Est. 1998
Court Report
At the beginning of today’s hearing, Dan Anderson, the Supervising Criminalist at the Forensic Laboratories, continued to explain his work with specimens taken from Michael’s body. Mr Flanagan for the Defense again asked many questions which Mr Anderson was unable to answer, either because he did not understand the question or the reply was beyond the scope of his own expertise.
Mr Walgren cross-examined establishing some facts which were unexplained before, including the fact that the amounts of drugs present in the gastric area were small. Of the 2ml Lorazepam tablets, only an amount equal to one forty-third of one tablet was present in Michael’s stomach, which he said was a VERY small amount.
Mr Anderson was followed by Elissa Fleak to clarify some of the evidence she had given yesterday. She spoke of the many evidential photographs she had taken in the room where Michael died, on different dates, and had reviewed them overnight. She had separated the photographs under their own dates and was able now to make additional comments on what she had seen, and when.
She said that she had not entered Michael’s Master Bedroom, but had glanced around it, and not searched it.
Considering the IV stand with the tubing apparently draped around it in one shot, but not the next, she explained that those photographs had been taken on different days. It was undraped for the purpose of photography on June 29th.
Mr Chernoff questioned her again about entering the Master Bedroom showing photographs of her in the doorway and various pill containers in the room, also in the adjoining bathroom. He ended his cross examination by asking “Miss Fleak, are you keeping anything back?’ She answered; “NO!” before the objection to the question could be sustained.
Detective Scott Smith was the next witness. He had worked for LAPD for twenty-four years on Robbery/Homicide. On June 25th he was notified at 3.30p.m. of Michael’s death and went to the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center at 4.25p.m., into the Emergency Room Area, where he stayed until 7.00p.m. He did not see Conrad Murray until later when watching CCTV footage, when he saw him leave the area and proceed to the West Lobby at 5.02p.m. He spoke briefly to Faheem Mohammad and Alberto Alvarez to establish their identities, the reason for their presence, and took contact information.
At this time, because the cause of death was not established, it was still a death investigation rather than a homicide, and therefore the Coroner’s office would be in control. Later, when it was established as a homicide, the LAPD took over.
Evidence was collected by the Coroner’s Office, (Elissa Fleak), with direct assistance from the LAPD in the upstairs room where Michael had died. On June 25th Detective Smith left the house at 9.30p.m., after releasing the house to the Jackson family and their personal security.
On June 26th he attended the entire autopsy, but no cause of death was given as there was no trauma present and toxicology results had yet to be processed.
On June 26th he returned to the house and Detective Ed Winner was given some items by members of the Jackson family. Detective Smith went back and took custody of the items which consisted of some “old, rotten” cannabis inside a shaving kit, some lotion, a FED Ex envelope and empty pill bottles. None of these items bore any relation to the cause of death. The pill bottles had been found in the Master Bathroom, which was seen to be “very messy.” The empty pill bottles were placed in the bathroom for purposes of being photographed, after they had been found in the vanity area.
Detective Smith said that he was told by Mr Chernoff that the Defense wanted a meeting, with LAPD, which was arranged by him for June 27th at the Ritz Carlton Hotel at Marina Del Rey. A recording of the meeting was played for the court and transcripts were given to the jurors.
The Statement of Conrad Murray.
He identified himself, gave his address, height and weight. He had spoken to detectives at the Hospital but that was not a formal interview. He described how he came to treat Michael and his children when they all had the flu, at the request of a patient’s son, who happened to be one of Michael’s security team. He then became Michael’s personal doctor over a period of time.
Michael told him that he was to travel to England for his ‘This Is It’ concerts and would consider taking Murray and another doctor with him. Murray spoke to the other doctor and together they discussed the effect on their relative practices and the financial gains they would make.
Later, Murray realised that as Michael would not pay him, AEG would be his actual employer.
Murray went on at great length about Michael’s insomnia saying that he had given him Propofol nightly, for about two months so that he could sleep and said it seemed to be the only thing that would work. Murray then explained about how he watched each hour tick away, on a watch that he has, in previous testimony said he did not have, was that he had been trying to “wean Michael off” the Propofol, by encouraging him to meditate, while having infusions of sedatives.
Michael still struggled to sleep, but Murray wanted him to get over his ‘addiction’ to Propofol. Finally, early the next morning, he gave Michael 25mls and he went instantly to sleep, but did not snore as he usually did, Murray said.
Conrad Murray explained that he needed to go to the bathroom and was gone for two minutes, and when he came back, Michael was not breathing. He could not get him off the bed, which he said was firm, alone, so gave CPR with his left hand and mouth to mouth resuscitation at the same time. He could not find a phone that worked so ran down the stairs to get the chef, whose name he thought was Rose, to get help, get security, (no mention of Prince here). Alberto Alvarez came to his aid and he said he told him to call 911. There was no mention of the medicine vials from the floor being put into a bag.
When the paramedics came he told them what to do and insisted that Michael’s death was not “called,” but that they continued to try to revive him. When they went to UCLA Medical Center, he said that he even told the doctor to try a balloon pump.
He spoke at length about how much he loved Michael but still thought it was “inhuman” of him not to allow his security personnel to use a bathroom inside the house.
There were numerous inconsistencies in his statement.
The judge stopped the tape recording before it ended, to close the proceedings for the weekend. Court will resume on Tuesday as Monday is Columbus Day, and a holiday in the US.
Source: MJWN
Song of the week
