JIMI HENDRIX‘s body has been exhumed and relocated under a giant marble dome, which forms part of a lavish memorial nearing completion in a cemetery in RENTON, just outside SEATTLE.
The star’s body was transferred in secret from the grave where he was buried shortly after his death in 1970 to a vault at the centre of the new site on November 26 last year, the day before what would have been his 60th birthday.
The headstone from Hendrix‘s previous gravesite has also been moved to the new tomb in Greenwood Memorial Park And Cemetery, which has been three years in the planning and construction.
But his younger brother Leon, who has been engaged in a bitter family feud with his sister Janie, executor of the multi-million dollar Hendrix estate, was not told of the transfer, and it has emerged that he has been visiting an empty tomb, not realising his brother’s body had been moved.
According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Leon, who filed a lawsuit last year claiming he had been denied his rightful inheritance, had only learned of the exhumation after visiting the original gravesite two weeks ago, and later discovering that he was praying to an empty grave. Attorney Robert Curran said Leon was “greatly troubled” by “lack of human compassion” in the way it had been handled adding: “Had he known Jimi‘s grave was being moved, he would have been there to pay his respects.”
The new memorial will be the biggest yet to Hendrix. It features a granite dome almost 30-foot high, supported by three pearl-grey granite columns trimmed in “rainbow” marble. A life-sized bronze sculpture of Hendrix, who died in London in September 1970, is to be installed under the dome. It is currently being made in Italy, and a bronze and granite sundial will sit at the south edge.
Three granite-covered walkways will lead to the memorial from the circular drive. It is expected the structure will be completed in April.
Hendrix‘s father Al and his step-mother Ayako ‘June’ Hendrix have also been placed in the vault in the centre of the memorial, and his granny Nora’s cremated remains will join them later.
While the final cost of the memorial has not been disclosed, but Hendrix‘s sister Janie, who is executor of their father’s multi-million dollar estate, suggested the original proposal would cost in excess of $500,000.