09:54 - 15 August 2005
The body of wild rock star Brian Jones could be exhumed and a new police inquiry launched into his death, it was claimed yesterday. The Rolling Stone was found dead in his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm, near Hartfield in East Sussex on July 3, 1969. He was just 27. A coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure. Now a new witness has come forward offering fresh evidence on what happened the night he died.
The man, who has not been named, is a carpet fitter who was working at Cotchford Farm with his now deceased business partner on the night of Jones's death, but was never interviewed by police. His evidence is already being considered by a team of retired senior policemen in a "cold case" private investigation paid for by Trevor Hobley, a close friend of Jones's one-time girlfriend Pat Andrews.
Mr Hobley said: "I've known him now for a year-and-a-half. We've dug out his memories, even using regressive hypnotherapy. He's more than willing to testify when the case is reopened."
Mr Hobley has prepared a 150-page dossier of new evidence which he believes proves that the coroner's verdict of misadventure is unsafe.
He said: "The body was taken to a local funeral parlour in East Grinstead. Someone there ordered Brian's body to be embalmed and his hair to be bleached white. The funeral parlour doesn't exist any more and the records aren't available, but another parlour in Cheltenham received the body later.
"We interviewed a worker from there who commented on how he was embalmed. I'm told the body should be in near pristine condition."
Last month, the Western Daily Press published an exclusive interview with Jones' girlfriend Anna Wohlin, who was involved with the star at the time of his death; she believes the Cheltenham-born guitarist was murdered by an East End builder, the late Frank Thorogood.
He had been working on Jones's farmhouse and held him underwater to scare him into paying an £8,000 debt.
