Day 10 of the Trial: Continuation of the Recording of Conrad Murray’s Interrogation
Yesterday, the court sat to watch the continuation of the recording of the interrogation of Conrad Murray, Michael’s doctor, which had taken place two days after Michael’s death.
In this video, Murray attributed illnesses to Michael, mentioned Dr. Arnold Klein, and talked about the emotional reaction of Michael’s family and children to his death. Medical records
Murray said that since 2007 he had been treating Michael for: calluses on his feet that resulted from years of dancing; inflammation of the lungs and respiratory illnesses. He also said he was concerned about the condition of Michael’s eyes and suspected he might develop glaucoma, which could have made him completely blind, and he introduced him to an eye specialist.
He says Michael had become dehydrated because he was not eating or drinking anything.
Reaction of the family and children
Catherine Jackson was present yesterday after a few days of absence, and along with her husband and children, she listened from the second row to Conrad Murray’s statements about the reaction of Michael’s 11-year-old daughter to hearing the news of her father’s death.
In this video, Murray says that after hearing the news of their father’s death from an emergency doctor, Michael’s children cried and cried and cried…
Murray: “I held all of them in my arms. I calmed Paris, I calmed Prince, and also Blanket, who is the youngest of all. Because whenever they were sick, they would say that they wanted Dr. Conrad to treat them.”
Murray said in this video that Paris was like his own daughter.
Of course, he had previously been pursued legally for not paying his children’s monthly allowance and for not paying attention to them.
Paris had said that now she had to live alone without her father, and that she didn’t want to be an orphan.
Paris to Murray: “You saved the lives of many people—why didn’t you save my father?”
Murray: “I said I had done my best. And he said he knows that, but he is very sad.”
Paris: “When I wake up in the morning, I won’t see Dad.”
Murray says in this video that he was unable to explain the cause of death to Michael’s family, who had gathered in the hospital’s conference room, because he himself didn’t know what had happened.
Murray: “That’s why I told the family to do an autopsy. Because I also wanted to know the cause of death.”
Murray says that Jermaine Jackson, Michael’s brother, had asked him to help prepare a statement about Michael’s death.
Other doctors
In this video, Murray tries to move the finger of blame away from himself and point it toward other doctors.
Michael had told Murray that before, during his tours, other doctors had also given him propofol. Murray says he was surprised by the extent of Michael’s drug information.
“I didn’t know about the drugs Michael was taking, but I had heard that he went to a private office named Dr. Klein in Beverly Hills three times a week. Michael never provided me with any information about this.”
— The production team (This Is It tour) had told me that his bad days during rehearsals are the times when he goes to Dr. Arnold Klein’s office. When he comes back, he gets worse and needs 24 hours to recover.”
Murray said Michael went to Klein’s office three times a week.
Murray said he observed signs of withdrawal from drugs in Michael and thought it was due to reduced propofol consumption. It was previously said that after Murray had given Michael propofol for two months, three nights before his death he decided to reduce the use of this drug.
The defense team says Michael was taking Dalmoral (Demerol) as prescribed by Dr. Klein, and his insomnia was due to being away from this drug.
What drugs were injected?
In this video, Murray admits that on the night of Michael’s death he had given Michael a combination of sleeping drugs—Valium, lorazepam, and midazolam—without them having any effect. Therefore, at 10:40 a.m. on June 25, propofol was injected. Murray says:
“He was begging for this medication and saying he had to definitely sleep, and if he didn’t sleep he would have to cancel that day’s rehearsal session. So I decided to give him this medication because I cared about him.”
“I didn’t want him to die. I didn’t intend to harm him. I was compassionate. I wanted to remove his dependence on this medication.”
Murray says that after Michael fell asleep from propofol, he carefully watched over him.
Phone calls
In this video, the prosecutor was looking for contradictions in Murray’s statements.
The jury heard that, according to Murray’s claim, he left Michael’s room to go to the bathroom only two minutes after the propofol injection, and when he returned he realized that Michael was not breathing.
Evidence and documents show that Murray’s head was warm from his phone calls almost 45 minutes after the propofol injection. During this interrogation, Conrad Murray made no mention of his phone calls.
Efforts to save
“I felt a pulse in his thigh. His body was warm. His skin color hadn’t changed. So I think everything happened very quickly.”
He says he couldn’t lower Michael from the bed and tried to give him CPR with one hand and also do mouth-to-mouth breathing.
“He had a strong frame. So I placed my left hand under his body and pressed on his heart with my right hand.”
Difficulty contacting Murray
Regarding why he wasn’t answering police calls, Murray said that after Michael’s death, countless people were calling him, which caused disruption in making the necessary calls.
Source: eMJey.com / Reuters / CNN / ABC News