Police Reviewing Brian Jones Death

Jones was the guitarist who in 1962 placed a classified ad in a local newspaper asking for others to join him in a new band. Although Mick Jagger wasn’t the first to respond (that was pianist Ian Stewart), Jagger and Keith Richards eventually joined up with Jones, with Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts soon to follow.

Although Jones started the band and gave the group its name, his behavior became increasingly erratic, even for a Rolling Stone, and he eventually left the group in June 1969. Three weeks later on July 3, 1969, Janet Lawson, who was the girlfriend of the band’s tour manager, discovered Jones’ body at the bottom of his swimming pool.

The coroner who originally investigated Jones death called it a “death by misadventure,” which really didn’t surprise anyone familiar with Jones’ hard-living ways. But results of the post mortem showed Jones didn’t have any illegal drugs in his system and had consumed the alcohol equivalent of approximately 3 and a half pints of beer. Hardly O.D. levels.

Since then there have been several theories of what led to Jones’ death, with some calling it suicide while others claimed the guitarist was murdered – a scenario that gained credence when a builder Jones had contracted – Frank Thorogood – confessed shortly before his own death in 1993 that he was responsible. It was Thorogood’s confession that resulted in the 2005 film “Stoned.”

Now the Sussex police are taking another look at the circumstances of Jones’ death after an investigative journalist’s report appeared in London’s Mail On Sunday newspaper casting doubt on the official version of Jones’ final moments.

There were three guests at Jones home on the night he died – Janet Lawson, who was dating Rolling Stones tour manager Tom Keylock; Jones’ girlfriend Anna Wohlin; and Frank Thorogood, described as Jones’ “builder-cum-minder.”

Reporter Scott Jones (no relation to Brian Jones) first spoke with Lawson last year and continued to meet with the former nurse during the months leading up to her own death from cancer in July of this year. According to the reporter, Lawson described her original statement to police as something considerably less than truthful.

“A pack of lies,” Lawson told the reporter. “The policeman suggested most of what I said. It was a load of rubbish.”

Lawson described her own condition while being questioned in the early morning hours following Jones’ death as “tired, confused and nervous,” and she asked police if she could give another statement.

“They said, ‘yes,’ so when the police asked me to give this statement, and they were suggesting all these things to me, I eventually said, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ to bring it to a close,” adding, “I thought I would have another chance to give a statement where I could be clearer.”

Lawson told the reporter that at the time of the incident she claimed she was at the house so she could spend a few days in the country when in fact she was there because her boyfriend – tour manager Tom Keylock – asked her to “keep an eye on Brian.”

According to Lawson, there was also tension between Jones and Thorogood.

“Frank was not doing the building work properly,” Lawson told the reporter. “Brian had sacked him that day.”

According to Lawson, Jones and Thorogood were horsing around in the pool earlier, but Jones was alone in the pool later that evening when he asked her to fetch his asthma inhaler.

“I went to look for it by the pool, in the music room, the reception room and then the kitchen. Frank [Thorogood] came in in a lather. His hands were shaking. He was in a terrible state. I thought the worst almost straight away and went to the pool to check.

“When I saw Brian on the bottom of the pool and was calling for help, Frank initially did nothing.”

Lawson said Thorogood eventually ran out of the house toward the pool and dived in attempting to rescue Jones, although she hadn’t yet told him what she had discovered.

“But I had not said where Brian was,” Lawson said. “I thought, ‘How did he know Brian was at the bottom of the pool?’”

According to the Mail on Sunday, Lawson did not tell police investigating the death about any animosity between Jones and Thorogood nor did she tell them about Thorogood originally ignoring her cries for help. Furthermore, she never thought Thorogood had purposely caused Jones’ death, but attributed it to “horseplay that had got out of hand.”

Now Sussex police are taking another look at Jones’ death. One day after the Mail on Sunday article, the Daily Mail reported a review officer had been assigned to examine the more than 600 documents reporter Jones had accumulated during his four-year investigation into the incident.

Said Jones: “There is no time limit on the review. But after 40 years of mystery, anyone who values Brian’s reputation will be happy to wait for the outcome.”

Click here for the complete Mail on Sunday article.

Click here for The Daily Mail’s article about police reviewing Jones’ death.