The new name bandied about as having been responsible for Jones’ drowning death in 1969 is the band’s former chauffeur, Tom Keylock. Reuters reports the band’s former road manager, Sam Cutler, recently named Keylock although there is no hard evidence linking him to the troubled musician’s demise.

Keylock is the latest name to be connected with Jones’ death. Although police at the time ruled the guitarist’s drowning was accidental, several people over the years have voiced suspicions that Jones, who had been fired from the Rolling Stones only days before his body was discovered at the bottom of his pool, had died at the hands of another.

Along with fingering Keylock, Cutler also disclosed that the band’s then-manager, Allen Klein, conducted his own investigation into Jones’ death and that Keylock was the only suspect in that investigation.

“He investigated Brian’s murder with all the resources he had available to him and Klein thought that Brian had been murdered,” Cutler wrote on his blog. “Tom Keylock was the prime (and only) suspect named in that report.”

Reuters says Cutler did not say how he found out about Klein’s report, but did say he met with the manager several times after Jones’ death.

Theories on the cause of Jones’ drowning have been in the news lately. Two weeks ago Sussex Police announced they were taking another look at the case. That news came after an article written by journalist Scott Jones (no relation to Brian Jones) was published last November in London’s Mail On Sunday suggesting Frank Thorogood, Jones’ builder/minder, had been responsible for Jones’ death.

The problem with pinning down exactly what happened on the night of July 3, 1969, is that most of the people close to the incident have died. Journalist Jones’ Mail on Sunday article was based in part on interviews with Janet Lawson, who was dating Keylock at the time. Lawson told the reporter there was tension between the guitarist and Thorogood regarding some work he was doing at Jones’ estate.

In describing Jones’ last night, Lawson said the musician was in the pool alone and had asked her to fetch his asthma inhaler. While searching Jones’ house for the device, she encountered Thorogood.

“I went to look for it by the pool, in the music room, the reception room and then the kitchen. Frank [Thorogood] came in a lather,” Lawson said. “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 died from cancer this year. In fact, Lawson’s death occurred during the same month – July – as did the death of newly named possible suspect Keylock, a coincidence that’s sure to spark future grist for the Jones rumor mill.

What does Cutler base his Keylock-killed-Jones suspicions on? Nothing that would probably stand up in court. Cutler told Reuters Keylock had acted suspicious in the days preceding Jones’ death, often removing or destroying items in the musician’s house.

Cutler also claims Klein’s investigators suspected Keylock after interviewing Lawson and another woman who were at the house the night Jones’ drowned – Jones’ then-girlfriend Anna Wohlin. According to Cutler, both women were afraid to testify against Keylock, who allegedly had threatened them with violence.

However, Reuters points out that both women had blamed Thorogood for Jones’ death, and that Wohlin had even accused the builder of being involved in the musician’s drowning in a 1999 memoir.

One of the problems in turning Jones’ death into a homicide is that no one has been able to establish why anyone, including Thorogood and Keylock, would have wanted to kill the musician. Although both have been described has having argued with the former Rolling Stones member, a motive for killing Jones has never been established.

Even Cutler, while fingering Keylock, couldn’t nail down a motive, although he does have his suspicions.

“My gut feeling is that he was ripping Brian off on some level or another,” Cutler said.

Click here for the complete Reuters report.

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

Click here for the Mail On Sunday’s November 2008 article which reportedly sparked the new police investigation.

Click here for Sam Cutler’s blog.