Soul singer James Brown was murdered. That is the new claim of his widow, children, friends, and the doctor who signed the original death certificate.
"He changed too fast," says Dr. Marvin Crawford, who signed the certificate that says Brown died of a heart attack in 2006. Brown was 73 and died in an Atlanta hospital.
"He was a patient I would never have predicted would have coded," Crawford said in a recent interview. "When he died, I did raise the question: What went wrong in that room?"
Dr. Crawford thinks Brown might have been given a substance that caused his death.
But his daughter, Yamma, declined to have an autopsy done on her father. And some family members have also refused to reveal where Brown's remains are.
Now at least 13 people have called for a new investigation into Brown's death, as part of an extensive CNN investigation.
There was only one man in the room when Brown died, his personal manager Charles Bobbitt, who said no one else was there and nothing was given to Brown. But people close to Brown allege Bobbitt did not tell the truth about the singer's death.
"His story was always a little vague," Frank Topsides, who worked for Brown, said to CNN. And friend Fannie Brown Buford says. "I knew he was lying right off."
Brown had a long history of accusations of rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence. Several people claim his third wife was murdered. In addition, there were reports he was about to fire at least two people close to him.
His tangled life was one of the reasons people around him thought his death was by no means of "natural causes."
Son-in-law Darren Lumar immediately claimed he was murdered and protested loudly over the lack of an investigation.
Lumar was murdered a year later in an unsolved killing.
People close to Brown are hoping the CNN investigation will lead to police looking further into the singer's death and his chaotic and crazy personal life which might have led to his murder.