A prosecutor is set to reexamine James Brown’s 2006 death after meeting a woman Wednesday, who claims she has evidence that the singer was murdered.
The soul singer’s official cause of death was listed as a heart attack and fluid in the lungs, but the doctor who signed his death certificate had always wondered if there was more to the story. Dr. Marvin Crawford told CNN he felt Brown “changed too fast” when he died at an Atlanta hospital on December 25, 2006. He was 73.
“He was a patient I would never have predicted would have coded,” Crawford said in 2017. “But he died that night, and I did raise that question: What went wrong in that room.”
Crawford suggested it was possible that Brown’s death was caused by a toxic substance.
And now Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. has dispatched investigators to conduct interviews and evaluate relevant information to determine if a full-scale death investigation should be launched following a meeting with circus singer Jacque Hollander.
Hollander initially told the media that she believed Brown was murdered, adding that she also feared for her life. After her calls to authorities went unreturned last year, a CNN spokesperson contacted the prosecutor’s office. That’s when Hollander finally had a face to face conversation with Howard, sharing her beliefs that Brown and his third wife Adrienne, who died in 1996 while recovering from plastic surgery, were each murdered.
Hollander isn’t the one with suspicions. A CNN investigative series spurred by her claims published the names of 13 people who wanted either an autopsy or a criminal investigation to be done. They included his widow Tomi Rae Brown, son Daryl Brown, manager Charles Bobbit, and close friend Al Sharpton.
She presented Howard with a prepared list of potential witnesses, printouts of text messages, and a green plastic bin filled with what she perceived to be evidence of foul play. When asked if she intended to leave the bin in the hands of the prosecutor’s staff, Hollander replied, “Well, I sure don’t want it.” She received a property receipt for her items and assurances that her story would be looked into.
“He was very kind,” she said about Howard afterward. “I think he will get to the bottom of this.”
Howard told CNN that he’ll make a determination within months to determine if a full investigation is warranted.