MEDICATION, THE FOCUS OF JACKSON INQUIRY

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: June 26, 2009
LOS ANGELES

Having completed a preliminary autopsy, Los Angeles County medical officials said Friday that Michael Jackson had taken prescription medications but that the cause of his sudden death would not be known for weeks, pending toxicology tests.

As his fans across the globe continued to mourn the fallen pop star, questions about the last minutes of his life with his doctor at his side, the fate of his children and his complex financial dealings began to slowly and inconclusively unravel.

Craig Harvey, chief investigator for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, said that there was no evidence of trauma or foul play and that the family was free to take Mr. Jackson’s body on Friday evening.

“There will be no final ruling as to the cause and manner of death until requested tests results have been received and reviewed in context with the autopsy findings,” Mr. Harvey said. That process will take four to six weeks to complete.

The police investigation into Mr. Jackson’s death on Thursday — which one police official called “highly resource-intensive” — focused in part on his private doctor, Conrad Murray. The authorities impounded Dr. Murray’s car at Mr. Jackson’s rented home in Holmby Hills late Thursday, with the hope of finding clues to what led to the singer’s cardiac arrest. Police officials interviewed Dr. Murray on Thursday and intended to do so again, officials said.

“Every investigation can go one way or another,” said Deputy Chief Charlie Beck, the chief of detectives. “But nothing suggests criminality at this point.”

Detective Beck said the department’s robbery and homicide division had been assigned to the case only because of its high-profile nature.

The 50-year-old pop star, who had been preparing for a lengthy comeback concert series in London, was rushed to U.C.L.A. Medical Center shortly after noon Thursday by paramedics and was pronounced dead in the emergency room.

A 911 tape released Friday featured the voice of a young man imploring an ambulance to hurry to Mr. Jackson’s home, where he described a doctor frantically trying to revive Mr. Jackson. When asked if anyone had seen what happened, the unidentified man replied: “No, just the doctor, sir. He’s not responding to CPR. He’s pumping his chest, but he’s not responding to anything.”

Dr. Murray, who public records show is a 56-year-old cardiologist with a practice in Las Vegas, has lived in numerous homes over the last decade in several states, filed for personal bankruptcy in 1992 in California and has five tax liens against him for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to HealthGrades, a health care ratings company, Dr. Murray is board certified in neither of his two specialties, internal medicine and cardiology. Board certification is not required to practice a specialty but is recommended and indicates a high level of training and expertise.

The death of Mr. Jackson was the latest Twitter-enhanced luminary spectacle that is specific to Los Angeles, with the customary body-slamming paparazzi, weeping celebrities, grim-faced officials trying to maintain dignity and tourists seeking their succor along Hollywood Boulevard, where the police were forced to place barricades on Friday to hold back the throngs seeking to peer at his star on the Walk of Fame.

The mourning continued beyond American soil. From Moscow to Paris — where fans moonwalked around Notre Dame — celebrations of Mr. Jackson’s life continued into Friday evening.

A central concern now of the Jackson family is the fate of Mr. Jackson’s three children, who lived and traveled with him but were rarely seen in public.

For now, they are being cared for by their grandmother, Katherine Jackson, said Frank DiLeo, the singer’s manager at the time of his death. Mr. DiLeo said the children were at the hospital and in an adjacent room when they were told of their father’s death.

Debbie Rowe, who was married to the singer for three years ending in 1999 and is the mother of the two oldest children, Michael Joseph Jackson, 12, and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11, has fought in recent years to have her parental rights restored. (A private settlement was reached in 2006.)

“If they have a reasonably good relationship she will probably get custody,” said Scott Altman, a law professor at the University of Southern California and child custody expert. “It is unusual for biological parents not to get custody when the custodial parent has died.”

Mr. Jackson’s youngest child, 7-year-old Prince Michael Jackson II, is the son of a surrogate mother who has never been identified. On Friday, however, one of the star’s financial advisers, Alvin Malnik, who said he is the godfather of the youngest Jackson, said he had signed a document at one point saying that if Mr. Jackson died, “I would provide for Prince Michael in the same capacity as I would provide for my own kids.”

Mr. Malnik, who lives in Florida, said he had not been contacted by anyone since Mr. Jackson’s death.

A biographer, Stacy Brown, said Friday that Mr. Jackson’s wish was for the children’s longtime nanny, Grace Rwaramba, to take on a more formal role should anything happen to him.

Questions are almost certain to be raised about Mr. Jackson’s health as he prepared for his comeback tour; he had a long, intricate history of health problems, according to people who knew him, but they were not easy to pin down.

“It’s always been a subject of confusion,” said J. Randy Taraborrelli, a Jackson biographer who knew him for 40 years. “He has not been addicted to painkillers for 30 years, but he has had addiction over time that was resolved and then resurfaced, and was resolved and then resurfaced.”

Mr. Brown said Mr. Jackson’s family had been recently concerned about his use of painkillers, which had started up again a few months ago, he said, and “tried a number of different times” to get the star to quit once and for all.

Mr. Jackson had become “very frail, totally, totally underweight,” Mr. Brown said, adding that the family had worried that he would not be healthy enough to handle the pressure of performing. None of Mr. Jackson’s doctors could be reached Friday.

Reporting was contributed by Randal C. Archibold, Brooks Barnes, Solomon Moore and Ana Facio Contreras from Los Angeles; Mary Chapman from Detroit; and Tim Arango, Pam Belluck, Alain Delaquérière and Liz Robbins from New York.

More Articles in US » A version of this article appeared in print on June 27, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition. Times Reader 2.0: Daily delivery of The Times - straight to your computer. Subscriber for just $3.45 a week.
Ads by Google what's this?