Tom Keylock's 2009 death closed the book on a controversial chapter in Rolling Stones history

Tom Keylock, the Rolling Stones’ longtime security guard, driver, and fixer, died in 2009 at age 78. His death didn’t just end a 40-year run of service—it removed the last living person who might have known exactly what happened to Brian Jones on the night he drowned in 1969.

Keylock had always been a shadowy figure in the Stones orbit. He started as a driver in the early ’60s, eventually becoming the band’s go-to for handling the messy, illegal, or just plain weird stuff—drug pickups, bodyguard duty, and keeping the press at bay. But it was his proximity to Brian Jones that fueled decades of conspiracy theories. Jones’s body was found in his swimming pool; Keylock had been one of the last people to see him alive. Rumors suggested Keylock had been involved in a fight or even arranged the death, though nothing was ever proven. He denied everything, but gave wildly different accounts over the years.

The impact of his death? A closed door. For researchers and fans who’d hoped Keylock might eventually spill the full story—maybe in a memoir, maybe in a deathbed confession—that possibility vanished. His silence on the record left only the unresolved ambiguity that still hangs over the Jones case. Beyond that, his passing marked the end of an old-school