Death, post-mortem, and burial
Main article:
Death of Jimi Hendrix
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The Samarkand Hotel, where Hendrix spent his final hours
Although the details of Hendrix's last day and death are widely disputed, he spent much of September 17, 1970, in London with [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monika_Dannemann]Monika Dannemann, the only witness to his final hours.
[269] Dannemann said that she prepared a meal for them at her apartment in the Samarkand Hotel, 22
Lansdowne Crescent,
Notting Hill, sometime around 11 p.m., when they shared a bottle of wine.
[270] She drove Hendrix to the residence of an acquaintance at approximately 1:45 a.m., where he remained for about an hour before she picked him up and drove them back to her flat at 3 a.m.
[271] Dannemann said they talked until around 7 a.m., when they went to sleep. She awoke around 11 a.m., and found Hendrix breathing, but unconscious and unresponsive. She called for an ambulance at 11:18 a.m.; they arrived on the scene at 11:27 a.m.
[272] Paramedics then transported Hendrix to
St Mary Abbot's Hospital where Dr. John Bannister pronounced him dead at 12:45 p.m. on September 18, 1970.
[273]
To determine the cause of death,
coroner Gavin Thurston ordered a
post-mortem examination on Hendrix's body, which was performed on September 21 by Professor
Robert Donald Teare, a
forensic pathologist.
[274] Thurston completed the
inquest on September 28, and concluded that Hendrix
aspirated his own vomit and died of
asphyxia while intoxicated with
barbiturates.
[275] Citing "insufficient evidence of the circumstances", he declared an
open verdict.
[276] Dannemann later revealed that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescribed
Vesparax sleeping tablets, 18 times the recommended dosage.
[277]
After Hendrix's body had been embalmed by
Desmond Henley,
[278] it was flown to Seattle, Washington, on September 29, 1970.
[279] After a service at Dunlop Baptist Church on October 1, he was interred at Greenwood Cemetery in
Renton, Washington, the location of his mother's gravesite.
[280] Hendrix's family and friends traveled in twenty-four limousines and more than two hundred people attended the funeral, including several notable musicians such as original Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, as well as
Miles Davis,
John Hammond, and
Johnny Winter.
[281][nb 35]