A woman, Jacque Hollander, is claiming she has evidence that the legendary R&B singer James Brown was murdered. She reportedly has handed a bin of items that she said was evidence of her claim to the office of the Fulton County District Attorney and they are looking at it.
According to the Guardian, Chris Hopper, a spokesperson for the Fulton County District Attorney, confirmed that a woman, named Jacque Hollander, who claimed that Brown might have been murdered, met with the D.A. Paul Howard Jr. on Wednesday after requesting a meeting.
She reportedly gave the D.A. a bin of items related to James Brown’s death. She claimed that the items could prove that the Godfather of Soul James Brown was murdered.
Howard has reportedly directed his investigators to talk to Hollander to assess the merit of her allegations. The D.A.’s office will open a formal investigation if they are satisfied that her claims are credible.
Paul Howard Jr. reportedly confirmed to CNN that his investigators will conduct interviews to assess the alleged evidence and decide whether to lunch a formal inquiry.
Hollander had reportedly requested a meeting with the D.A. last year. She reportedly forwarded a list of possible witnesses and printed messages as part of her body of evidence, and explained how she came about them.
James Brown died at the age of 73 on December 25, 2006, two days after he was hospitalized in Atlanta for pneumonia. The official cause of death was a heart attack and accumulation of fluid in his lungs.
Questions have been raised in the past about Brown’s death
This is not the first time that questions have been raised about the cause of James Brown’s death.
CNN published a 3-part series in 2019 that looked at the circumstances surrounding Brown’s death. The series cited several people who were close to Brown — including Jacque — who believed that Brown might have been murdered and wanted the authorities to carry out an autopsy or launch a criminal investigation.
Dr. Marvin Crawford, the medical professional who signed Brown’s death certificate, once admitted in a 2017 interview with CNN that he had always wondered what caused Brown’s heart attack and the accumulation of fluid in his lungs. He suggested that his sudden death might have been triggered by an accidental overdose or deliberate administration of a toxic substance.
“He changed too fast. He was a patient I would never have predicted would have coded,” Crawford said, according to CNN. “But he died that night, and I did raise that question: What went wrong in that room?”
Who is Jacque Hollander?
Jacque had been a member of Brown’s entourage and a close confidante of the later singer, according to the New York Post.
She claims to have worked with Brown as a producer and public relations manager.
According to Jacque, she first met Brown briefly at the Atlanta airport in the 1970s when she was a teenager. She claimed she was receiving chemotherapy for colon cancer at the time.
Hollander recovered from her illness and became a songwriter. She married a musician named Dean Daughtry in 1980, but they divorced in 1995.
She contacted Brown in the 1980s some years after they first met and they started a personal and professional relationship. They worked together writing songs and doing charity work.
She denied having been Brown’s lover and insisted that he raped her in April 1988. She filed a lawsuit in 2005 claiming emotional trauma due to the alleged sexual assault.
She first contacted CNN in 2017, years after Brown died, to claim that he was murdered.
Es triste que nadie sepa de este caso, en mí país jamás se habló de esto