The Brian Jones Trip
This page will feature all the murder theories, in order
of their appearance. Right
now we only have a few posted, but we will be adding more.
The Brian Jones Trip
does this as a public service, not for the fun of
it, we can assure you. We
do not support or promote any of these theories. We
make (almost) no editorial comment on the stories. (For that, see our satire
section.) Also,
check out our regular Book Reviews in Cool, Calm
& Collected.
Please remember that Brian Jones’ death is not an unsolved mystery. The case is closed with a verdict of accidental drowning whilst under the influence, etc.
From this point on it would perhaps be best to keep in mind the old occult teaching -
1979
Up and Down with the Rolling Stones the Inside Story
by Tony Sanchez
Whodunnit? No suspect named, but an employee who was supposed to be looking after Brian seems to be involved.
Motive: None given, but several rip offs against Brian are alleged or insinuated.
Bombshell
Tony doesn't mention anything about crooked builders not doing their jobs. His builders renovate the properties. Period. But, oh, the rest of the employees!
Click the link to read Tony's tale .
Death of a Rolling
Stone the Brian Jones Story
by Mandy Aftel
Whodunnit? If it was murder the nefarious Frank Throgood
(sic), the crooked builder, seems to be suspect #1
Motive: none suggested
Says Mandy: "Part of the rock 'n' roll mythology that has grown since
Brian's death concerns the many death theories that have emerged - some
believable, some fantastic…"
Such as:
1. Keith hid in the bushes and then
pushed Brian in the pool
2. the Mafia held Brian underwater because he
knew too much about the Stones’ finances
3. Brian, with much preparation, committed
suicide
4. George
Chkiantz thought Brian had died from a seizure similar to the one he had
witnessed that night in Tangier..." too much drink.... one of those
paralysis things"
5. Ian Stewart thought it was
"accidental...Most likely thing was he was drunk and he fell into the
pool."
|
Excerpt from: Death of a Rolling
Stone The Brian Jones Story by Mandy Aftel In those last few week (sic), sycophants invaded
Cotchford. Brian shelled out the money and the dope to ward off the
loneliness. Keith described the scene: "Hangers-on. Buying them booze,
out by the pool, sort of La Dolce Vita...for the companionship." During
Brian's last three weeks, June 17 to July 3, 1969, he lived with the Swedish
Anna Wohlin, his latest girlfriend, who was twenty-three; Janet Lawson, a
nurse; and Frank Throgood (sic). a forty four year old builder. Janet and
Frank lived in the guest apartment above the garage. People
who knew Frank thought he was a rather nefarious character, and why Brian
employed him was unclear. "Brian said that Frank was taking him for a
ride," Alexis said, "-charging him for work that wasn't being done.
[Brian] took me around the house and deliberately showed me bits of the house
he had paid to have done that were...a couple of thousand pounds here, eight
hundred pounds there, that hadn't been done and he'd been charged for it...I
suppose there's a part of Brian that would let Frank go on doing it. Otherwise
Frank would have had some incredible hold over Brian, which seems
unlikely." Christopher Gibbs said, "[Frank] was taking Brian for
the most incredible series of rides and hanging around there with his friends
getting drunk all the time. Brian was aware of that kind of thing, but liked
having friendly people nearby. People he couldn't conceivably regard as the
enemy - because he got very paranoid after his busts." Mystery
surrounds Brian's death. Newspaper accounts differ about significant facts.
Many friends I spoke to had their own death theories... Looking
back, Keith felt that the combination of barbiturates and alcohol was
devastating. “His asthma was psychosomatic. The thing was that Brian was
taking so many Tuinal, barbiturates, and Mandrax...Diving into a swimming
pool full of booze and barbiturates, you really have to assume that somebody
only has to get hurt...There's so many stories [about what happened when
Brian died] that none of them sounded authentic because they didn't tie in
there..." A
strange twist came for Jim Carter-Fae, the manager of The Speakeasy, who knew
Anna Wohlin before she met Brian: "The night Brian died I got a call
form Anna, maybe about ten minutes after it happened. Somebody got the phone
and put it down and she called me a bit later. Anna was very upset. She was
moved out of the country and told to say nothing - so fast it wasn't true. I don't know who made her do this. Anna
told me she had never seen Brian as happy as he was the night he died, with
the way things were going with the band. She said that she had gone upstairs
to sleep, then suddenly she came down. Frank and the nurse were standing by
the pool, Brian was there and they weren't doing anything at all. Anna dived
in and tried to fish him out. Brian was floating underwater in the pool and
they wouldn't help her at all. They were just standing by the pool watching.
And after that Anna said everything disappeared from the house. |
1985
BRIAN JONES THE INSIDE STORY OF THE
ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE
by Nicholas Fitzgerald
Whodunnit? he’s not sure, but probably the Stones’ office ordered the workmen to do it
Motive: probably greed/fear of the economic impact the Super Group would have on the Stones’ finances
BOMBSHELLS
Recap: Suki left Brian at the beginning of June because of the drinking and the fights. On June 17 Brian called Nicholas, quite drunk, and said he had a new girlfriend named Anna. (Strangely, Nicholas never gets to meet Anna Wohlin.) Brian was paranoid, saying he was being watched, being guarded, and spied on. Suki called on July 1st and asked Nicholas to go down and see if Brian was all right. She didn’t like the people Brian was hanging around with.
Nicholas and his 19-year-old chauffeur Richard Cadbury went down the next day, arriving at Hartfield at 1:30 pm. They were having lunch at the Hay Waggon when Brian walked in with a workman from the farm; Brian came to use the phone. In the restroom Brian told Nicholas that he was being followed, and someone was telling his employees to watch him. Brian was sure the Stones’s office had hired them as henchmen. Brian didn’t employ these people, and he couldn’t fire them. They were treating Brian badly, and ripping him off. He wanted Nicholas to stay with him that night, just to hold him. When they came out of the restroom, the workman was gone. Brian had to get back to the house, before anybody noticed he was missing. (?)
Nicholas and Cadbury drove Brian to Cotchford. Brian told them he was almost broke, living on credit. Brian was going to start a new group; it would be bigger than the Stones. John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix were going to join. Brian was scared out of his mind that someone would try to stop him. The servants were installing two spotlights at the pool, which Brian had had painted the same blue color as the sea off the coast of Morocco. Brian and Nicholas couldn’t understand why the pool needed lights. Brian didn’t trust the workmen, the next day he planned to get the whole mob out.
Brian suspected that someone was trying to convince him that he was mad. It was like a bad movie. Things kept disappearing. Brian had seen two colored lights flashing on and off in the trees one night.
For some reason the workers didn’t go home at six o’ clock that night. A girl phoned and Brian sent Nicholas to a hotel to pick her up. But it was a wild goose chase; the girl never showed up. Nicholas called Brian, a woman said ‘Hello?’ He asked for Brian, and then all he could hear for about three minutes was a wild party going on, then the line went dead. They drove back to the house to find a foreign car, nobody in it, blocking the drive. The house was silent, although the lights were on. Nicholas and Cadbury crept through the woods and around the summerhouse to the pool….
|
Excerpt from: BRIAN JONES THE INSIDE STORY
OF THE ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE
by Nicholas Fitzgerald We had a clear view of the pool and of what was going on there. And what the hell was going on? At the far right hand corner of the swimming pool three men were standing. They were dressed in sweaters and jeans. Their clothes gave the impression they were workmen. The power of the spotlights blotted out their features and made their faces look like white blobs. The moment I became aware of them, the middle one dropped to his knees, reached into the water and pushed down on the top of a head that looked white. At the opposite corner of the pool- far left -stood two other people, a man and a woman, gazing down into the pool where the kneeling man was pushing down on the head, keeping it under. The man to the right of the kneeling man said something. It sounded like a command and I caught the words “…do something.” At that, the third man on that side jumped into the water the way an animal might jump, arms outstretched, knees bent. He landed on the back of the struggling swimmer. The man who snapped out the command seemed to be preparing himself also to jump in. Breathless, unbelieving, paralyzed, I looked at the man and woman. She was standing a little in his shadow and I couldn’t see her face. But why didn’t they move? Do something? They looked like extras on a film set, waiting to play their parts. Somebody had got to do something. Could Richard and I…? Out of the bushes right next to us stepped a burly man wearing glasses. He pushed Richard out of the way. He grabbed my shoulder. His other hand made a fist, which he put in my face menacingly. “Get the hell out of here, Fitzgerald, or you’ll be the next,” he growled. It was a cockney accent (hint – this is supposed to be Tom Keylock). I was terrified. He meant it. There was no way I could do battle with him. He turned me around and pushed me hard in the back into the woods…ahead of me I heard the rustle and swish as Cadbury went struggling away. I followed this sound…I fell and hit a tree with my head… And now I saw the lights of the parked car. I saw Cadbury climbing into mine. I got in beside him and I couldn’t breathe. Asthma. I grabbed my inhaler and puffed too many times… (They are shaking and hysterical, but they get
away.) …The effect of the shock of that night was to numb my mind, to blot out all the horror of what I had seen. (Then the car ran out of gas, of all things.) “I saw a place back there,” he (Cadbury) said. “About half a mile. I’ll try and knock them up.” He left, walking like a man in a trance, into the darkness. It was the last time I ever saw him. (A truck driver stops and picks up Nicholas. Nicholas thought they
would find Richard along the road, but Nicholas fell asleep and didn’t wake
up until the driver stopped at his apartment in Cheyne Court. Nicholas took a
lot of Valium and went to bed. When he woke up he learned that Brian was dead
in a pool tragedy. Nicholas couldn’t talk about it.) Then the telephone rang…It was Richard Cadbury, and his voice was very shaky. “Nicholas. God, I’m scared. I’m getting out. I’ve moved all my stuff out of the studio. The car’s downstairs, I’ve left the keys…” The phone went dead. The dial tone came on. He hadn’t as he usually did, used a pay phone. He hadn’t a telephone at his studio. That was the last I ever heard from Richard Cadbury. (Although he believes Brian was murdered, Nicholas decided not to go
to the police. He felt threatened and decided to keep his mouth shut.) Nothing would bring Brian back. (Nicholas recovers enough to go to the funeral in Cheltenham with his
girlfriend Sara.) Over to our right
were Keith Richard, Anita Pallenberg, Mick Taylor and Spanish Tony…. Just as
we prepared to leave the church, I saw that Keith and Anita were still
sitting in their pews, stunned and miserable, as if they hardly had the will
to live, let alone get up and go. (Who hasn’t twigged yet? Anybody? Everybody’s caught on? Good. You
get it that if Fitzgerald is seeing people who weren’t there at the funeral,
he’s not a reliable witness, is he? Why, he’s - making things up! This just might be the real reason
why he never took his story to the police, wouldn’t you say? The police don’t
go for this kind of BS. They might even ask pesky questions, like – “Is this
guy really a Guinness heir? Who are his parents?” etc.) |
1990
BLOWN AWAY
by A.E. Hotchner
Whodunnit? two unnamed construction workers employed at Cotchford
Motive: jealousy
Bombshell
Interview with Cotchford worker and murder witness “Marty” (not
his real name), a short man with sideburns now living in London, who was paid
200 pounds for his story. See
below.
Recap: Brian knew people were ripping him off. The cook was acting like he was Brian’s boss and buying furniture for himself that he charged to Brian. No one would want to murder Brian, but it’s hard to believe Brian could have died in a swimming pool, he was such a good swimmer, and some very weird things happened that night. Brian had not been doing drugs, he wasn’t at all drunk, he was in a good mood because he was happy with his music at the time. The Stone’s chauffeurs had a weird hold over Brian, he was surrounded by the wrong kind of people, there was a big party going on that night, a lot of chicks were there, somebody didn’t take care of Brian. Maybe it was an accident.
Those construction guys were at the party with their girls, they resented Brian for being foppish and rich, they were sucking him dry with fake bills, they hated him. One of the Walker Brothers told Richard Hattrell that he was at the party; it was a rough party, there was a “jealous” feeling in the air. Guys were beating Brian, poking fun at him. He saw someone standing on Brian’s head to keep him from getting out of the water. The Walker Brothers guy left the party, he heard later that the whole house was stripped after Brian died.
Those guys at the party got carried away, they got kind of crazed, and they hated Brian for being rich and doing nothing and having beautiful women and wearing those super fancy clothes. Brian could be snotty, he looked down on them, treated them like shit. Keith talked to the cat that got rid of everybody before the cops arrived but he couldn’t find out who was at the party or what happened. Maybe the guy did the right thing, to keep people’s names out of the paper.
Jim Carter-Fea says Anna Wohlin woke up to find two people just standing looking at Brian on the bottom of the pool. Someone insisted that Anna and her best friend Linda Lawrence should leave the country; maybe they didn’t want Anna’s story to come out.
|
Excerpt from: BLOWN AWAY THE
ROLLING STONES AND THE DEATH OF THE SIXTIES by A.E. Hotchner We’re talking almost twenty years back, when I was an apprentice on the job, I won’t say doing exactly what, but the lot of us was fixing up this old place where Brian Jones lived. Hadn’t been tended to in years. We was taking our time, fucking off, running up hours. Anyway, what you want to know about is that night Brian drowned. We was there, some of us who was working on the house. Came back after work with some girls, wives. I meself was there alone. It was, you know, drinks, some eats, some guys had joints. There was two guys in particular had it in for Brian. Been on his back for weeks, I mean, always making remarks, the rich fag, all that kinda stuff. They used to pinch stuff off Brian all the time-leave work with a bottle or a coupla towels under their shirts, some shit like that. Anyway, this night Brian was swimming a lot. He could swim good, bounce off the driving board, lots better than any of us lads, and the girls was watching him, also because he was a celebrity, they sort of gave him attention. These two guys got pissed about that- they were drinking pretty good by then- it was kind of like, when it started, kind of like teasing. Sort of grabbing Brian by the leg and pulling him down, meanwhile saying bitchy things, just horsing around, but kind of rough. Sort of interfering with his swimming. I wasn’t paying much attention at first, just that they were poking at Brian and roughing him up in the water, and a coupla the girls began to say, “Aw, let him alone, will ya?”- like that, but that just sort of made these lads pester Brian all the more, and then Brian tried to get out the pool and they wouldn’t let him, kept pushing him back and pulling him under, and then it started to get rough and these lads really got worked up at Brian the more he resisted, I mean, really bad-mouthing him now and ducking him under water and keeping him under and then letting him up for a coupla seconds and he was gasping and then down again. I guess they were just wanting to throw a scare into him, I don’t know, but they seemed to get more steamed about Brian the more they pushed him down, and I could tell it was turning ugly as hell. Finally, one lad wanted to get Brian out, but the other wouldn’t let him and they was kind of tugging on him. It got real crazy and then the next thing I heard was somebody say, “He’s drowned.” That’s the first we knew what these guys had done, and somebody said, “Let’s get the hell out of here, and we all ran for it…” Marty
(not his real name) |
1995
Paint It Black
by Geoffrey Giuliano
Whodunnit? Two hippie/workmen named 'Joe' and 'Frank'. (Not from Frank Thorogood's regular crew.)
Motive: 'Joe' thought it was an accident during horseplay at the time, but Giuliano reveals that Frank Thorogood was behind it all. Perhaps Hippie Frank (now dead of heroin overdose)was paid by Thorogood (now dead of old age) to 'take care of Brian'. Thorogood's motives are not known.
BOMBSHELLS
·
The Sussex CID made inquiries into rumors surrounding Brian's death, but found them without foundation. This was stated in the Daily Express, August 27, 1969 by Inspector Laurence Finlay, head of the Sussex CID. The police had 'no interest' in the case.
·
Tom Keylock was at the party. (But Keylock denies everything, p 145.)
·
Interview with flamboyant gay Cotchford party guest Elan. Elan was the only one to make a fuss when they were working over Brian.
·
Interview with hippie workman 'Joe', one of the two killers.
page 139 Interview with 'Joe'
1999
Swedish
Meatballs and Murder: THE ANNA WOHLIN STORY or “Imaginary Conversations Put
into the Mouths of Dead People Written whilst Thinking of All the Money It
Could Mean in My Bank Account and How I Might Buy My Own Exotica Knickers Boutique Someday”
by Christine
Lindjoos and Anna Wohlin (For this
one you WILL have to go to our satire pages. )
Whodunnit? Brian’s builder and houseguest Frank Thorogood, but maybe he was working with others
Motive: Take
your pick from the smorgasbord of possible motives, there’s plenty to go
around,
take three or four! The
main offering is that Brian allegedly fired Frank for shoddy work and
then stopped Frank’s last check. This made Frank moody and when Brian
started teasing Frank, the builder snapped. Notable
for its absence (unless we missed something) – The beloved ‘Brian was killed by
gay bashers’ motive.
BOMBSHELLS
·
There was no party, as previously
reported in Fitzgerald’s book and all the others.
·
The authors make not
one mention of Nicholas Fitzgerald.
·
Wohlin believed that Frank murdered Brian the whole
time.
· Books about Brian Jones could be even worse than we thought possible.
2000
The Covert War Against Rock: What You Don't Know About the Deaths of Jim Morrison, Tupac Shakur, Michael Hutchence, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Phil O
by Alex Constantine
Whodunnit? The CIA.
Motive: Brian and the rest were silenced for subverting government thought control tactics.
BOMBSHELLS The CIA has a war against rock.
I haven't read this one, but I do know that Constantine is a follower of Hotchner. Constantine is aware of the Lindjoos/Wohlin book, but believes that it supports Hotchner. It should be mentioned here that there is a popular movement which believes that Wohlin is telling the truth, but isn't sharp enough to know what was really going on (a big plot), and another school of thought which believes that Wohlin knows there was a big plot against Brian and is actually speaking in a code of some sort in her book to get her message out to the public. (Shall I go on? Yes, I shall - and then there's me who thinks the Wohlin book is just silly crap start to finish, and another faction which thinks Anna is covering up her own guilt.)
For now I'll just insert this review found on the net. This reviewer claims there is no EVIDENCE presented by the author to back up the CIA theory. Somehow this does not surprise me.
Badly Written Paranoid Fantasy, August 14, 2000
Reviewer: A reader from St. Louis, MO
Not only is this book so murkily written that it borders on unreadable, but the author offers not a shred of concrete evidence to support his paranoid fantasy--that the CIA was behind the death of every one of the above-mentioned rock stars. This is trash fiction masquerading as investigative journalism.
Okay, here's a review written by someone who read the Covert War on Rock and liked it. I gather that the 'construction crew' was working for the CIA?
