Lee Morgan - Death

Death

Morgan was murdered in the early hours of February 19, 1972, at Slugs', a jazz club in New York City's East Village where his band was performing. Following an altercation between sets, Morgan's common-law wife Helen More (a.k.a. Morgan), shot him in the chest onstage, killing him within moments. He was 33 years old. According to an eye witness, Miss More (13 years his senior) walked out of the club just before the last set. She returned and the band was already on stage. Lee was trying to get up there, but was talking with some people. He just started to get up the stage, when she entered and called his name. He turned around and she shot him in the heart. She then turned the gun on the club's doorman Ernie Holman, who grabbed her wrist and took the gun away from her. She started to scream "Baby, what have I done?" and ran to him. She was later arrested, tried, sentenced, and paroled by 1978. Soon after, Helen Morgan returned to her native North Carolina. Reportedly she never spoke publicly of the incident, until she granted an interview a month before her death. She died in Wilmington, NC, from a heart condition, in March 1996.

Read more about this topic:  Lee Morgan

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    There is something antique, even, in his style of treating his subject, reminding us that Heroes and Demi-gods, Fates and Furies, still exist; the common man is nothing to him, but after death the hero is apotheosized and has a place in heaven, as in the religion of the Greeks.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    If thou art rich, thou’rt poor,
    For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
    Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
    And death unloads thee.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)