Los Angeles: Michael Jackson’s personal physician told investigators two days after the singer’s death that he had given powerful a anaesthetic propofol to him before his death, in a two-hour recording played in court on Friday.
But Conrad Murray insisted that he did so at the star’s request, Xinhua reported.
At the involuntary manslaughter trial against Murray at Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, a seven-man, five-woman jury listened to an audiotape which was played in public for the first time. It contained an interview held between Murray and police investigators on June 27, 2009, at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey, southern California.
In describing the circumstances in the hours leading up to the pop superstar’s death, Murray said that after various medications – including a valium pill, a small amount of lorazepam and midazolam – failed to work to help Jackson fall asleep, the singer complained he would have to cancel that day’s rehearsal if he could not sleep.
The singer then said he wanted his “milk” — propofol, a substance that Jackson was familiar with, according to Murray.
“Please, please give me some milk, so I can sleep,” Murray quoted the pop icon as saying.
Eventually, at Jackson’s request, Murray agreed to give him a 25-milligram dose of propofol, which was infused over about three to five minutes, beginning around 10.40 a.m.
Murray said he needed to go to the bathroom, and left the bedroom for two minutes.
“Then I came back to his bedside and was stunned in the sense that he wasn’t breathing,” Murray told the police investigators.
The cardiologist said he started immediately to perform ultimately unsuccessful attempts through CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, using one hand to compress Jackson’s chest, and also tried to raise his leg in hopes of giving him “an auto-transfusion.”
Murray also gave the singer a dose of flumazenil, which he called an “antidote” that could reverse the effects of the earlier drugs he had given him.
Noting that none of the telephones in the house worked, Murray told the police that he grabbed his cell phone and called Jackson’s assistant, telling him to send someone up to the room.
The singer’s doctor ran out of the room and walked down toward the kitchen, telling somebody to get help when nobody came immediately.
According to the police interview, Murray said he had given Jackson propofol virtually every day.
The King of Pop also told Murray that Dr. David Adams in Las Vegas had given him propofol before, Murray said.
Prosecutors are seeking to prove that Murray, 58, failed to properly monitor Jackson after giving him a lethal dose of propofol. The cardiologist “repeatedly acted with gross negligence, repeatedly denied care, appropriate care to his patient, Michael Jackson, and that it was Dr. Murray’s repeated incompetence and unskilled acts that led to Mr. Jackson’s death on June 25, 2009,” the prosecutors contend.
Defense attorneys argued Murray was weaning Jackson off the medication, but that the singer “self-administered” a lethal dose. The cardiologist was hired by Jackson to care for him a little more than two months before his death.
The trial is expected to last four to five weeks. Murray, who was set free on a bail of $75,000, faces up to four years in prison if convicted of the felony charge.
The playback of the audiotape will resume when the session continues early next week.