Not quite Unsolved Mysteries fodder, right? Not so fast.
Thirty years after the musician's death, his onetime girlfriend has broken her silence in a big way, claiming Jones was the victim not of his own excesses but of foul play.
In a just-published tome called The Murder of Brian Jones, Anna Wholin says her then-beau had quit his drug habit and cut back on his drinking before he died. Instead of a chemical-induced misadventure, she alleges Jones was offed by one Frank Thorogood in a fight over money.
Trouble is, Thorogood, who was doing handywork around Jones' English farmhouse at the time of the Stone's death, isn't around to defend himself--he died five years ago.
But before he passed away, it was widely reported that he recorded a deathbed confession wherein he admitted murdering Jones. (Police were unable to substantiate Thorogood's reputed crime, however, and Jones' death is still officially classified as accidental.)
Wohlin, who discovered Jones' body in the pool, says she "repressed" the circumstances surrounding his demise and kept the details of the "murder" to herself for three decades. It was only after a recent divorce that she says she finally was ready to tell the world.
"I felt that I wanted to tell what really happened, mainly for the sake of his son and his closest friends who also believed that he died when he was on drugs. That wasn't true. I knew what was going on," she tells a newspaper in her native Sweden.
About 300 people held a grave-side vigil last weekend to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Jones' passing.