Brian Jones

On July 3, 1969, Brian Jones died by drowning in his pool at the age of 27.

What Happened?
At around midnight on the night of 2–3 July 1969, Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm. His Swedish girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, was convinced he was alive when he was taken out of the pool, insisting he still had a pulse. However, by the time the doctors arrived, it was too late and he was pronounced dead. The coroner's report stated "death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by past drug and alcohol abuse.

Aftermath
Upon Jones' death, the Who's Pete Townshend wrote a poem titled "A Normal Day for Brian, A Man Who Died Every Day" (printed in The Times), Jimi Hendrix dedicated a song to him on US television, and Jim Morrison of the Doors published a poem titled "Ode to L.A. While Thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased". Coincidentally, Hendrix and Morrison both died within the following two years also at age 27.

The Rolling Stones performed at a free concert in Hyde Park on 5 July 1969, two days after Jones' death. The band decided to dedicate the concert (which had been scheduled weeks earlier as an opportunity to present their new guitarist, Mick Taylor) to Jones. Before the Stones' set, Jagger read excerpts from "Adonais", a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley about the death of his friend John Keats, and stagehands released hundreds of white butterflies as part of the tribute. The band opened with a Johnny Winter song that was one of Jones' favourites, "I'm Yours and I'm Hers".

Jones was reportedly buried 10 feet (3 m) deep in Cheltenham Cemetery, to prevent exhumation by trophy hunters. His body was embalmed, with hair bleached white, and was placed in an air-tight metal casket. Watts and Wyman were the only Rolling Stones who attended the funeral. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull were travelling to Australia to begin the filming of Ned Kelly; they stated that their contracts did not allow them to delay the trip to attend the funeral.

When asked if he felt guilty about Jones' death, Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone in 1995: "No, I don't really. I do feel that I behaved in a very childish way, but we were very young, and in some ways we picked on him. But, unfortunately, he made himself a target for it; he was very, very jealous, very difficult, very manipulative, and if you do that in this kind of a group of people you get back as good as you give, to be honest. I wasn't understanding enough about his drug addiction. No one seemed to know much about drug addiction. Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you."

Murder Claims
Theories surrounding Jones' death developed soon afterwards, with associates of the Stones claiming to have information that he was murdered. According to rock biographer Philip Norman, "the murder theory would bubble back to the surface every five years or so". In 1993, it was reported that Jones was murdered by Frank Thorogood, who was doing some construction work on the property. He was the last person to see Jones alive. Thorogood allegedly confessed the murder to the Rolling Stones' driver, Tom Keylock, who later denied this. The Thorogood theory was dramatised in the 2005 movie Stoned.

In August 2009, Sussex Police decided to review Jones' death for the first time since 1969, after new evidence was handed to them by Scott Jones, an investigative journalist in the UK. Scott Jones had traced many of the people who were at Brian Jones' house the night he died, plus unseen police files held at the National Archives. According to Trevor Hobley, chairman of the Brian Jones Fan Club, a neighbour saw, as he was leaving for work on the morning of Jones' death, a large bonfire on Jones' estate in which documentation was being burned.

In The Mail on Sunday in November 2008, Scott Jones said Thorogood killed Brian Jones in a fight, and that senior police officers covered up the true cause of death. Following the review, Sussex Police stated it would not be reopening the case. It asserted that "this has been thoroughly reviewed by Sussex Police's Crime Policy and Review Branch but there is no new evidence to suggest that the coroner's original verdict of 'death by misadventure' was incorrect."