way that assumed it as given. The first knee-jerk reaction to that would probably be "So you are admitting you have no proof or valid sources". Ah, no. The information I'm giving is verifiable and accurate to the autopsy data. Though I agree there should be a link showing the autopsy sheets and their information. I'll try to find something.
As to the blood alcohol level I've seen 20 microliters (?) (not sure of "microliters". I'll try to find the US equivalent) quoted and 40 microliters. In any case the amount is immediately incongruent with the large amount of wine the doctor witnessed and more in line with the glass of wine had by Hendrix at supper.
I have to question if accusations of conspiracy theory are fair or valid here considering there are confessions, provenly false stories, 'suicides' before testimony, and other credible input like the forensics and doctor's opinion, that make such doubting accusations not of equal value to what has already been presented.
Admittedly, though, the James Tappy Wright 'confession' has some holes in it. Wright claims that Jeffery told him "I was in London that night". Jeffery's secretary Trisha Sullivan said she was with Jeffery in Majorca that night. Also, Jeffery allegedly confessed to Wright that he and some thugs went into Danneman's flat that night and "forced some pills followed by wine down Hendrix's throat". There's a problem with that. The forensics showed that the pills were absorbed to the point Hendrix's gag reflex would have been shut-down. So the scenario Wright relates doesn't give enough time for the pills to be absorbed.
I'd like to see Wright given a lie-detector test. I'd also like to see him cross-examined. It could be that Jeffery told a deliberately false story in order to have it proven wrong. That way if he had gotten Monika Danneman to murder Hendrix after he was incapacitated somehow on Vesperax he would be shielding Danneman. Remember, Danneman told Sharon Lawrence she tried to wash 'sick' off of Jimi with wine. In doing so she exposed her knowledge of, and need to make an excuse for, the wine. The wine did deep penetration according to the doctor. It wasn't any superficial washing with wine that killed Hendrix.
If Hendrix was murdered this way, and it looks like he was, it would appear as the classic lethal combination of barbiturates and alcohol that it was. (The same thing that killed Marilyn Monroe) This suggests premeditation similar to Jeffery's covert ops background. Or it could just suggest a crude murder by London thugs with wine who took advantage of the opportunity of Hendrix being passed out on sleeping pills. Again, according to the forensics, the manner of death strongly precludes Hendrix doing this on his own accidentally. And don't forget the other surrounding lies and motives.
I'm trying to avoid the "CIA killed Hendrix" business because it could be Jeffery was a legitimate spy, and did work for MI6 (which is true), but that he killed Hendrix simply for business reasons as his manager. First we need to establish the facts surrounding the manner of death.From our old friend Wikipedia:
Bolding mine.
If something that is so simple and so easily done and so often referred to is also so elusive and unavailable from you in this discussion, then I think that suggestions that you are behaving like a typical CT nutter are perfectly appropriate. You are relying on evidence you haven’t seen and can’t even quote. It also happens to be one of those pieces of evidence that is usually unequivocal, and that you have said several times is important and written in stone.
Produce the stone.
ETA - Wikipedia also says that the standard unit in Britain for blood alcohol level is 1/10,000 (‱) g/mL = 100 μg/mL
I am sorry if you think I “have nerve” - that is not my intent. My point is: you, like me and all the other posters on the SDMB, are some random, anonymous dude/dudette on the Internet.
While I find Jimi Hendrix to be brilliant as a guitarist and fascinating as a life story, I have NO time to invest in this issue - sorry, it’s true - and it shouldn’t be surprising to hear - we’re all busy and it is easy to get Conspiracy Fatigue™. If you want your case to get a fair hearing, YOU are going to have to do all the legwork - again, a harsh but true reality. While you have pulled together a case, you haven’t gotten anyone who isn’t more than a Dude on the Internet to provide any type of credibility.
So yeah, your case lacks credibility and you are fighting me about who needs to establish that credibility. I am the type of person you would want to engage - passionately invested in music in general and a great Hendrix lover and far more knowledgeable than your Average Joe (check my threads on guitar on the SDMB) but not in a position to dig into this. And, thus far, you have not demonstrated a willingness to pursue credibility - you want me to merely accept you as an expert and your case as solid and take it from there. Not gonna happen - that’s not a personal attack on you at all - just logical given the situation…surely that makes sense?
This is pretty pathetic, IMO. The confessions and doctor’s testimony appeared to be fairly widely disbelieved, and the forensics, as you put it, are notably missing from what you have brought to the discussion.
I’m not an expert on this. I had never read a suggestion that Hendrix was murdered until you started this thread. I admire Hendrix as a musician and really don’t care what caused his death.
So I looked at the “evidence” you presented, and actually tried to give you a couple of easy questions the answers to which would help us all understand why you are so convinced. Obviously, since the autopsy report is the most concrete evidence on which you relied, based on how confidently you wrote about it, you would have it at your fingertips and provide us with germane quotes and/or a link. Obviously, since you confidently stated that his blood alcohol level was low, you knew what his level had been and how that level compared to normal standards of intoxication and would be quick to share all of this with us.
But no, you don’t seem to actually know anything about the autopsy report or the blood data. That’s one of many reasons you are contending with suggestions that you are a credulous purveyor of internet nonsense.
A “tube” is not a unit of medical measurement. We deal in liters and fractions thereof.
What’s clownish is referring to “bottles of wine” “gushing out”. If you find fluid in someone’s upper respiratory tract, even if it carries the scent of wine, that doesn’t mean it’s all wine. It could be largely other stomach contents, edema fluid etc. No credible medical examiner makes references like the one you described.
Have you considered that maybe he was only metaphorically pickled?
Wow. That’s the first time I’ve been semi-accused of murdering a rock star. Can I prove otherwise? That’ll be tough. I know I should have been in school, but it’s going to be hard to get hold of the attendance records from that far back. I’ll have to check with [del]COINTELPRO[/del].
Ooops.
Quite right.
60’s drug deaths were pervasive among artists, musicians and anyone in general who could afford to get so wasted they overdosed, and yet it seems that for each celebrity death there is a multi-layered “conspiracy” of one kind or another patched together from conflicting “just so” type stories told decades after the fact.
Maybe it was a conspiracy, but given the absolutely huge tendency of people (esp fame whores and people on the margins of celebrities lives) to make any kind of crazy shit up so they can get a media payday I don’t think I would be betting on conspiracy vs garden variety overdose.
Being dunked in a vat of wine is a bit easier to imagine than having a bottle shoved into one’s windpipe, though.
Why on earth would anyone want to murder him?
I disagree. If you were to pursue this with as much effort as you seem to put into denying it I think you would find that the book by Shapiro that Bannister was reading only put forth the claim but not the precise forensic evidence. So the actual order of events was Bannister came forth with his witnessing of the wine in the lungs not because Shapiro planted the idea in his mind but because he realized he possessed knowledge that could further the evidence. Bannister brought the forensic of the wine not Shapiro.
As far as trying to impugn Bannister's credibility, I would think that would be the predictable course for those trying to deny the obvious. I don't see Bannister as a crazy doctor deciding to make all this stuff up for sensational purposes.
Thanks for being honest about your not caring. It saves us a lot of time and effort. I also believed the choking on vomit story all these years. But something about Hendrix's death always bugged me. I think I know why now.
You jump too quickly. Let's try to find a link to the autopsy forensics.
The operative argument here is still the scientific relationship between the alleged bottles worth of wine found in Hendrix by Doctor Bannister and the relatively low blood alcohol level. Surely one needs not argue the scientifically predictable blood alcohol level of chugging several bottles of wine. It would have to be above a negligible amount of blood alcohol as common sense dictates. I believe Doctor Bannister when he says "an unusual amount of wine in the lungs and stomach" and that he had never experienced anything like it before.
I think the fact you grasp on to the weakest opportunity vs the greater circumstantial evidence you conspicuously avoid puts what you say above to proper perspective.
I assure you when we retrieve the autopsy data it will confirm what I am saying. As much as this doesn't deserve a response, this is all simply solved by taking the internet character "Jackmannii" and putting him next to Doctor Bannister with his critical questions. I think we would see that questioning things that could easily be proven, like the volume of the suction syringe, or Doctor Bannister's estimation of the amount of wine, as the specious exercise it is. It would quickly become clear who had credibility and who didn't.
You are talking 1970 when medical examination, especially for black people, wasn't at the same standard you reference. Doctor Bannister admitted he thought it was just a plain overdose at the time. The further examination at the British Government Inquest in October 1970 was based on Monika Danneman's story. That story was cut apart and eventually led to Danneman's being subpoena-ed. Apparently you allow yourself the privilege of ignoring the fact she died an unnatural death just prior to being forced to account for her story in court.
I would counter that no credible examiner of this case would allow themselves to ignore all that. In my opinion you are trying to reach for excuses against the obvious description given by Doctor Bannister. I accept his professional judgment and opinion (and qualifications over people who just seem to be internet observers raising doubts).In your first sentence, are you disagreeing with my characterization of your argument as pathetic, or my mentioning of widespread disbelief of the doctor’s story? If the former, I’ll let you continue to prove my assessment. If the latter, I googled the doctor’s name and found lots and lots of sites that disparage his credibility.
Dude, the weakness of everything you are on about is pretty neatly exposed by the fact that I did not attempt to go after the weakest part of your argument. I deliberately tried to elicit cites for what I thought, in my ignorance, would be the strongest, most solid, and easiest to support part of your story. And you can’t support it at all.
Your belief in the doctor’s story is nice, but not persuasive of anything except your credulousness. He had never seen anything like that before? Big deal. How many doctors do you think have seen multiple cases like that? My guess would be few.
Your “operative argument” depends on two things that it is incumbent on you to support, and you have not done so. If liquid came out of a corpse during an autopsy it would have been measured. The tables are designed to catch liquids, and doctors are trained to collect and measure such things. The doctor saying decades after the fact that “bottles” of wine came out is evidence of nothing. The time to record usable information about what he saw was at the time of the autopsy. His recent statements are worth exactly nothing. And you still haven’t done anything to support your religious belief in a negligible blood alcohol level.
Well, the general current reason is that his manager Michael Jeffery was a son of a bitch who had already ripped-off and mismanaged the British band the 'Animals'. Jeffery had a management style that involved ferreting monies to Bahamian offshore tax shelter bank accounts and lying about the band's income and pocketing the difference. Apparently Hendrix wised-up to the fact he was only receiving 3% of the monies he created. Jeffery had an abnormally disproportionate 40% contracted interest in the band written up when Hendrix was struggling to get notoriety and make a name for himself and was willing to sign anything. Hendrix proved his naivety by signing a $1 contract a year earlier with New York 'producer' Ed Chalpin that plagued him for the rest of his career.
Jeffery controlled and dominated Hendrix. He made management moves that didn't aid his artist but sought to compromise him in order to make him more under the control of his management and purposes. While stealing cash Jeffery made mafia loans to keep the band solvent and tried to make Hendrix dependent on him by miring him and his future earnings in his private 'Electric Lady' studio in New York.
Jimi caught on to all this and wanted out. Just prior to his death he was suing Jeffery which would have exposed his doings in court and therefore been grounds for breach of contract and therefore legal termination of contract. Because Jeffery was extended way out there to the mob his separation from Hendrix and his assets would have ruined him and maybe even gotten him killed. Jeffery was a cornered rat.
If you read the thread you can see the rest with road crew member Tappy Wright saying he heard Jeffery confess to killing Hendrix for the very reasons above. Incidentally, Alan Douglas, Jimi's post-death producer also said he heard Jeffery say things that he interpreted as admitting he killed Hendrix.
Jeffery certainly ran Hendrix in a counterintelligence way. Whether that was officially done or not has yet to be shown. Jeffery was a British Intelligence MI6 operative during his national service.It’s absolutely certain, I tell you. Written in stone, it is. No doubt about it.
If only I could read it first. :rolleyes: