Marianne Faithfull Claims Her Drug Dealer Killed Jim Morrison

Did Jim Morrison die because a drug dealer catering to the stars injected him with a fatal dose of heroin?  That's what British singer Marianne Faithfull, who rose to prominence in the late 60’s and early 70’s counterculture, recently claimed.

In an interview with tabloid Mojo Magazine, Faithfull said that her then-drug dealer boyfriend, Jean de Breteuil, accidentally killed Doors' singer Jim Morrison 43 years ago. The interview, which is titled "I Know Who Killed Jim Morrison," is available in the magazine's September issue, and contains her claim to know what happened on that mysterious night in July of 1971.

Morrison was found dead at the age of 27 in the bathroom of his Paris apartment, and no autopsy was performed on his body due to the medical examiner concluding there was no foul play. Morrison had broken from the group and fled the United States, where he faced charges of public indecency after The Doors' infamous Miami concert, to Paris to live with his girlfriend Pamela Courson.

Faithfull claimed that de Breteuil, known as the drug dealer to the stars, accidentally killed Morrison by giving him a shot of heroin that was too strong. Called a Murder One Shot in heroin slang, such an injection is reminiscent of the recent overdose death of 51-year-old Google executive Forrest Hayes, which led to the indictment of call-girl Alix Catherine Tichelman.

Arriving in Paris for a jaunt with Marianne Faithfull, Jean De Breteuil said he had to visit Morrison's apartment at 17 Rue Beautreillis, while Faithfull stayed behind at their hotel. "I could intuitively feel trouble…I thought, I'll take a few Tuinal (barbiturates) and I won't be there," Faithfull told the magazine. "And he went to see Jim Morrison and killed him. I mean I'm sure it was an accident. Poor bastard. The smack (heroin) was too strong? Yeah. And he died... everybody connected to the death of this poor guy is dead now. Except me."

De Breteuil himself was found dead in Morocco some weeks after Morrison's death. After a high-profile relationship with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, which included a songwriting collaboration on "Sister Morphine," Faithfull struggled with substance abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. She managed to get herself clean and reinvented herself in the 1990s, only to be plagued with numerous health issues.