Highway patrol officials in Tennessee now say they found a partially drained pint of vodka under the front passenger seat of Jones' totaled sports-utility vehicle.
The bottle--its cap apparently twisted off and then back on--was found three hours after Saturday's crash, spokesperson Dana Keeton says.
And while Jones, 67, was the lone person in the car, "there's no way to say [the bottle] was his," Keeton says.
Police and medical official have insisted all week that alcohol was not involved in the accident. Jones suffered a deep cut to the liver and punctured a lung after driving his Lexus into a bridge near his Nashville home. He was talking on a cell phone at the moment of impact.
Evelyn Shriver, a longtime friend and president of Jones' label, Asylum Records, told The Tennessean she is not surprised the booze question has been raised.
"At one point," Shriver said in the newspaper, "he was probably one of the most notorious drinkers in America."
In recent years, hard-livin' "No Show" Jones cleaned up his act. Family and friends swear he's on the wagon.
As a result, the highway patrol is now asking for a blood-alcohol test to be run on blood drawn from Jones after the crash. The only hitch: In today's Tennessean, hospital officials at Vanderbilt University Medical Center could not say whether any such blood was drawn.
Police didn't put in their request sooner, Keeton said, because officials at the scene didn't think Jones would have had access to the vodka bottle.
Jones, best known for country staples like "The Race Is On" and "He Stopped Loving Her Today," is listed in critical but stable condition at Vanderbilt. In addition to his injuries, the singer has developed pneumonia, Shriver said today. He's back on a respirator, she said.