Is Anyone Else Following the Trial of Dr. Conrad Murray in the Death of the King of Pop? (490 hits)
Conrad Murray tape: "Make me sleep", Michael Jackson begged. Jurors at the trial of Michael Jackson’s personal physician heard the doctor describe in his own words what happened in the final hours of the singer’s life. In a police interview conducted two days after Jackson’s life, Dr. Conrad Murray narrated in a collected, steady voice the long hours during which he tried in vain to get Jackson to sleep on drugs other than propofol, the powerful surgical anesthetic that ultimately caused his death.
After about nine hours of unsuccessful attempts with two different sedatives, Jackson began begging for the drug that the doctor suspected he had grown dependent on, Murray said in the interview. “At that time he said can I have some milk?” Murray recalled. “He said please, please, give him some milk.”
“Hot milk?” a detective asked.
Conrad Murray witnesses: Who's who “This is just a medicine that he was familiar with, it’s called propofol,” Murray said. Murray said by that time, it was already around 10:40 a.m., and he told Jackson he would need to wake up around noon. But Jackson persisted, the doctor told the detectives. “He said just make me sleep, doesn’t matter what time I get up ... He said I can’t function if I can’t sleep,” the doctor said. “I agreed at that time that I would switch ... to the propofol.”
Murray said because of the other drugs he had given the singer throughout the night, he only administered half of the dose he normally gave.
In using the anesthetic, normally used only in hospital settings, the physician told detectives he “took all precautions that were available” including oxygen tanks and a pulse oximeter, a device for monitoring oxygen levels in the blood and heart rate. He then left Jackson’s bedside for a mere two minutes to go to the bathroom and returned to find his patient wasn’t breathing, Murray said in the interview.
His otherwise calm voice grew louder and excited as he described performing CPR and trying to get help. Murray’s account in the interview is contradicted by other witnesses’ testimony, including a security guard who said the doctor had him collect medicine bottles and an IV bag before asking him to call 911 and a paramedic who testified that Jackson appeared long dead by the time he arrived. Prosecutors have argued that evidence, including the doctor’s own phone records, shows the doctor lied about the that morning's events.
Slightly more than an hour and half of the recording, which is more than two hours long, was played before court adjourned for the weekend.
Friday marked the first time that the doctor’s police interview was made public. In the interview, Murray told detectives he gave Jackson propofol nightly for the two months he cared for the singer, but that Jackson already knew the drug well and said he had obtained it from several different doctors. Murray said a Las Vegas doctor, David Adams, once used his office to give Jackson the drug. “Dr. Adams said I know Michael, I know Michael very well, he does well on Diprivan [propofol] ... He loves that drug,” Murray told detectives.
In the three days leading up to Jackson’s death, he was trying to wean Jackson off of the anesthetic and trying to get him to sleep in a more natural manner, Murray said in the interview.
It breaks my heart to listen to the proceedings and I honestly can't bring myself to look at any lifeless pictures of Michael (someone who in life was full of vigor, vim, and vitality). I really don't think that Michael would faught Dr. Murray for his death, because there is every indication that he was unhappy and self medicating his pain. Dr. Murray was as much the victim in my opinion as well as he was manipulated by Michael (because that's what addicted people do irrespective of their fame and status in life... the tool of manipulation is their modi operandi).
I can't not speak regarding Dr. Murray's own personal motives for becoming Michael’s personal physician, but as a professional he obviously breached the rules of Professional Conduct and crossed the lines of Doctor- Patient Therapeutic Relationship by blurring the lines of what is appropriate conduct with a patient.
In listening to the tapes of a drugged Michael, my heart aches in the sense that I hear the pain in his voice and that the medication wasn't merely for him to sleep, but was an indication of a deeply wounded person who was abusing prescription medications. Although I don't condone what Dr. Murray did as a professional, I think that we should see the whole picture. From the expressionless Dr. Murray's face which NEVER changes, he is done because he will always be remembered as the Dr. who "killed" Michael Jackson which in and of itself is NOT a good legacy.
My heartfelt prayers go out to all of the Jackson family as well as Dr. Conrad Murray. May the peace of God be with the "good doctor" through his time of trouble.
It seems clear that this doctor was not looking at MIchael as a patient, as a human being with real medical and psychological needs, but as almost as a client whose every whim needed to be met.
Yes so true Brother Rich and it made for a sad outcome. As a professional, one cannot afford to give into what a client/patient wants because they didn't go to school the number of years that was required to gain the medical education and degree to treat medical conditions. Michael needed help and not the kind that a cardiology like Dr. Murray could give him. He needed a doctor who knew addiction and detox therapy as well as a good Psychiatrist.
Tuesday, October 11th 2011 at 12:58PM
Jen Fad
