We are now on day 10 of the trial and have entered the third week of proceedings. Today the final section of Conrad Murray’s interview with police is to be heard in court.
‘They cried and cried and cried
In the first part of the audio recording of Conrad Murray’s police interview, played last week, Murray detailed what happened on the 25th June 2009 until Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by the doctors at UCLA hospital. Today the audio recording picks up from the point where Murray tells Michael’s children he is dead. Murray told the police that he consoled Prince, Paris and Blanket and said the children ‘cried and cried and cried’. Paris Jackson told Murray she didn’t want to be an orphan and how she 'will wake up in the morning and I won't be able to see my daddy.' Murray told Paris ‘'I tried my best.' According to Murray Paris responded, "I know that, Dr Murray. At least I know. I know you tried your best, but I'm really sad".'
Murray then spoke of how Michael’s children asked to see his body. A social worker said this was a good idea as it would give them closure. Katherine Jackson, Michael’s mother, did not want to view the body. Murray said during this time members of the Jackson family started arriving at the hospital. Joe Jackson, Michael father, did not show up.
A member of the Jackson family asked Murray if he knew why Michael died. Murray replied ‘no’.
Murray then joined Jermaine Jackson and the family’s lawyers to help draft a press release. Murray then left the hospital.
Murray cites Dr Arnold Klein
In Murray’s interview he told police that MJ visited other doctors. Murray stated that he had no idea what drugs the other doctors were prescribing as Jackson never spoke about these visits. Murray testified that Michael would visit Dr Arnold Klein, Michael’s dermatologist, three times a week. When Michael returned from these visits he would be ‘wasted’ and would need 24 hours to recover. Jackson’s production team had complained about this and Murray stated the worse days at rehearsals were the days after Jackson had visited Dr Klein. Murray also said that Klein regularly prescribed Jackson drugs.
Medical history
During the interview the police ask Dr Murray about Michael’s medical history. Murray said MJ had a bad fungal infection in his toes and very bad callouses. He also thought Jackson’s eye sight was so bad that he was legally blind.
The police then asked about medication’s that Jackson used. Murray told the police that his medical bags containing the Propofol were still in Michael’s closet. The police then revealed that at Jackson’s house they found rancid cannabis and an empty cigarette packet. Murray was shocked at this and stated Jackson was not a smoker.
The audio recording then finished.
Detective Scott Smith
After the audio recording finished one of the detectives who performed the questioning took to the stand. Detective Smith had previous testified that he did not speak to Conrad Murray at UCLA hospital. When he tried to call him that night Murray’s phone went to voicemail. On the 27th June 2009, two days after Michael’s death, Murray’s lawyers contacted LAPD to say that Murray wanted to speak with them. Detective Scott Smith stated that the interview was just to try to find out some information as they knew nothing at the time. It was not an interrogation. At this point the coroner’s office was still the lead agency. LAPD were just assisting them. Smith also said that at no point in the interview did Murray or his lawyers try to restrict or not answer certain questions.
Smith testified that the first time Murray mentioned Propofol was during this interview. Smith stated that Murray seemed surprised, and his eyes grew wide, when he learnt that LAPD had not recovered his medical bags from Jackson’s house which contained the Propofol.
On the Monday following the interview the LAPD issued search warrants on MJ’s house and the tow yard where Murray car was parked. No Propofol was found in Murray’s car, only his contract and business cards.
The LAPD also got search warrants for various addresses associated with Murray. They searched Murray’s home, Murray’s practice and in Murray’s self-storage unit. Propofol was not found at any of these addresses. Once the LAPD recovered Murray’s invoices from a pharmaceutical company they then searched Murray's girlfriend home in Santa Monica, as this is where the delivery address was. No Propofol was found here either.
Smith then went on to say that Michael’s house was not locked down in the days after his death. Chernoff stated that anyone could have then ‘rummaged around’.
Detective Smith also stated that Alberto Alverez did not mention putting any items into a bag until four days after the cause of death was released in August 2009.
Defence attorney Ed Chernoff accused Detective Smith of taking shoddy notes during his search. Smith admitted that in his notes he did not mentioning finding a bottle of Propofol inside the IV bag that was found in Jackson’s closet. This has been a reoccurring theme as people such as Elissa Fleak, the coroner’s office investigator who conducted the investigation at Jackson’s house, also did not mention this in her notes.
Dr Christopher Rogers
Next to testify was Dr Christopher Roger, a pathologist, who conducted Michael Jackson’s autopsy.
Dr Rogers started by testifying about the condition Jackson was in. He stated Michael Jackson weighed 136 pounds. He was thin but his body mass index was within a normal range. The court was then shown a photograph of MJ’s body during the post-mortem. This was quite shocking and I had been assuming throughout the trial that during the pathologists testimony that photos of the autopsy would be shown. To be fair in my opinion although MJ looks thin he did not look as unhealthy as I was expecting.
Dr Rogers went on to say that Jackson was healthier than most people his age. Jackson did not have heart disease and did not have any build-up of fat or cholesterol in the blood vessels in his heart. This is unusual for a person his age.
Dr Rogers said he could not determine the cause of death from the post-mortem. He ordered toxicology tests and read a transcript of Murray’s police interview to get a clearer picture. He also tried to get Jackson’s medical records from Murray so he could see what meds had been administered that day. He was unable to view these. Eventually Rogers concluded that a combination of sedatives caused Jackson’s heart to stop. He declared that the official cause of death was acute Propofol intoxication with contributing factors from other sedatives.
A vital moment in Dr Rogers testimony was when he stated there was no liquid, and specifically no white liquid (as is Propofol) in Jackson’s mouth, oesophagus or stomach. This is yet another huge blow to the defence’s argument that Michael drank the dose of Propofol that killed him.
Dr Rogers later determined the manner of death was a homicide because the Propofol was administered by another person other than the patient. Rogers also dismissed the defence’s claims that Jackson drank the dose of Propofol that killed him whilst Murray was using the bathroom. Dr Rogers stated that it was a too-short amount of time for Michael to self-administer the drugs and for it to then have enough time for it to stop Jackson breathing.
Rogers went on to say that it was not appropriate to give someone with sleeping troubles Propofol as the risk is too great. The setting was outside a hospital or clinical environment and Murray lacked the necessary equipment to keep Jackson alive in case of an emergency, such as if he was to stop breathing.
Dr Rogers told the court that Propofol needs to be constantly dripped into the patient and around 2 – 3 tablespoons of Propofol would be needed an hour to keep a patient asleep. There were no precision dosing devices found in Michael’s house so it would have been easy for Murray to administer too much Propofol.
Summery
It seems over the past few days of the trial each testimony becomes more and more damning against Murray. There have been so many testimonies, ranging from Dan Anderson and the toxicology report to Dr Christopher Rogers, the pathologist, that state that there is no way an oral dose of Propofol killed Michael Jackson. In fact they both testified that Propofol wasn’t even ingested orally at all. This makes the defence’s argument that Jackson killed himself completely implausible. It will be interesting to see how the defence will regroup as their key argument has now been completely torn apart.
I thought that was it very interesting that in Murray’s interview he mentioned Dr Arnold Klein many times. During the opening statements the defence put forward one of their arguments that Dr Klein is responsible for addicting Michael Jackson to drugs. Even if this is the case, and it is obvious that throughout the years many different doctors had prescribed drugs to Jackson and some had even administered Propofol to him, this case is about what happened on the 25th June 2009. Because of that it doesn’t really matter if Dr Arnold Klein did get Michael addicted to drugs as he was not the doctor who administered a fatal dose of an unneeded drug on that day. As I have previously mentioned the case is solely about did Conrad Murray react appropriately to a situation and did his actions lead to Michael Jackson dying. Therefore it is irrelevant what other doctors did, although I would argue their actions did play a part in the lead up to Jackson’s tragic end.
It does feel like the defence are clutching at straws. At times it feels as if the trial is just formality. The defence seem to know the evidence against Murray is overwhelming but as they are representing Murray they have to put some sort of argument forward. They are trying to see if any little irregularity that will create a crack in the prosecutions argument and it is a tough job.
We are drawing ever closer to the final prosecution witness testimonies. It is predicted in the next few days the defence will be able to start calling their witnesses. I believe it will be very interesting to see who the defence call to testify and if the defence change their arguments at all, as the evidence so far has disproved a lot of their theories.
The trial continues tomorrow.
Sophie Dewing (@sophiedewing)
http://exploredreamdiscoverblog.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment