Co-Writer of “Layla” Still Stuck in Jail
I wonder how many people remember Jim Gordon, the guy who co-wrote “Layla” with Derek and the Dominos?
About a decade after that song became such a rock staple, Gordon was convicted and jailed for killing his mother. He’s been locked up ever since. And he’ll stay in jail until at least 2018. From Rolling Stone:
Rock drummer Jim Gordon, who killed his mother in June 1983 after claiming her voice had tormented him for years, was denied parole until at least 2018 at a hearing this April. A California board panel deemed the musician “a danger to society if released from prison,” citing his resistance to court-ordered medication and counseling, according to a hearing transcript obtained by Rolling Stone.
Thirty years after Gordon confessed to stabbing his 71-year-old mother to death at her North Hollywood home, he continues to shows symptoms of schizophrenia and is “medically and psychologically noncompliant,” Los Angeles County deputy district attorney Alexis de la Garza told the three-member panel. “This is one of the saddest cases that we have in prison. We have an individual who is seriously psychologically incapacitated, and he is a danger when he is not taking his medication.”
