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. |
