Friday in Court: Murray Delayed Calling Emergency Services for 25 Minutes

(Note: Some details may be upsetting for some readers) In yesterday’s court session, three girlfriends of Conrad Murray (two former and one current) were called to the stand, and one of them provided the court with advertisements that could be damaging evidence against the accused. The continuation of the trial has been postponed to Monday’s session, and you can follow the news about it on Tuesday in this page. The 57-year-old accused in the Pop King’s involuntary manslaughter case married his college classmate, and he has had children with multiple women. He was supposed to receive a monthly salary of $150,000 for working for Michael. According to documents, Murray was under financial strain to cover the living expenses of his children. From what the witnesses said yesterday, it can be concluded that the prosecution is trying to establish a connection between Conrad Murray’s financial problems and his interest in accepting Michael’s $150,000 job offer. The testimony of Sid Ending, a former girlfriend who worked as a waitress at a Houston beverage shop, could be the final blow for Conrad Murray. Ending’s statements contradict Murray’s account of what happened on the day Michael died. Murray had told doctors that as soon as he learned of Michael’s respiratory arrest, he had called emergency services. According to this account, Michael had suffered respiratory arrest around 12:20 p.m., which contradicts the truth. When Murray realized how serious Michael’s condition was, Ending was on the phone line. She says Murray suddenly cut off his speech. “I remember saying, hello, hello, hello! Is anyone there?” Ending says she heard crackling sounds, like the phone was in someone’s pocket or had fallen somewhere. She then heard coughing and murmuring sounds that were difficult to identify. Ending said the call lasted 5 to 6 minutes and Murray did not return to the line. According to the telecommunications report, Murray had called Ending at 11:51 a.m. Emergency services were not contacted until 12:21. This time difference is very important. If Murray learned about his patient’s worsening condition around 11:55, why did he take about 25 minutes to call emergency services? Emergency officers who were notified after 12:21 arrived at Michael’s room at 12:26. They said Michael had been dead for at least 20 minutes by then—meaning at 12:06 p.m. on June 25, 2009. Therefore, if Murray had called emergency services immediately after learning of Michael’s respiratory arrest, doctors would have had a few minutes to try to save Michael before his heart stopped. Yesterday, the prosecutor reminded the judge again that the accused had made 11 calls from his phone during the time he should have been caring for his patient. Bridget Morgan, another former girlfriend, said she had called Murray about half an hour before Michael’s respiratory arrest, but she couldn’t speak with him. Nicole Alvarez, 29, the current girlfriend and mother of Conrad Murray’s toddler, was another prosecution witness. In 2005, she met Murray at a men’s club in Las Vegas, where he was working as a waiter. The prosecutor asked her: “When you started your relationship with Dr. Murray, did you know he had six children with other women?” Judge Michael Pastor found the question irrelevant and asked Alvarez not to answer. The prosecutor continued by asking whether, when she met Murray in Las Vegas, she knew he was a married man with children. Nicole said she didn’t remember. However, later in her testimony, she said Murray lived with his wife in a permanent home in Las Vegas. Alvarez gave birth to Murray’s son in March 2009. She said she planned to take her son with them to London, where Murray was supposed to take care of Michael’s health during the concert performances. The prosecutor presented a receipt showing that Dr. Murray had sent six packages of medication from a pharmacy in Las Vegas to Nicole’s rented apartment—paying for it himself—in Santa Monica, California. Murray had bought the propofol from that same pharmacy. Nicole said she had never looked inside the boxes. She said Murray left the apartment every night to go home, but he never told her anything about the treatments. During questioning, Nicole repeatedly asked for the questions to be repeated until the judge had to warn her about her distraction. Also that day, a medical examiner inspector said that 12 vials containing propofol were found in a cabinet in the room where Michael died. Elisa Fleck said that nine of those vials were inside a bag marked with children’s items. Other medications—including six bottles of the anesthetic lidocaine and injection syringes—were part of what police found in Michael’s home. Some of the drugs were placed next to Michael’s bed. The defense attorney asked Fleck whether Michael could have reached those medications from the bed. The judge prevented the witness from answering that question. But Fleck said the propofol vials and syringes were placed about 60 centimeters from the bed. The defense attorney asked whether she had checked the amount of remaining drug in the vials. “There were many medicine vials in the room. I don’t know which had more or less medication.” Source: eMJey / AP / LA Times / Yahoo News