83 Minutes

Intralesnl+7 is actually Intralesional Steroid therapy, which is used to treat, amongst other things, scar tissue, discoid lupus and alopea areata, a form of hair loss. These steroids can cause pain and potential infection and, coupled with the other injections Jackson was having from Klein during the last week of April, it is no surprise he was photographed wearing a mask, hat and veil on a trip out of the clinic on 27 April.
Bearden is one of the world’s top celebrity musical directors and has performed with acts such as Sting, Whitney Houston, Lenny Kravitz, Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, Liza Minelli, Elton John and Aretha Franklin, amongst others.
Kenny Ortega had signed a contract with AEG Live on 26 April 2009 through his own company, KO, and received his first payment for his services on 11 May, although he had been working in good faith on the concerts for a number of weeks beforehand.
Work on the show took place at Center Stages in Burbank from 28 March until 27 May 2009 then moved to the Forum in Los Angeles from 27 May until 23 June, upon which it moved to the Staples Center until Jackson’s death.
Payne acknowledged that, during the Dangerous tour, it was generally known that pain was an ongoing issue for Jackson following the Pepsi commercial accident. (Official court transcript, Jackson v. AEG Live, testimony of Travis Payne, 13/14 May 2013.)
Stacy Walker began working with Jackson in 1996 on the short film, Ghosts, and then worked with him on the HIStory tour. In addition she has worked with artists such as Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Usher.
Jackson never brought any of his children to see the rehearsals, as he wanted them to focus on their schooling in the first instance, and then see the finished production once they all travelled to London.
When Payne was asked the question, ‘Do you know who was setting the rehearsal schedule?’ during the Jackson v. AEG Live case, he answered, ‘I would assume the higher up in production, with Michael’s approval.’
Unless, of course, Jackson’s appointments with Klein were scheduled after rehearsals. However, rehearsals often didn’t begin, at least with Jackson’s input, until the evenings meaning any appointments with Klein would have to be in the early hours of the morning, which was unlikely.
Jackson v. AEG Live, Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, Central District, Case BC445597.
Jackson v. AEG Live, Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, Central District, Case BC445597.
David Gardner, ‘Michael Jackson Was Hooked on Painkillers’, Daily Mail, 27 October 2011.
People v. Conrad Murray, official court records, testimony of Dr Robert Waldman, 27 October 2011.
AEG Live bought the assets of Concerts West, which included Paul Gongaware.
Dr Nichopoulos (Dr Nick) had been writing prescriptions for Elvis Presley since January 1975. In fact, they were so close that Presley had given him a green Mercedes-Benz. Between 1 January 1977 and 16 August 1977, Dr Nick had written Elvis prescriptions for an astonishing 8,805 prescription drugs, varying from pills to injectables, including Percodan, cocaine and Demerol. The quantities of these prescriptions were so large that they were more in keeping for patients terminally ill with cancer. Dr Nick was preparing to prescribe Elvis more doses of Dilaudid (an opiate that was Presley’s favourite drug) at 2am on the morning of Presley’s death after the singer had phoned him to get the drugs. At 2:33pm on 16 August 1977, Memphis Fire Station received a call indicating that someone at 3754 Elvis Presley Boulevard was having problems breathing. When the two medics arrived at the address, they were sent upstairs to the bedroom where, passing through to the enormous bathroom, they discovered Elvis Presley stretched out on his back on the floor with a dozen people huddled over his lifeless body, attempting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The medics found no pulse and decided that emergency treatment in a hospital offered the only chance to save Elvis. Five men were needed to lift his body onto the stretcher, as Elvis, by now, weighed around 250lbs. They had just managed to get the stretcher into the ambulance when a green Mercedes pulled up and Dr Nick leapt from it into the ambulance. When Elvis arrived at hospital the medical team waiting there were astonished that they were expected to work on the already-dead body, with Dr Nick remaining in the room. After 20 minutes, they gave up on their futile task, after which Dr Nick left the hospital without giving cause of death, but not before securing the signature of Elvis’s father, Vernon Presley, on a document authorising the hospital autopsy to be paid for by the Presley estate, ensuring the report could, in theory, keep the cause of Elvis’s death a secret and Dr Nick’s involvement in it unconnected. Meanwhile, before the authorities could investigate Presley’s home, it had been cleaned up, although the scrupulous investigators found two syringes. It was announced that Presley had died from heart failure. Dr Nick announced he had been Elvis’s private physician for 10 years and knew for a fact that Elvis had not been taking hard drugs. He concluded, ‘Elvis’s death was simply a bolt out of the blue, a tragedy no-one could have prevented.’
Official court records, Jackson v. Conrad Murray, testimony of Paul Gongaware, 30 May 2013.
Alan Duke, ‘AEG Expert: Michael Jackson Was A Drug Addict’, CNN, 28 August 2013.
The ‘B’ party consisted of band and administration. The ‘A’ party was the artist party, the ‘C’ party was crew and the ‘D’ party was documentary.
In 2011, Live Nation sold 22 million tickets to its events compared to 12.2 million sold by AEG Live.
Richard Johnson, ‘Concert Promoters Pulled Fast One on Jackson, E-mails Imply’, New York Post, 29 May 2013.
Richard Johnson, ‘Concert Promoters Pulled Fast One on Jackson, E-mails Imply’, New York Post, 29 May 2013.
David Campbell ran the O2 complex in 2009, including the O2 Arena.
Jessica Koravos ran AEG Live London in 2009.
Randy Phillips was also cc’d into this email.
Randall Sullivan, Untouchable: The Strange Life & Tragic death of Michael Jackson (Grove/Atlantic, 2012).
Richard Johnson, ‘Concert Promoters Pulled Fast One on Jackson, E-mails Imply’, New York Post, 29 May 2013.
She had known him for 27 years, so could be expected to provide a reliable character assessment.
This was signed on 26 January 2009.
Randall Sullivan, Untouchable: The Strange Life & Tragic death of Michael Jackson (Grove/Atlantic 2012).
Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, Joseph Jackson v. Conrad Murray et al., Case No. BC450393, 6 September 2011.
Randall Sullivan, Untouchable: The Strange Life & Tragic death of Michael Jackson (Grove/Atlantic 2012).
Murray said he had clinics in Houston, Las Vegas, San Diego and Hawaii.
Between the phone calls, Gongaware had called Dr Finkelstein to enquire how much he might charge for such a role. Dr Finkelstein responded by saying he would charge $10,000 per week.
Jeff Gottlieb, ‘Murray Wanted $5 million to Treat Jackson, AEG Chief Testifies’, Los Angeles Times, 3 June 2013.
In a financial declaration submitted on 8 April 2008 in one of his child support cases, Murray stated under penalty of perjury that his gross monthly income was $3,300. It is easy to see why Murray so readily accepted the offer of $150,000 per month, despite it being a massive drop from his initial request of $5 million, as, combined with the additional costs covered by AEG of $39,045 each month, the package of $189,045 a month was a big enough inducement for him to give up his current clinics which were providing him with a gross monthly income of just $3,300 some $185,745 per month less than what he was being offered by the concerts.
CNN, ‘Manslaughter Trial of Conrad Murray Begins’, 27 September 2011.
Conrad Murray was listed as a production expense in April, May, June and July at $150,000 per month in the approved tour budget, dated 16 May 2009, despite formal negotiations not taking place before May 2009.
It was these consecutive visits to Klein that resulted in Dr Waldman stating that, by this point, Jackson was having an increasing tolerance to Demerol and was probably addicted to opioids.
In The Telegraph on 29 November 2011, Nick Allen wrote following the sentencing of Murray that, ‘The judge said the most disturbing aspect of the six week trial had been a tape recording Murray made of his vulnerable patient slurring his words under the influence of drugs. He said his belief was that Murray had made the surreptitious recording as an “insurance policy”.’
Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, Joseph Jackson v. Conrad Murray et al., Case No. BC450393, 6 September 2011.
Upon hearing the recording, Michael Amir Williams testified that, ‘Not that extreme, but I have heard him talk slow before.’ Faheem Muhammad, who would drive Jackson to Klein’s office said he would go ‘… almost every day’, and that he appeared intoxicated when he left and even Paul Gongaware himself said he noticed Jackson had ‘… a little bit of a slower speech pattern, just a slight slur in the speech’ following a visit to Klein.
Forensic computer investigator, Stephen Marx, retrieved the message from Murray’s iPhone three months after the singer’s death.
Although, for practical purposes, traces of Demerol can still be detected through drug testing up to 20 hours after administration and some drug tests can detect Normeperidine, a metabolite of Demerol, up to 30 hours after administration.
CNN, ‘Conrad Murray: “I’m Remorseful”’, 26 June 2014.
The Associated Press, ‘Michael Jackson Death Trial: Doctor’s Girlfriend Discusses Medical Shipments’, The Guardian, 4 October 2011.
Official court transcript, People v. Conrad Murray, testimony of Tim Lopez, 10 January 2011.
Official court transcript, People v. Conrad Murray, testimony of Tim Lopez, 10 January 2011.
Alison Boshoff, ‘Comeback King? Michael Jackson Has Managed Two of 45 Rehearsals For His £65m Concerts’, Daily Mail, 22 May 2009.
In fact, there is a photograph of Michael Jackson apparently attending rehearsals on 6 May 2009. The photograph shows no evidence of any rehearsals actually taking place, and is simply a photo of Michael Jackson in a circle of people (Kenny Ortega and Travis Payne are standing close to the singer) in what could be a dance or rehearsal studio, with their arms all raised. Jackson is wearing his trademark sunglasses and appears to be cheering or yelling along with the others pictured. On 6 May 2009, Jackson had visited Dr Klein in Beverly Hills and received a 200mg injection of Demerol. Demerol in a person’s blood system will drop by 50 per cent every 2.5 to 4 hours so, it is possible Jackson did attend rehearsals on 6 May if he had had injections of Demerol early in the day and arrived at the rehearsal studios in Burbank much later in the day. This photograph was released courtesy of Michael Jackson’s estate on 8 September 2012, so there is no way of knowing if it was actually taken on 6 May.
Los Angeles Police Department, recorded interview of Conrad Murray, 27 June 2009.
Ian Halperin, Unmasked – The Final Years of Michael Jackson (Pocket Books, 2009).
Alison Boshoff, ‘Comeback King? Michael Jackson Has Managed Two of 45 Rehearsals For His £65m Concerts’, Daily Mail, 22 May 2009.
The Associated Press, ‘Jackson Chef: I Thought Singer Was Sleeping Late’, The Guardian, 30 July 2009.
It is common in medicine, for oxygen to be used and mixed with anaesthetics during surgery.