Monica

Monika: The night I woke to find pop star Jimi dying.


BLONDE Monika Dannemann sobbed yesterday as she told of the night Jimi Hendrix took nine times the normal dose of sleeping tablets and died.
German-born Monika, aged 22, told a Westminster inquest that the 27 year-old pop star had spent the night with her after having a meal and a bottle of wine: "It was a very happy atmosphere. There was no arguing or stress. We were just talking and listening to music.
About 1.10 a.m. he told me he had to go to see some people. I dropped him off at a flat and then picked him up again just after three o'clock.
We went back to my flat and I made him a tuna fish sandwich. We were in bed and were just talking.
I took a sleeping tablet about 7 a.m. I woke up again at about 10.20 a.m. and I could not sleep any more.
I wanted some cigarettes but as Jimi did not like me golng out with out me telling him, I looked to see if he was awake. He was sleeping normally.
Just before I was about to go out I looked at him again and there was sick on his nose and mouth.
He was breathing and his pulse was beating. I checked it with mine and there was no difference. Then I tried to wake him up - but I could not.
I then saw that he had taken some or my sleeping tablets. They are a German tablet called Vesperax.
They are in packets of ten and I thought he had taken the lot but a police officer found one on the floor.
He must have taken them shortly after I started to go to sleep."
Miss Danneman of Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, added that she telephoned a friend to ask for advice before calling an ambulance because she knew that if Hendrix found out or the Press learned of it he would go "mad".
"The ambulance arrived 20 minutes later", she said. "He was still breathing - I was checking his pulse all the time".
Miss Danneman said she saw Hendrix take one sleeping tablet when they first met in Cologne in January last year.
"He knew exactly what he could take and what he couldn't" she said.
"He was not a careless man with tablets".
"As far as I know he did not take any pep tablets".
"He was very happy before I went to sleep".
"But he did mention he took some cannabis at the flat where he went to see the people".

NO INJURIES

"He had no personal troubles. Business problems never worried him because he knew what he wanted to do".
Pathologist Prefessor Donald Teare said Hendrix had no external injuries or any needle marks in the forearm or back of the hand usually associated with drug addicts.
He could not find any conclusive evidence of cannabis on the fingers.
Death was due to inhalation of vomit following barbiturate intoxication.
Coroner Doctor Gavin Thurslon recorded an open verdict.
IN SEATLE., Washington, Hendrix's 54-year-old father, Mr. James Hendrix, a landscape gardener, said he would not change his way of life despite an etimated £ 200,000 left by his son.
The singer made no will. Under U.S. law, his father is the sole beneficiary of the estate. Jimi's mother divorced in 1942, died in 1958.