Jimi Hendrix doctor says murder claim plausible

John Bannister said that medical evidence was consistent with claims in a book that Hendrix was killed on the orders of his manager, Mike Jeffery.

James “Tappy” Wright, a former road manager who worked for Jeffery, writes in his new memoir, Rock Roadie, that in the early hours of September 18, 1970, a gang hired by Jeffery broke into the London hotel room where Hendrix was staying with his girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, and forced sleeping pills and wine down his throat until he drowned.

Mr Bannister was the on-call registrar at the now defunct St Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington on the morning that Hendrix was brought in. He had no idea who the famous patient was but remembers that he was “very long”. Mr Bannister, 67, speaking at his home in Sydney, said: “He was hanging over the table we had him on by about ten inches.”