A Los Angeles County coroner’s investigator testified on Wednesday that she retrieved 12 vials of the anesthetic propofol, along with a variety of prescription drugs, lotions and medical supplies, from Michael Jackson’s rented Holmby Hills estate after the singer died.
Jackson died June 25, 2009, from an overdose of the powerful sedative at age 50.
Testifying in the involuntary-manslaughter trial of Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, coroner’s investigator Elissa Fleak said she went to Jackson’s home the night he died, and found various medications on a nightstand and glass table next to the singer’s bed. She said she also found a largely empty 20-milliliter bottle of propofol on the floor under the nightstand.
Fleak testified that she also discovered prescription bottles of drugs including diazepam, Flomax and Lorazepam, several types of lotions and creams, oxygen tanks, latex gloves, alcohol swabs, an IV stand, catheters and a jug of urine, along with a syringe with the needle missing.
Fleak told the seven-man, five-woman jury that she went back to the home on June 29, 2009, after Murray had been interviewed by police, and found three bags on the top shelf of a cabinet in the bedroom closet.
The coroner’s investigator testified that she found a largely empty 100-milliliter bottle of propofol that was inside a saline bag when she opened one of the bags–a blue Costco bag–along with a 20-milliliter bottle of propofol that was essentially empty.
In a light blue and brown Baby Essentials diaper bag, she found two 100-milliliter vials of propofol that appeared to be full and seven smaller 20-milliliter vials–three of which were opened, Fleak testified.
Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney David Walgren, the coroner’s investigator agreed that one of the open vials was about 20 percent full, another was a little less than half full and a third was 15 to 20 percent full.
She told jurors that she also found numerous other medical supplies inside the bags, including five of Murray’s business cards from his Houston clinic, a pulse oximeter, a plastic bag containing empty medical packages, three bottles of Lidocaine and two more bottles of Lorazepam. Thirty-six tubes of prescription lotion were also found in the cabinet, she said.
Fleak–who is due back on the stand today for more questioning–said she also collected a saline bag and IV tubing from an IV stand in Jackson’s bedroom on June 29, 2009, that she had seen four days earlier.
One of Jackson’s employees, Alberto Alvarez, testified last week that Murray grabbed vials from a nightstand and directed him to put them in a bag and then put that bag inside another bag. He also testified that Murray directed him to retrieve an IV bag from the IV stand and to put it into a blue bag, noting when he was shown a bottle of propofol in court that he believed it was the one he had seen inside the IV bag.
Paramedic Richard Senneff, who treated Jackson after 911 was called, testified that he saw Murray with a bag in his hand, picking up items from the bedroom floor near a nightstand as paramedics were preparing to take Jackson to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where the singer was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m.
Another paramedic, Martin Blount, told jurors he saw Murray scoop up three bottles of Lidocaine from the bedroom floor and put them in a black bag.
When Jackson died at age 50, the cardiologist was working for him at the rented mansion in Holmby Hills, where the pop star was staying while rehearsing for his 50 sold-out concerts in London dubbed “This Is It.”
Prosecutors contend Murray gave Jackson propofol and then failed to monitor him, leaving his bedroom for at least 45 minutes to make phone calls and send emails.
Defense attorneys maintain that Murray was weaning Jackson off the medication and that he gave him only a small amount of propofol, but Jackson “self-administered” a larger dose, killing himself instantly after the doctor left the room.
Earlier Wednesday, prosecutors played for the jury a recording the doctor made of the singer about 1 1/2 months before his death, slurring his words and sounding heavily sedated.
On the recording, a portion of which was played during opening statements last week, the singer’s barely recognizable voice is heard describing his hope that his planned “This Is It” concert series would be “phenomenal.”
“We have to be phenomenal,” Jackson says on the recording, which was recovered from Murray’s iPhone and was made on May 10, 2009. “When people leave this show, when people leave my show, I want them to say, ‘I’ve never seen nothing like this in my life. Go. Go. I’ve never seen nothing like this. Go. It’s amazing. He’s the greatest entertainer in the world.”‘
His speech slurring, Jackson goes on to describe how he wants to use proceeds from the concerts to fund a “Michael Jackson’s Children’s Hospital.”
“Gonna have a movie theater, game room,” he says on the recording.
“Children are depressed. The–in those hospitals, no game room, no movie theater. They’re sick because they’re depressed. Their mind is depressing them.
“I want to give them that. I care about them, them angels. God wants me to do it. God wants me to do it. I’m gonna do it, Conrad.”
“… I’m gonna do that for them,” Jackson says on the recording.
“That will be remembered more than my performances. … I love them (children). I love them because I didn’t have a childhood. I had no childhood.
“I feel their pain. I feel their hurt. I can deal with it. “Heal the World,’ ‘We Are the World,’ ‘Will You Be There,’ ‘The Lost Children,’ these are the songs I’ve written because I hurt, you know, I hurt.”
At the end of the recording, Jackson could be heard saying, “I’m asleep.”
Deputy District Attorney David Walgren contended during his opening statement last week that the recording was indicative of Murray’s treatment of the singer, showing that Jackson was regularly under heavy sedation.
The prosecution witness said he also discovered a June 20, 2009, voice mail on Murray’s iPhone in which a man identifying himself as Jackson’s manager, Frank Dileo, says, “I’m sure you’re aware he had an episode last night. He’s sick … I think you need to get a blood test on him. We (have) got to see what he’s doing.”
Marx also confirmed that an email was sent by Murray at 11:17 a.m. the day Jackson died to an insurance company, in which the doctor denied media reports that the singer was suffering from a variety of medical ailments.
