Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence.
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Upon his release from jail in October 2013,1 Dr Conrad Murray gave few interviews, but when he did talk, he continued to proclaim his innocence with a vigorous, some might say deluded, determination. ‘By the end Michael Jackson was a broken man,’ he told The Mail on Sunday,2 ‘I tried to protect him but instead I was brought down with him.’ In the same interview he was asked who might be responsible for the killing of the King of Pop. Murray was adamant in his answer: ‘I did not kill Michael Jackson. He was a drug addict. Michael Jackson accidentally killed Michael Jackson.’3
In another interview, this time with CNN’s Don Lemon on 26 June 2014, the day after the fifth anniversary of the singer’s death, Murray continued to suggest that Jackson administered the drugs himself:4
Don Lemon: You said that he gave himself the drugs. You believe he gave himself the final dose?
Dr Murray: The premises cannot be breached. It was not breached. There was no one else in the house, in the upper chambers but Michael and myself. I was away from him. The phone records show that.
After serving time in jail, Murray had his story and was sticking to it. This was despite the fact that his only official account of the night in question, the one he had given to the LAPD in his only judicial interview just two days after Jackson’s death, had been taken apart piece by piece during his trial by the prosecution and by witnesses who seemed to contradict virtually everything Murray had told the detectives. Constantly and consistently, so many things that Murray had said just simply didn’t add up.
So what did really happen when Dr Conrad Murray left Michael Jackson’s bedroom on that fateful night of 24/25 June 2009? What were the actual circumstances that led to Murray coming back into the room shortly after 11:51am while on the phone to one of his girlfriends, Sade Anding to find the singer unresponsive, so setting off an 83-minute chain of events that would result in Jackson’s lifeless body being rushed into the ER at UCLA Medical Center? And how did everything conspire that night to cause the death of Michael Jackson, the superstar King of Pop?
To understand, we first have to consider some other scenarios – consider them in order to eliminate them.
Before that though, let’s imagine that Michael Jackson never actually died on the night of 24/25 June 2009. Let’s imagine an alternative timeline that begins as the singer, as happened, arrived back home from rehearsals at the Staples Center to his rented Carolwood home shortly after midnight. As he always did, Jackson met the scattering of fans waiting outside his house, even at this hour, signed autographs and posed for photos, before heading into the mansion. Once inside, he climbed the stairs and entered his bedroom to be greeted by Dr Murray. They would have their usual brief conversation about how rehearsals went before the singer would have a shower, after which Dr Murray would go through his standard routine of applying lotion to Jackson’s back before the King of Pop would settle down to sleep. All is just as it had been each night for the last two months.
But then our alternative timeline kicks in: there would be no Propofol administered by Murray that night; a few days before, he had started a programme to wean Jackson off the drug and now the singer finds he can sleep without Propofol. In fact, this is the fourth consecutive night Jackson has been able to sleep without the drug after two months of nightly infusions. Murray diligently continues to monitor Jackson, spending the night observing him with all the correct equipment he has purchased for the job or had ordered for him by AEG Live – after all, he is fully aware of the duty of care to his patient. He never leaves Jackson’s bedside, doesn’t go into another room to talk on the phone to one of his many mistresses or conduct his business affairs, and, consequently, the singer never has a cardiac arrest.
In this imaginary timeline, Jackson wakes in the morning after another good night’s sleep and is reminded by Dr Murray that he has to grant AEG Live access to his medical records for the past five years and also to agree to a medical in London. Jackson, fully rested and looking forward to his concerts in London, not only gives his permission to Dr Murray to sanction a medical in London as well as allowing him access to all his medical records, but he also signs Murray’s contract of engagement. In turn, Dr Murray sends an email to Bob Taylor at the insurance company in London informing him Jackson has agreed to all of the demands laid out by them and, consequently, the wheels are set in motion for the forthcoming trip to London. Everyone is happy: Jackson, Murray, the insurers and AEG Live.
Over the next few days an invigorated Jackson storms through rehearsals at the Staples Center in Los Angeles; everyone who witnesses his performances is encouraged by what they see. The magic has returned, if it ever went away, and the show promises to be a spectacular pop extravaganza. With everything in place, the whole production then moves to London for the final technical rehearsals. While in England, Jackson and his children live in the splendour of an estate in the Kent countryside with Dr Murray living close by and continuing to care for the singer. After a number of weeks of considered treatment, Dr Murray has gradually, and then totally, weaned Jackson off Propofol and, with the singer thousands of miles away from Los Angeles and the clinic of Dr Klein, his apparent supply of Demerol has also been cut off. Slowly but surely, Jackson has become less reliant on medication and, when a sympathetic doctor is found in London, he undergoes the medical to satisfy the insurance company that he can, indeed, be insured for the remaining concerts that were, up to that point, uninsured, and that he is fit and able to perform all the concerts at the O2.
Beginning in July 2009, Michael Jackson fulfils his contract and performs all 50 shows at the O2. They prove to be a massive critical and commercial success, leading to phenomenal demand from fans to add extra shows, and reviewers to state universally that the King of Pop is back on his throne. Jackson then embarks on a major world tour. Starting in Europe, the singer sells out arenas and stadiums across the continent before heading to Japan where his adoring fans ensure shows are sold out within minutes. Finally, in the autumn of the year, Jackson heads back to the USA for a triumphant homecoming tour.
Such has been the success of the tour and revival in his music that his financial worries are well and truly behind him5 and he is now free to concentrate his efforts on forays into the world of films, in particular his over-riding passion for a film project about Egypt’s King Tut.
At last, with his legacy secure, Michael Jackson is clean of drugs, free from financial woes and has finally found serenity in his life.
When he met Randy Phillips of AEG Live some years earlier, Jackson had said to Phillips that, ‘I’m tired of being a vagabond. I just want a home for me and my kids’.6 At last, Jackson’s wishes have become a reality.
What of Dr Conrad Murray in this imaginary timeline?
He accompanies Jackson on all legs of the tour, forming a lifelong friendship and having experiences that would remain with him forever. Murray returns with Jackson to the USA and sees out the remainder of the tour as his personal physician. The money he makes from working on the tour ends up amounting to over $2 million and, by remaining as Jackson’s personal physician after the tour finishes, his financial security is safe for some time to come. So much so, that Murray eventually realises his dream of setting up his own clinic, named after his father, on his home island of Trinidad. Here, Murray devotes himself to treating those unable to afford medical services and, in doing so, his own legacy is written.
This would have been the dream scenario for both of them. In fact, not only for Murray and Jackson, but for all the performers, fans and, of course, AEG Live who stood to make a fortune from the tour. But Jackson was experienced enough to know that the scale of the challenge ahead was totally unrealistic, yet the alternative probably meant utter and complete ruination for him. The whole entire enterprise was delusional. Michael surely knew it, but likely hoped that at some point an exit strategy would magically appear. He was a frail, deeply insecure, vulnerable, unfit, 50-year-old with a chronic addiction to a wide variety of prescription medicines, and the whole tour would have seemed just what it was: an impossible mountain for him to climb.
* * *
As the world knows, this imaginary timeline never happened. Not only did Jackson’s comeback and his financial salvation never materialise, but Murray and AEG Live lost out too, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of fans whose dreams of seeing their idol perform one last time never materialised, in the most tragic of circumstances. From the outset many fans may have had the premonition that, realistically, the shows were never actually going to happen; too many had been here before. Upon hearing of Jackson’s death, even some members of his family initially assumed that it was a hoax created by Jackson in order to pull out of the tour. Such was even their cynicism. After all, they too had heard similar rumours before.7
So if our previous imaginary timeline was, indeed, preposterous, we should consider two other different timelines and scenarios, and unlike the first imaginary scenario, one, if not both of these, must have been considered very seriously by all at AEG Live as the deadline to London loomed.
* * *
What if Michael Jackson had somehow, against the odds, made it to London? Maybe he was cajoled, encouraged or ordered to cross the Atlantic, but nevertheless, he had arrived in the UK. Suddenly, all about him, a press-frenzy was manifesting itself as the opening night at the O2 grew ever nearer. Across London, huge advertising and publicity campaigns were alerting everyone to Jackson’s impending comeback. Tickets for the shows were changing hands on eBay for extortionate prices and exclusive VIP packages for the O2 concerts had long been snapped up. Behind the scenes, AEG Live had nervously shipped the entire production over at enormous expense and an army of workers were tirelessly preparing for the shows.
However, behind the scenes Michael Jackson fails the required medical in Harley Street; it’s much tougher than the one he had gone through in the USA, and AEG Live’s attempts to get Jackson’s insurance policy to cover the full 50-show run are scuppered, meaning that the final 20 shows can’t be insured. What happens now with Jackson having failed the medical? While discussions are held behind the scenes and plans made, AEG Live continue to prepare for the first 30 shows they are definitely covered for and frantically consider contingencies. It is an impending nightmare scenario for them.
* * *
Or here’s the second scenario. Even if Jackson passes the medical and the concerts actually begin, even if he manages against the odds to complete, let’s be generous, the first nine shows, then returns without warning to the USA, or even the Middle East perhaps, and cancels with immediate effect the other 41 shows. What would happen then? Hundreds of thousands of fans would be desperately disappointed and the press would have a field day, saying the singer had lived up to his ‘Wacko Jacko’ moniker and proclaiming that such a cancellation shouldn’t come as a surprise. But most of all in this scenario, a great deal of people would be out of pocket.
Amongst them would be AEG Live. They would have to reimburse over 80 per cent of the $85 million they had taken in ticket sales to disappointed fans, except for the fortunate few who had seen the first nine shows. And they would have to write off the $35 million they had apparently spent so far in setting up the tour. The prospect of Jackson beginning the concerts but not completing the tour was the worst possible scenario for AEG Live, particularly as 20 of the later shows appeared not to be insured for cancellation.
But right at the outset, AEG Live had been resourceful and put into place a caveat to protect themselves, at least with regard to the show’s production costs.
A clause in the contract between AEG Live and Michael Jackson (a contract which as we have seen has many discrepancies and may not be a contract at all but simply a Letter of Intent) stated that the singer would not only be responsible for all production costs but he would also forego to AEG Live every asset he owned if the concerts were cancelled.
And, of course, these assets included the prized Sony/ATV catalogue. With this in mind, it suddenly appears that the only way AEG Live might get away with minimum damage from this fiasco was if Jackson did not perform any concerts in London. This vaguely attractive option, which became increasingly closer to a reality for AEG Live as Jackson’s rehearsals stalled and his drug use became more evident, not to mention his unwillingness to fulfil the insurance demands, meant that the best outcome in June 2009 for AEG Live was for Jackson not to turn up in London at all. Certainly, for him to begin the shows and then pull out would be an utter disaster. Sure, they could sue Jackson, but what could they expect to receive in damages from a singer half a billion dollars in debt? And, even if they did sue Jackson, AEG Live would find themselves at the back of a very long queue of creditors wanting payments for aged debts from the deals Jackson had previously reneged upon.
* * *
It’s inconceivable that these scenarios weren’t being played out in other people’s minds, too; the ‘what ifs’ connected with any tragedy or mystery that cannot be comprehensively explained in fact.
* * *
The tragedy of Michael Jackson’s death is that, like most addicts, it was wrought from the tragedy of his own life, a tragedy in which he was plainly the central character, but a central character ill-equipped to cope with such a leading role in such a long-running production. The surrounding and supporting cast in Jackson’s life was made up of conspiring relatives and fly-by-night friends, charlatans and thieves, snake-oil salesmen and willing opportunists. And the themes that connected and consumed them all, including Jackson himself, were ambition, fate, deception and avarice. With hindsight, it now seems inevitable that Michael Jackson’s life would end in tragedy. Throughout, he was fighting superior forces as well as his own demons, and his life was bound to end in a sorrowful and disastrous final denouement.
* * *
So, what really happened on the night and morning of 25 June 2009 in the second floor bedroom of Michael Jackson’s Carolwood mansion? The likeliest explanation, of course, is that, in the end, Dr Conrad Murray unwittingly gave Michael Jackson a lethal dose of Propofol that was administered first by an injection and then continued over a course of hours via his uniquely adapted delivery system. The Propofol alongside the other cocktail of drugs already in Jackson’s system, a cocktail prescribed and administered by Murray, combined to create a lethal mixture that could only have been avoided if Murray had been monitoring his patient constantly. As we know, Murray was not only on the phone, but was in a completely different room. And he was able to spend so much time on the phone because Jackson was dying. Or, more likely, already dead.
This scenario is based on the evidence provided for the trial by the autopsy, the toxicology analysis and the witness statements: the amount of Propofol and other drugs in Jackson’s body when he died; the fact that a saline bag was found with a cut in it with a vial of Propofol sitting at the bottom of the bag (and the only fingerprint found on this system of administration was the fingerprint of Murray8); the fact that Alberto Alvarez saw this system of administration in operation on Jackson and was ordered to hide the administration contraption, as well as countless other vials and bottles of medication before the paramedics arrived on the scene; and the fact that, during the trial, every one of the witnesses had similar testimonies and none of them corresponded with Murray’s one police interview, upon which he based his entire defence.
On going back to the morning in question, Murray’s call at 11:51am on 25 June to one of his girlfriends, Sade Anding, raises many questions. She testified that she heard voices in the background at the exact time Murray stopped talking to her and dropped the phone or put it in his pocket without turning it off. Why did Murray do this? What was happening? Was Jackson calling out for help? Did he gasp? Did he choke? Just what was it that Sade Anding was hearing? Maybe what she heard, and what she thought she heard, were not the same thing.
What if Conrad Murray deliberately gave Jackson a lethal dosage of Propofol? This has to be considered, albeit briefly, even though it is unlikely, as surely even Murray would have made better preparations to dispose of the incriminating evidence and concoct a story that would at least tally with other witnesses. In fact, Murray, perhaps more than anyone, had much to gain by Jackson going to London and undertaking the series of concerts. Like Jackson, Murray was financially stricken, on the verge of bankruptcy, facing the loss of his house, and with no end in sight to the monetary liabilities incumbent on him with seven children to provide for. The $150,000 a month he was getting paid for his role as Jackson’s personal physician was a financial lifeline for Murray,9 and the prospect of a ‘This Is It’ world tour following on from the UK dates would increase not only Murray’s bank balance, but also his standing within the world of celebrity doctors. Who knows, regular television appearances could follow and perhaps even a major publishing contract. The world, for Murray, was there for the taking, so it seems highly unlikely, almost implausible, that he had anything to gain by deliberately killing Michael Jackson, whatever conspiracy theorists might think.
However, the fact that Murray hadn’t been paid for his work up to the time of Jackson’s death (and, in fact, has never received any payment for his role as the singer’s personal physician) raises another question: just who was employing Dr Conrad Murray? Was it Jackson himself or was it AEG Live? The contract that Jackson had with AEG Live was extremely unfavourable to the singer. It demanded that all production costs were at his expense, and this would have included the provision of a personal physician. However, the contract that AEG Live presented to Dr Murray stated that:
4. RESPONSIBILITIES OF GCS/DR MURRAY. Without in any way limiting any other term or provision of this Agreement or any obligation of GCA or Dr Murray hereunder, GCA and Dr Murray shall:
4.1 Perform the Services reasonably requested by Producer.
The Producer was none other than AEG Live. So, while it would appear that Jackson would ultimately meet the financial payments to Murray (although there is some debate as to whether Jackson or AEG Live would be paying him10), the doctor was at the beck and call of AEG Live. Might this explain the frantic exchanges of emails on the night of 24 June and morning of 25 June, as Murray was encouraged by AEG Live representatives to try to persuade Jackson to release his medical records and agree to a second medical in London? Without this, there would be no insurance policy for the final 20 concerts. And no insurance policy would directly affect AEG Live.
As the concerts grew nearer, AEG Live would have been growing increasingly nervous about Jackson not agreeing to the requests of the insurers. Might this be a contributing reason they postponed the start of the tour,11 as well as the fact that the singer was appearing to be struggling in rehearsals? They appear to have been putting pressure on Murray to attempt to persuade the singer to accede to the insurance company’s demands. Therefore, if the singer was flatly refusing to release his medical records and undertake a second medical, did AEG Live, or anybody come to that, have a contingency plan in place? And, if so, was Murray part of a grander scheme?
Michael Jackson had long been surrounded by the enablers who had given him access to the prescription drugs he was so addicted to.12 The Jackson family lawyer said, shortly after Michael died, that, ‘The people that have surrounded him have been enabling him … If you think that the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it was nothing to what we have seen in Michael Jackson’s life.’13 Dr Murray was simply the latest potential enabler. But what made Murray different was that he was desperate for any form of financial salvation given the scale of the debts he was in. The initial contract, whenever it would be duly signed, promised him $150,000 per month plus expenses. It was a lifeline to him. However, as it hadn’t been signed, none of the money he was expecting, and desperately needed, had arrived, nor would any arrive until the contract was signed. Consequently, Murray was, himself, in a weak position on many fronts and, as such, was vulnerable to approaches from superior forces. If somebody, or some organisation, wanted to dispose of Michael Jackson, then Dr Conrad Murray was, if required, in the perfect place to enable them to do so.
Murray’s flimsy defence in court was based on the theory that Michael Jackson gave himself an overdose of drugs during the time – two minutes according to Murray – that he had left the room to visit the bathroom. He told the LAPD detectives that he had given Jackson 25mg of Propofol at some point between 10:40am and 10:50am, watched the singer go to sleep, and then at 11am he had left Jackson’s room to go to the toilet for two minutes.
Could it really be possible, therefore, that Dr Murray might have been persuaded, perhaps for money, by a superior force to leave a lethal dose of Propofol within reach of Jackson, and then conveniently leave the room? It’s virtually inconceivable given the timescale as revealed to the court throughout the trial, especially if we take Murray’s word that he introduced Propofol at 10:50am. This is the timescale that Dr Rogers, the Chief of Forensic Medicine at the Los Angeles County Coroner, was working to when he reached his conclusion that Jackson couldn’t have possibly self-administered.
But we have to consider another possible theory, one that might be just as unlikely but one that has to be considered nonetheless: what if Murray had left the room earlier having placed a lethal dose of Propofol tantalisingly close to Jackson, a confirmed drug addict desperate for his next fix? This was more likely to take the form of a conveniently loaded IV drip, full of Propofol, which could be self-administered by simply opening the roller clamp14 that controlled the flow of drugs through the IV into the body. This could, therefore, allow the drug to free-flow into the singer’s body if desired. Murray told the LAPD that Jackson had done this in the past. In his interview on 27 June 2009, Murray said to the detectives, ‘He never told me that he administered it himself, but he said to me that the doctors allowed him to infuse it himself.’ According to Murray, Jackson went on to say after Murray had refused to allow him to self-administer Propofol, ‘Why don’t you want me to push it? I love to push it.’
As we know, there are two major time periods when no phone calls were made to, or from, Murray’s phones. One was from 8:49am until 9:23am on 25 June, a 34-minute window when Murray could have left Jackson, enabling him time to self-administer. Then from 10:24am to 11:17am, a 53-minute window, and the one which seems to fit the timeframe much more conveniently, not least because Murray uses this time to call Stacey Ruggles in his office for almost nine minutes from 10:34am to 10:43am. What better alibi, if we consider this as a potential scenario, than a call to his office which, more than likely, took place outside of Jackson’s bedroom?
At 10:43am, Murray may have re-entered Jackson’s bedroom to check whether the singer had self-administered. Finding him not breathing, Murray does nothing to revive him but, instead, may have turned up the heating in the house even though it was a balmy day in June. In her book, Starting Over, La Toya Jackson recalls going into Jackson’s Carolwood bedroom on the evening of his death and noticing immediately, and to her surprise, that the room was excessively hot. She was told that Michael always kept the heating on because he was generally freezing but wondered whether the truth might be that the heating was really kept on to keep Jackson’s body warm following his death in an attempt to make it look like he had died closer to the actual 911 call, which was placed at 12:21pm.15
At 11:07am Dr Murray receives another phone call from his office. It’s a brief call, perhaps Murray makes his excuses for not being able to chat. Could something else have been pre-occupying him? From 11:18am, Murray begins a series of emails and phone calls that occupy him right up to the moment he re-enters the bedroom while he is on the phone with one of his girlfriends to find Jackson not breathing. Did Murray use these phone calls to give himself a convenient alibi, the most convenient of all being the one to Sade Anding at some time after 11:51am when he re-entered the bedroom to ‘find’ Jackson not breathing? All these phone calls would certainly allow Jackson the opportunity to inadvertently self-administer a fatal dose of Propofol but if so, did Murray facilitate these actions at the behest of a superior force? Did Jackson really self-administer the drugs? Or was, as is most likely, Murray simply neglecting his duties and not monitoring his patient, with no trace of deliberate foul play involved?
The truth is that Michael died, unquestionably, from a much larger dosage of drugs than Murray claimed to have administered. It was proven indisputably by the toxicology report. The question is, how did the drugs that killed Michael Jackson get into his body?
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday on 24 November 2013, following his release from jail, Murray said, ‘I received a phone call at 11:07am, and when I left Michael at 11:20am, he had a normal heartbeat, his vital signs were good. I left the room because I didn’t want to disturb him. I believe he woke up, got hold of his own stash of Propofol and injected himself. He did it too quickly and went into cardiac arrest.’
This account by Murray is riddled with contradictions when compared to his interview with the LAPD on 27 June 2009, two days after Jackson’s death. In this one interview with the LAPD, the only time Murray spoke to any form of judicial authorities about the death of Michael Jackson, he said he administered Propofol to Jackson between 10:40am and 10:50am, monitored the singer as he went to sleep, and then left the bedroom at 11am to go to the toilet, a break lasting no more than two minutes, after which he re-entered the bedroom to find the singer lifeless. Remember, these versions of events were given by Murray on 27 June 2009, just two days after Jackson’s death, so should have been fresh in his mind.
However, in The Mail on Sunday interview, some four years after Jackson’s death, Dr Murray claims that he received a brief phone call at 11:07am. The phone records verify this call took place. It was from Stacey Ruggles who was his office assistant. If Murray had come back into the room at 11:02am, as he told the LAPD detectives, and found Michael not breathing, would he really have answered a call at 11:07am? And, if he did, surely he would have instructed Stacey Ruggles to call an ambulance. At the very least, she would have noticed something unusual about his demeanor if he had just discovered his patient was not breathing. But she did not.
It appears from his interview with The Mail on Sunday that Murray is suggesting he didn’t leave the room during the duration of the phone call to Ruggles as he goes on to say he only actually left the room, and therefore Michael, at 11:20am because, ‘… I didn’t want to disturb him’.
Why would Murray not want to disturb Jackson at 11:20am but found it okay to answer a call in his presence at 11:07am? And how does this fit when he claims earlier that he found Jackson not breathing at 11:02am? Again, phone records verify that Murray did, in fact, make a phone call, but it was at 11:18am and not 11:20am. It was a call that lasted for 32 minutes to his Las Vegas practice. Once again, this contradicts his claim that he found Jackson not breathing at 11:02am.
If Jackson did self-administer a lethal dose of Propofol inadvertently, then according to The Mail on Sunday interview, Murray is suggesting that it must have been somewhere between 11:18am and 11:51am when Jackson woke up, got hold of some Propofol and self-administered. Throughout this period, Murray says he was, conveniently, out of the room.
So we can conclude, without doubt, that Murray never re-entered the room to find Jackson lifeless at 11:02am. It also seems highly unlikely Jackson could have injected himself, as Murray claims. Remember, Michael Jackson was phobic about needles. Not only that, it takes multiple draws, and therefore time, to actually get Propofol from vial to syringe, and Propofol causes pain upon injection, hence the need for Lidocaine to be administered to the injection site first. Drug addict or not, this method of self-administration by Jackson is inconceivable.
And this looks even more unlikely when we consider the amount of Propofol supposedly taken by Jackson. In his LAPD interview, Murray stated that he had only given Jackson 25mg of Propofol. So how does this compare to the levels of the drug that were actually found in Jackson’s body?
The toxicology report found Propofol riddling Jackson’s system – in his heart blood, his hospital blood, his femoral blood, his liver, his stomach contents and his urine. At the trial, Dr Steven Shafer, a Professor of Anaesthesiology at Columbia University gave his verdict based upon the toxicology report. He explained that the Propofol concentration found in Jackson’s femoral blood was 2.6mg/ml. In a study showing what concentration of Propofol is needed for a person to stop breathing, it was found that at 2.3mg/ml around 50 per cent of patients would be expected to stop breathing. At 3.3mg/mg, 95 per cent of patients stop breathing. He continued by suggesting that if Jackson was given 2.5mg of Propofol, as Murray suggested, he would have stopped breathing for anywhere between 60 and 150 seconds. After three minutes, every patient would be expected to breathe again.16
But Shafer suggested this was not what happened.
The levels of Propofol found in Jackson’s body were 82.5mg of residual Propofol. Dr Shafer showed the trial a table that illustrated how much Propofol goes into a patient’s urine depending on the quantities they produce during surgery. A typical patient given 200mg of Propofol would have a reading of 70.71mg within four hours of administration. Jackson’s was considerably higher, indicating that he must have received more Propofol than 200mg, way above the 25mg that Murray insisted he administered.17 Going back to Murray’s claim that Jackson administered Propofol to himself in the two minutes he was out of the room (though no one is entirely clear when these two minutes occurred), this would mean that he would have had to use at least two 100mg vials in two separate injections, and there’s simply no way this can be done in two minutes, particularly when the first injection would knock the patient out.
So where does that leave us. With Conan Doyle’s most famous of quotes: ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’18
The most probable scenario was that a Propofol infusion was started at approximately 9am, using Murray’s unique and haphazard delivery system. But before that there was a bolus Propofol injection, given by Murray. As the levels of Propofol in Jackson increased, flowing freely into him from the infusion drip, so his breathing slowed down and his carbon dioxide levels would have gone up. At 10am Jackson was still breathing but more erratically. But there was no discernable problem to the naked eye and as he’s not using the correct monitoring equipment, Murray doesn’t see or recognise that there are problems. He may even be moving in and out of the room, distracted by his personal concerns. At around 11:30am to 11:45am Jackson stopped breathing, as there was no oxygen in his lungs. Some time before noon, Jackson died with the infusion still running.
So how does this scenario correspond with Murray’s movements on the morning of 25 June? Murray made no phone calls between 8:49am and 9:23am, although two texts were evident on his phone records. So, in these 34 minutes, Murray could have begun administering Propofol and sat by the bed to monitor Jackson. Perhaps the texts were sent or received and checked in moments of boredom during this period while Murray was at the bedside. But, remember, at no point during his administration of Propofol did Murray place the pulse oximeter (cheap version though it was) on Jackson.19 So Murray had no effective way of monitoring the singer.
At around 10:07am, when Jackson’s breathing would have been slowing down, what was Murray doing? Completing a lengthy 22-minute phone call with Marissa Boni20 that had started at 9:45am, so he could well have returned to the room after this call. If he had done so he would still have found Jackson breathing and would have detected a pulse. However, as we now know, he was not monitoring Jackson as rigorously as he should have been. Jackson’s breathing would, by now, have been slowing and his carbon dioxide levels would be beginning to reach a critical level. When, we believe, Jackson finally stopped breathing sometime between 11:30am and 11:45am, where was Murray? Making a 32-minute call on his iPhone to his Nevada practice. This call began at 11:18am and ended at around 11:49am. He then called Bob Russell until approximately 11:51am, and finally he called Sade Anding.
So, we can see that the only truth that Dr Murray told the LAPD was that he went for a toilet break. And we are not even sure of what time that was.
The rest is mostly lies.
When Murray was supposedly finally alerted to Jackson’s condition, he was talking on the phone to the cocktail waitress Sadie Anding. Earlier in the morning he had emailed an insurance agent for the ‘This Is It’ tour in London and said press reports that Jackson had health problems were entirely fallacious, but that Jackson was unwilling to undergo another medical in London and was not willing to release his medical records to the insurers. So at some point throughout the night he must have broached the subject of the insurer’s requests with Jackson who had resolutely said no. This weighed heavily on Murray, as he had been tasked by AEG Live to persuade Jackson to do as the insurers demanded. Perhaps it was then, and only then, that he had realised this would mean the tour was, in all likelihood, not going to happen.
Murray sends this email and takes all these calls for much of the time, we can assume, in an adjacent room. He certainly makes the final call to the cocktail waitress Sade Anding from another room because it’s during this call that she claims Murray stops talking to her upon his return to Jackson’s bedroom. This seems to be the moment that Murray first sees the stricken Jackson. He suggests, in his LAPD interview, that it’s 11:02am, but we know that is not true, that it has to be between 11:51am and 12:02pm, because that’s when phone records state he was calling Sade Anding, and that’s when she says the conversation between them stopped and that the line between them eventually went dead. Part-way through this call the phone is either dropped by Murray or put in his pocket without being disconnected, and Sade Anding can hear ‘coughing, mumbling, and sounds of panic’ down the line.
What exactly is it that Dr Murray sees that makes him stop talking and either drop the phone or forget to turn it off in his panic and place it in his pocket? What makes someone actually drop a phone to the floor as opposed to saying, ‘hold on, I’ll call you right back’? What makes them put it into their pocket without turning it off?
From across the room as Murray re-entered, it wouldn’t be clear to him that Jackson was not breathing. Surely in such circumstances the caller would likely say, ‘Call you back’, and then hang up and investigate? Unless, of course, Jackson had fallen out of bed and Murray panicked. But Jackson couldn’t have fallen out of bed because he would have still been on the floor when Alberto Alvarez entered the room, and he said he saw Jackson on the bed. Murray told the LAPD detectives he couldn’t lift Jackson off the bed (to do CPR later), so how could he lift him back on the bed in the first place?
So what exactly was it that the cocktail waitress heard? What, or who, was ‘coughing, mumbling’ and what were the ‘sounds of panic’? Is Sade Anding even a reliable witness? A few days after Jackson’s death, according to her court testimony, Murray spoke with Anding again and when she told him that she had been questioned by police, Murray allegedly told her not to speak with them again without his lawyer. He supposedly told her, ‘I’m going to give you my lawyer’s number and make sure before you speak to LAPD you have my lawyer present.’
This is perhaps a good point to ask the question: when Sadie Anding said she heard ‘coughing and mumbling’, is there an implication that somebody else, other than Murray or Jackson, might have been present in the room? In 2010 Joe Jackson told reporters that ‘Murray’s the fall guy There’s other people, I think, involved with this whole thing.’ And, certainly, LaToya Jackson was convinced that her brother was murdered and that Dr Murray was innocent and that, in her opinion, other people were involved. Could these ‘other people’ possibly explain the ‘mumbling and coughing’ that Anding heard? In a 2011 interview with CNN Entertainment, Piers Morgan asked LaToya directly, ‘Do you think it’s murder?’ She responded by saying, ‘Absolutely. I said it in the beginning and I believe it to this day. You must remember Michael told me repeatedly that they were going to kill him, that he was going to die.’ She wouldn’t name specific names but simply said that the people behind his murder were, ‘The people who were controlling him’. Until LaToya provides detailed evidence of murder or reveals specific identities of those who she believes murdered her brother instead of hiding behind nameless accusations and tawdry publicity stunts, the claim that Michael Jackson was murdered by other people within the room on the night of 25 June is without substance.
Throughout the trial neither side disputed that Conrad Murray was absent from Jackson’s room when the singer died. Murray didn’t appear overly concerned about Jackson’s well-being or whether he was in any danger on that June night. After all, why should Murray be concerned? He’d given the singer a cocktail of drugs including Propofol almost every night for the last two months, apparently without any problems.
But something did not go well this night.
Once Michael Jackson stopped breathing his body switched to anaerobic metabolism, his lactic acid levels began to build, and his organs quickly failed. It is likely that, at some time between 11:37am and 11:45am, Jackson went into cardiac arrest and, because he was sedated by the free-flowing Propofol, there was no way his body could react, rendering him unable to wake himself. Arrested blood circulation prevented delivery of oxygen and glucose to his body. And when cardiac arrest goes untreated for more than three to four minutes, brain injury is inevitable. For the best chances of survival and neurological recovery, immediate treatment is vital. But where was Dr Murray, his personal physician? He was in another room, and on the phone.
Murray would have known immediately upon discovering Jackson, that 20 minutes of pulseless arrest means the victim has virtually no chance of being successfully resuscitated, and that even if his heart is miraculously restarted, his brain will likely be severely damaged to a vegetative state. Upon seeing Jackson lifeless, Murray became frantic, so frantic that he, a cardiologist of all people, panicked and forgot how to do proper CPR. So frantic, that he forgot there was an Ambu Bag present in the room. And so frantic that he didn’t call 911.
Cardiologists are extensively educated in all manner of the anatomy, physiology, health and disease processes of the human heart. It’s their primary business. So when the paramedics eventually arrived at Carolwood following the delayed emergency call, and hooked up the cardiac monitor to Jackson in the bedroom of the mansion to reveal asystole – a flatline – Murray knew his patient was dead. He would have known all about advanced cardiac life support, he of all the people at the scene would have known the likelihood of resuscitating Jackson was essentially zero. He would have known, when he saw the flatline, and a few errant bits of electrical activity, that the game was over. And he would have known, at that moment, that he had been out of the room on his mobile phone for too long.
But Dr Murray didn’t want to be the one to both cause the cardiac arrest of Michael Jackson and pronounce the singer dead. Hence his efforts to persuade the paramedics to take Jackson to UCLA Medical Center, and the reasons why he continued to protest that he could feel a pulse in Jackson’s body when, quite evidently, the singer was dead.
Dr Conrad Murray gave a flawed and inaccurate version of what happened on 25 June in his interview with the LAPD two days later, despite having time to formulate his evidence. He refused to take the witness stand during his trial. All the evidence points to the fact that Murray administered greater levels of Propofol than he suggested, lethal levels in fact, and then left Jackson alone for a crucial period, during which time the singer suffered a cardiac arrest and died. This is what happened that night. They are simply the facts of how Michael Jackson passed away.
* * *
Also beyond doubt, is the fact that Michael Jackson was worth far more dead than he was alive. Everybody knew that, even Michael Jackson knew it. He actually said it.21 So who really stood to gain the most from Jackson’s death?
There are essentially three candidates: the Jackson family themselves, John Branca (his ex-attorney who had somehow managed to return to the fold) and AEG Live.
The Jackson family had been estranged from Michael for some time, with the exception of his mother, Katherine. Michael would even forbid his siblings entry to his Carolwood home without advance notice,22 and his relationship with his father had been severely strained for many years. Michael had caused the collapse of The Jacksons’ reunion concert by refusing to take part in it and, as a consequence, his siblings had all suffered financially. In fact, Michael even owed his brother, Randy, in excess of $1.6 million.23
But it went deeper than that. Michael had been a superstar and had scaled the heights of the music and entertainment industry. His brothers had been left in his wake. Jermaine, despite marrying the boss’s daughter, had had an unsuccessful career at Motown, with only one hit single and when Michael was arrested on new child molestation charges in 2003, Jermaine went to publishers in New York offering a ‘tell-all’ book proposal.24 At the time of Michael’s death, Tito was performing as a guitarist in a jazz band in low-key gigs around LA, Jackie was running the Jesco record company, and Marlon was stacking shelves in San Diego. Within a year, the three of them attempted to cash in on the Jackson name in an ill-fated reality show that lasted just six episodes. La Toya continued her job as a reserve policewoman and Janet, the most successful of all Jackson’s siblings, prospered as an actress and singer. But they all depended on Michael’s earnings, usually distributed to them through their mother, Katherine. The LA attorney and radio host, Leo Terrell, said of the Jackson family, ‘They all looked to Michael as an ATM machine.’25 But despite helping to alleviate Michael of his money, the family all knew that Michael’s spending was out of control and that he had a serious and chronic addiction to painkillers. And his trials and tribulations in the press, especially surrounding the accusations of child molestation, severely embarrassed the Jackson family.
But he was blood; Katherine loved her son and La Toya claimed to love her brother. Throughout the years they had tried, at various intervals, to intervene and help him overcome his drug abuse. But each time they had failed. So could the Jackson family really consider the death of their son? He was the main earner within the family, but none of the other members of his family ever saw any of the massive financial rewards that he saw, only a drip-fed allowance from Katherine.26 He was the source, they believed, of their financial woes, especially by refusing to perform with them any more, and they were undeniably jealous. To most of his brothers he had sabotaged their careers for his own selfish means. If Michael Jackson was dead, and there was no will, in all likelihood Katherine would immediately assume control of his estate, and that would include the lucrative Sony/ATV music catalogue. She would have known this, as would all of the family. Indeed, all the members of the Jackson family would have known that the death of any superstar was a lynchpin for creating an enormously profitable empire. Just look at the Elvis estate following his death.
But the moment John Branca emerged from the shadows with a copy of the 2002 will, of which he was an executor, the Jackson family realised that they had no control over the estate.
In fact, Jackson had made four wills; the first was in 1995 (with Branca as an executor then), the second in 1997 and then two in 2002. All the wills were remarkably similar and all provided for a consistent distribution of the estate. His three children, his mother and charities would benefit. No other members of the Jackson family were entitled to receive anything. Consequently, Branca throwing the will into the mix was a nightmare for the Jacksons, and so the Jackson family would collectively spend several years, and many thousands of dollars, unsuccessfully contesting the validity of the will. In their ignorance, the Jackson family could have had a financial motive to be part of Jackson’s death, but if their aim was to control the estate after his demise, then it seriously backfired on them.
What of John Branca, the man fired by Jackson who suddenly re-emerged as part of Jackson’s key team only days before the singer died? The man who remained as executor of the will for years after Jackson had instructed him to hand over all documents and all financial controls to other lawyers. It’s fair to say that Branca has done extremely well out of his administration of the Jackson estate since the singer’s death, as both Branca and co-executor John McClain receive a 10 per cent cut of all profits they secure for the King of Pop’s estate.27 Since Jackson died, Branca has overseen deals for the Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas; a Spike Lee documentary on Jackson; the ‘Immortal’ tour celebrating Jackson’s legacy, which has grossed over $300 million; the ‘This Is It’ concert film with combined revenues exceeding $250 million; a new Sony recording deal in 2010 credited as the largest record deal in history; and the licensing of Jackson’s music for use in video games, films and theatrical performances. A 10 per cent cut of all profits generated on these projects, and more, will prove extraordinarily lucrative for John Branca and his fellow executor, John McClain.
But Branca wasn’t to know that no other wills existed and, upon his firing in 2003, may simply have held on to the 2002 will for insurance purposes. After all, as far as Branca might have been concerned, he was the man responsible for boosting Jackson’s earnings earlier in the singer’s career. He was pivotal in the production and release of Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video, he helped Jackson purchase ATV Music Publishing in 1985 and he brokered the purchase of Neverland. Branca was, without doubt, a critical driving force in Jackson’s career and may have felt he was entitled to some sort of insurance based on his dealings and negotiations on Jackson’s behalf over a number of decades.
The controversy over the validity and authenticity of this 2002 will (remember that Michael Jackson was apparently in New York on the day that the will was supposedly signed by him in Los Angeles), continues to rumble on in internet forums. There appears to be little indication as to why Barry Seigel resigned as a co-executor of Jackson’s will but if it was genuine, why did Seigel want nothing to do with it and withdraw his name as an executor in 2003? Was he aware of something going on behind the scenes? Or was he simply unable to fulfil the duties requested of him? Like so many things in Jackson’s life and death, these remain unanswered questions.
Whether this will was authentic or not, and it has never been proven to be fake, Branca was already a wealthy man and a respected lawyer. It is inconceivable that he had any part in the death of Michael Jackson. Why would he? Branca wasn’t just a business associate of Jackson, but a close friend too.28 Despite coming back into the Jackson fold in the week before the singer died, Branca really came into his own following Jackson’s death and much of the financial success of the estate in the years since could only have happened with Branca’s expertise and dedication. He simply saw an opportunity, being in possession of the will, and exploited it profitably. And he was totally within his rights, legally, to do so.
* * *
So that brings us to AEG Live.
AEG Live had a lot to lose. They had a significant stake in the ‘This Is It’ tour and, if Jackson reneged on the deal prior to leaving for London, suing him would be pointless as there was no way he could pay given his dire financial straits. AEG Live had taken $85 million in ticket sales, but this would have to be returned if and when Jackson cancelled. The large insurance policy that covered every one of the 50 shows29 was invalid as Jackson hadn’t released his medical records or agreed to another medical, and AEG Live even eventually dropped their $17.5 million insurance claim that they did have in place for the cancelled comeback concerts with Lloyd’s of London.30
But the biggest blow for AEG Live would surely come on Wall Street, home to the world’s two largest stock exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. AEG Live, a subsidiary of AEG, were not a publicly traded company in 2009 and therefore not listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but were determined to overtake Live Nation as the world’s premier promoters.31 If AEG Live could overtake Live Nation and become the largest concert promoters in the world, then they would be an attractive option if the company was listed for sale and eventually become a publicly traded company. In 2012, three years after the cancelled Jackson shows, AEG was put up for sale for $8 billion.32 One can only imagine how much the sale value of the company might have been if the Jackson tour had gone ahead and been a huge commercial success. Such a tour might have catapulted AEG Live above Live Nation and, in these circumstances, the sale price of AEG would have increased correspondingly, making billionaire Philip Anschutz even wealthier.
But in order for these longer term plans to happen, first Jackson had to complete his 50 shows at the O2. In promising to bring Jackson to the O2, AEG Live had taken a major gamble, but if it backfired, and it appeared by 24 June it absolutely would, and Jackson failed to turn up or cancelled after just a handful of concerts, then it could be potentially disastrous for AEG, both in the short term with regards to initial financial losses, but also in the long term with their possible vision of selling the company for a vast sum on the world’s financial markets.
In addition, if Jackson started the shows and then pulled out, AEG may also have been branded irresponsible and unprofessional for taking such a risk and not putting all the necessary processes in place, such as conducting due diligence in their checks on Conrad Murray or not being able to secure insurance for all 50 of the concerts. AEG Live would be threatened with a tarnished image within the world of concert promotion. Add to this the evidence, which would surely come out, of the debacle of Jackson’s London press conference when the singer was drunk, his no-shows at rehearsals and his drug dependency, then AEG Live’s professional judgement would have been exposed and seriously called into question. As far as AEG Live was concerned, Jackson either did the whole tour or did no tour at all, meaning he never left Los Angeles. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in between would work financially.
So, what would happen if Jackson didn’t make it to London? Damage limitation would be managed and spun. AEG Live would have to reimburse ticket holders, but as we’ve seen, they rapidly devised an ingenious plan to make millions of dollars, possibly as much as $42.5 million from sending those ticket holders who requested their exclusive 3D tickets as a souvenir. They would also have to write off their $35 million investment. But, again they were shrewd; out of nowhere they began filming rehearsals two days before Jackson died. In addition, incredibly, almost to the hour of Jackson’s death, they locked down the Staples Center and seized all footage from members of the cast, crew and production staff and, as Randy Phillips said, ‘put all of our intellectual property into the vault at Staples Center so nobody could get near it or leave with it’.33 There was no contract with Jackson establishing film rights for this footage, but AEG Live edited it into the This Is It film following Jackson’s death and it has since become the most successful music film of all time, guaranteeing AEG Live, and the Jackson estate, enormous profits.34 They certainly seemed to maximise their returns from what appeared to be a tragic end to Jackson’s life.
Conspiracy theorists will always attempt to prove that Michael Jackson was murdered. As we have done, they will show that there are a number of parties who had much to gain from Jackson’s death. True, there are many coincidences and many questions still left unanswered. For example, there is one other figure that comes into the equation with AEG Live. Tom Barrack was the man who put Jackson in touch with AEG Live in the first place, but only after he had helped Jackson out in the ongoing saga of Neverland. Barrack helped Jackson save Neverland from foreclosure in 2008 with $22.5 million of his own money from his firm Colony Capital, the same firm that, by chance perhaps, owned the mortgage on Conrad Murray’s $1.6 million house. Under the terms of the agreement struck up between Jackson and Colony Capital in 2008 it said that, ‘… when Neverland is eventually sold, Colony will recoup its investment in the note plus the accrued interest, its management and upkeep expenses, and around 12 per cent of above that as a success fee. The rest will go to the estate.’
On 29 May 2015, it was announced that Neverland was up for sale. Now known by its original name of Sycamore Valley Ranch, the property was put on the market for an astonishing $100 million, $77.5 million more than Tom Barrack provided to Michael Jackson to save it from foreclosure in 2008. The property agent, Suzanne Perkins, confirmed when contacted that, ‘Tom Barrack is the full owner of Neverland through a subsidiary’. The subsidiary is Colony Capital and in a statement a spokesperson for Michael Jackson’s estate said, ‘We are saddened at the prospect of the sale of Neverland which, under the agreement negotiated during Michael’s lifetime, Colony has the right to sell.’35
Not a bad return for a property. Interestingly, Colony Capital also formed a partnership with the Saudi Prince Alwaleed to create the Raffles and Fairmont hotel chains. Prince Alwaleed was a good friend of Michael Jackson and partnered with the singer and Sony to form MJJ Productions, among other things. So this connection may have given Colony Capital, and Tom Barrack, a potential way into the Sony/ATV music catalogue, the most lucrative element of Jackson’s business affairs.
But back to AEG Live, would they really push a fading and unfit pop star, in dire financial problems and with a chronic dependency on drugs to the limit?
The Jacksons took AEG Live to court and lost. And it appears that the shocking death of Michael Jackson has its likely true explanation in the testimony by Dr Chris Rogers and Professor Steven Shafer. That is, that Dr Conrad Murray administered a cocktail of drugs throughout the night, which then interacted with a large dosage of Propofol given to Jackson at some point on the morning of 25 June. While Dr Murray was on the phone and out of the room, the singer suffered a catastrophic cardiac arrest and, when Murray returned to the room, it was simply too late. AEG Live, John Branca and the Jackson family themselves, despite having their fingerprints somewhere on the periphery, were merely bystanders in this final tragic episode.
So, finally, what were the real circumstances that led to this tragic event?
* * *
On 24 June, Dr Murray was being pestered by AEG Live to persuade Michael Jackson to agree to release his medical records and undergo a further medical in London to get insurance for the final twenty shows. But Jackson had refused, and with such a refusal, the whole tour was in jeopardy. And with no tour, nobody would get paid – disaster for Murray and disaster for AEG Live.
Further up in the AEG Live hierarchy, whispers had probably already been heard that there were problems with the tour and the prospect that Jackson might back out after a few concerts. When those rumours reached the very top and the ears of Philip Anschutz, the owner of AEG Live, something had to be done. Anschutz is an astute businessman who, despite never using a mobile phone or email, has amassed an estimated personal fortune of $7 billion. Avoiding the public spotlight, he made his fortune in oil and gas, as well as in real estate, railroads, telecommunications and sports and entertainment. Despite his wealth, he would have discovered the staggering financial outlay that had already left AEG Live’s coffers in bringing Jackson to the O2. The original budget had more than quadrupled, and there was no end in sight to the potential over-spend. Anschutz may have been told that Jackson was proving unreliable, that he was refusing to submit his medical records and unwilling to undertake a second medical. Not only that, there was also a history of unreliability. So Anschutz may have made the decision to cut AEG’s losses and pull out of the tour. It simply wasn’t worth the effort any more and the potential harm to his company could be devastating. Especially as there may have been plans to sell the company in the future.
His decision may have filtered back down to the team close to Jackson. This team would have included Randy Phillips and Paul Gongaware. Dr Murray may have known too, or at least sensed what was in the offing, hence his desperation to convince Jackson to accept what the insurers in London wanted. At that point Murray realised it might be a good opportunity to get his contract signed, which he did at the last moment on 24 June. But it was too late.
When the news came through that Jackson was not going to agree to the requests of the insurance company, Anschutz may have decided that was the final straw, enough was enough, and he put into motion the chain of events that would have eventually led to the cancellation of the ‘This Is It’ tour. Murray may have found this out and, with the end of the tour, his hopes of financial salvation disappeared, hence his futile attempt at getting his contract signed might somehow transpire to be his one and only opportunity to be paid.
On the night of 24 June, Murray’s dreams had likely died minutes before his patient did. His email to Bob Taylor at 11:17am confirming that Jackson was not going to release his medical records and undertake a second medical simply confirmed that. But by then, Murray had unwittingly given Jackson the fatal dose of Propofol. With his mind on other things, Murray left the room to make a number of phone calls. It was during one of these phone calls that Sade Anding noticed that Murray wasn’t sounding his usual self. It is more than likely that he was downbeat and distracted as it had just hit home that the tour was not going to happen and, consequently, he would not see any money. In the end it was perhaps the distraction of the tour ending that ironically contributed to his dereliction of duty. And this dereliction of duty ultimately caused the death of Michael Jackson.
Jackson’s death simply saved AEG Live from officially cancelling the concerts. Through a series of circumstances and medical negligence, Dr Murray was in the wrong place at the wrong time and gave Michael Jackson the drugs that killed him. With the death of Michael Jackson, it was AEG Live, John Branca and, to a lesser extent, Tom Barrack who appear to be the major winners. Their financial gains were enormous, and between them they continue to accrue astonishing profits, and will do for the foreseeable future.
Dr Conrad Murray was jailed for four years for the involuntary manslaughter of Michael Jackson, but does the responsibility of his death actually lie with whoever allowed Dr Conrad Murray to care for the singer? After all, nobody performed any due diligence on his background. Nobody found out that he was not licensed to administer strong drugs in California.36 And nobody bothered to even check his financial and criminal background. Katherine Jackson lodged a billion-dollar lawsuit against AEG Live in 2013 blaming them for the King of Pop’s death, claiming that AEG Live employed, in Murray, an unfit doctor whose negligence led to Michael Jackson’s overdose on sedatives and Propofol. However, the jury ruled in favour of AEG Live, saying that Murray was competent to serve as the singer’s physician and that Jackson orchestrated his death with bad behaviour and poor choices. It appears that if the deviations from the standard of care had not happened, Michael Jackson would almost certainly be alive today, or at least have survived that particular night and morning.
But we have to remember that, long before these deviations from the standard of care, the relationship between Murray and Jackson was spiralling into disaster. The nature of their relationship, how it was set up, the amounts of money involved, and how badly adulterated it was, meant there was no way it could go well for the patient.
Having a personal physician can be a terrible idea for any celebrity, especially a celebrity who is also an addict with psychiatric problems. Systems have evolved and been put in place throughout the medical world to take care of patients, whatever their problems, and a personal physician in the employment of any celebrity can be vulnerable to deviations from normal standards of care. As we have seen, and as the world found out, Dr Conrad Murray was not, nor ever would have been, suited to be the caretaker of a complicated patient like Michael Jackson.
And from the moment they met, their fate was sealed.