Doctor Recounts Jackson Death, in Shock Court Tape
Michael Jackson's doctor claimed he was trying to wean the singer off a drug which he "loved" but that killed him, in a powerful blow-by-blow account of the star's last hours played in court Friday.
In a police interview recorded two days after the King of Pop's death, Conrad Murray insisted he was away from Jackson's bedside for only two minutes on June 25, 2009 when the star stopped breathing.
"Three days before his death, I started to wean Mr. Jackson from propofol," Murray told investigators quizzing him over the star's death, adding, "He was my friend, and he opened up to me in different ways, and I wanted to help him."
But he said: "He fought me on it," explaining how Jackson told him that previous doctors had helped him to sleep 15 to 18 hours at a stretch using propofol -- a surgical anesthetic -- to battle his chronic insomnia.
Murray is accused of involuntary manslaughter over Jackson's death, allegedly by giving him an overdose of propofol at his mansion in Los Angeles, where the star was preparing for a series of comeback shows in London.
The doctor's lawyers claim that Jackson was a desperate drug addict who administered more of the drug himself while Murray was out of the room.
In the police interview, the 58-year-old doctor described spending an entire night trying in vain to get the star to sleep, with a series of drug injections.
Jackson had returned to his Holmby Hills mansion from a rehearsal shortly after midnight, and Murray -- who spent most nights there caring for the star -- began with 2 mg of lorazapam, after a valium pill had no effect.
Over the next six or seven hours he gave him a series of injections, but by early morning Jackson was still wide awake, and getting desperate.
"I've got to sleep, Dr. Conrad ... You know I can't function if I don't get the sleep," he quoted the singer as telling him.
Shortly after 10:00 am, and by this time "really complaining that he cannot sleep," Jackson began asking for his "milk" -- propofol, saying: "Please, please give me some milk, so I can sleep."
At around 10:40 am he gave him 25 mg of propofol -- which Jackson had taken on a nightly basis for two months, before Murray started weaning him off it three nights before his death -- and the singer went to sleep.
"I sat there, watched him for a long enough period that I felt comfortable .. Then I needed to go to the bathroom. So I got up, went to the bathroom," said the doctor.
"I was gone I would say about two minutes .. Then I came back to his bedside and was stunned in the sense that he wasn't breathing."
Murray said he immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
After continuing those efforts for an unspecified time, he called Jackson's personal assistant, Michael Amir Williams, who was not at the house but who alerted security guards outside to come up to the bedroom.
Eventually another security guard arrived and called 911 at 12:20 pm, before starting to help Murray pump Jackson's chest. Paramedics arrived about six minutes later and continued efforts for about half an hour.
With no signs of life, doctors said they were ready to pronounce death at 12:57 pm, but Murray insisted he be taken to the UCLA Medical Center -- where the star was eventually pronounced dead at 2:26 pm.
Murray said he had been told how much Jackson loved propofol by a fellow doctor who had also treated the star for insomnia. "'He loves that drug,'" he quoted the doctor, David Adams, as saying.
In a remark which the defense may well highlight, Murray recalled how Jackson himself said he would "love" to push the syringe to administer the propofol into his body.
"He asked me 'Why don't you want me to push it?' I love to push it, it makes me feel medicine is great,'" he quoted Jackson as saying.
Source: Agence France Presse
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