Monika Dannemann - Hendrix and His Death

Hendrix and His Death

Dannemann was first introduced to Hendrix on 12 January 1969 in Düsseldorf after being invited to a Jimi Hendrix concert there. She spent that one night with him and part of the next day when she accompanied him to his next concert in Cologne then she returned to Düsseldorf. He spent the last night of the tour with infamous model and "scenester" Uschi Obermaier with whom he was filmed kissing and petting outside the Kempinski Hotel the next morning. He wrote to her not long after (25 March) inviting her to visit him in New York. Monika claims she next saw Hendrix when she travelled to London on the 25 April 1969 in the hope of meeting him again, where she bumped into him at the Speakeasy. She says they spent some time together over the next nine days, but only spent one night with him. After his September 1970 European tour, during which he had begun a relationship with the Danish model Kirsten Nefer (it was reported in the Danish press at the time that they were engaged) and after Nefer had left London due to work he again took up with Dannemann, on 15 September and spent the next four nights at her flat, where he died. During this last visit Dannemann claimed that Hendrix had asked her to marry him and she said she would have done had he not died. Dannemann is known for being the last person to have seen Jimi Hendrix alive. On the evening of 17 September Hendrix took at least one amphetamine (known as a 'black bomber') at a party where he stayed for a short while. Later back at Dannemann's Hendrix took nine of her Vesparax sleeping tablets, the recommended dose was 1/2 to 1 tablet. Dannemann stated that on the morning of September 18, 1970, she found Hendrix in a coma at her basement flat at the "Samarkand Hotel". She called for an ambulance which arrived at 11:27. Hendrix was officially declared to have died at St. Mary Abotts hospital at 12:45. Cause of death was asphyxiation through inhalation of vomit due to barbiturate intoxication.