Monitor Picture Library/Photoshot/Getty ImagesJuly 3 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of founding Rolling Stones member Brian Jones, who passed away at age 27 after being found unresponsive in the swimming pool of his home in Hartfield, U.K. Controversy and mystery have long shrouded Jones’ death, the cause of which was deemed by a local coroner “death by misadventure,” with many people claiming over the years that the troubled musician was murdered.
One of the people who believe Brian was murdered is his daughter Barbara Marion, who only discovered that the rock legend was her biological father in 2002.
“I think he was murdered and I think the police did not investigate it the way they should have,” she told the U.K.’s Sky News in a recent interview, adding, “I would love to have them reopen [the case] and to get some answers.”
At the time of his death, Jones had been struggling with drug and alcohol problems, and had been fired by The Stones just a few weeks earlier.
One theory about Brian having been murdered emerged in 1993, when it was reported that a one-time driver for The Stones, Tom Keylock, claimed that a construction worker named Frank Thorogood — who was the last known person to have seen Jones alive — had confessed to killing him. Keylock later denied the allegation.
Then, in 2008, a British investigative journalist named Scott Jones came forward with alleged evidence that Thorogood had killed Jones in a fight after interviewing a few people who had been at Jones’ home the night he died.
Local police maintain, however, that following the original 1969 investigation, and after reviewing the case in 1984 and 1994, officials have deemed that no evidence has emerged that would overturn the original coroner’s ruling of “death by misadventure.”
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