Court Papers Show Jackson Died of Propofol
LOS ANGELES — Lethal levels of a powerful anesthetic caused Michael Jackson’s death, according to preliminary coroner findings cited in Texas court documents unsealed Monday.
The documents, a pair of search warrants and affidavits filed by the police in July to search the Houston office and storage unit of Dr. Conrad Murray, Mr. Jackson’s private doctor, provide the most detailed evidence against Dr. Murray by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The police told judges in Texas and Nevada that they suspected Dr. Murray of manslaughter, according to documents filed there.
According to the warrants, Dr. Murray told investigators that he had administered an intravenous drip of 50 milligrams of propofol, an anesthetic, to Mr. Jackson nightly for six weeks before the singer’s death at his Holmby Hills home to help him sleep. Dr. Murray also administered lorazepam, an anti-anxiety drug that can be addictive, and midazolam, a muscle relaxant, to treat Mr. Jackson’s insomnia.
The chief coroner for Los Angeles County, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, indicated that his preliminary assessment of the cause of death was due to a lethal dose of propofol, according to the court documents. They also describe how Dr. Murray administered propofol and other drugs, including Valium, on June 25, the day Mr. Jackson died.
“After approximately 10 minutes, Murray stated he left Jackson’s side to go to the restroom,” the documents show. “Murray stated he was out of the room for about two minutes maximum. Upon his return, Murray noticed that Jackson was no longer breathing.”
Dr. Murray said he tried to resuscitate Mr. Jackson and administered flumazenil, a drug to reverse the effects of the sedatives in his system, and then called Mr. Jackson’s personal assistant, Michael Amir Williams, for help. Mr. Williams called Mr. Jackson’s security detail while Dr. Murray asked the singer’s chef to send one of his sons upstairs to the bedroom as he continued cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Dr. Murray waited about 82 minutes before anyone called paramedics to the home, according to the court documents.
Investigators said Dr. Murray did not initially tell paramedics or doctors that he had given Mr. Jackson propofol.
Mr. Jackson was eventually taken to University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, where he died. Medical experts said Monday that the combination of drugs Mr. Jackson was given would have exacerbated the effect of the propofol.
Drugs like lorazepam and Valium have the effect of slowing a person’s breathing.
“If you are going to put on top of that some propofol, you are not only standing on thin ice, but starting to jump up and down on that ice,” said Dr. John F. Dombrowski, director of the Washington Pain Center. “If you don’t have someone who knows how to manage respiratory depression, you’re going to die.”
The documents indicate that Dr. Murray tried to revive Mr. Jackson with flumazenil, which reverses the effects of benzodiazepines like lorazepam. But “there’s no drug that reverses propofol per se,” said Dr. Robert R. Kirby, an anesthesiologist.
And waiting 82 minutes to call 911 was inexplicable to medical experts. “Lord, no; you’d call right away,” Dr. Kirby said.
Investigators said they found numerous bottles of medications prescribed by various doctors at Mr. Jackson’s bedside and throughout his living quarters.
Dr. Murray said that he was not the first doctor to administer propofol to Mr. Jackson, that he suspected Mr. Jackson was addicted to the drug and that he tried to wean him off of it, the documents state. Dr. Murray told the police that the singer referred to propofol as his “milk.” On the day he died, Mr. Jackson was unable to sleep and, after repeated demands, the doctor administered propofol in an IV drip.
Investigators also interviewed Cherilyn Lee, a nurse who described how Mr. Jackson asked her to obtain propofol for him.
“He stated he would pay her or another doctor whatever they wanted for it,” according to the affidavit. Ms. Lee told investigators that she refused.
On June 1, Mr. Jackson’s bodyguard called to tell her Mr. Jackson was ill.
“She heard Jackson in the background saying, ‘One side of my body is hot, and the other side is cold,’ ” according to the affidavits. Ms. Lee told investigators that she told the bodyguard he should go to the hospital.
Dr. Murray was a cardiologist in Houston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles for 20 years. Earlier this year, AEG, an event promoter and stadium operator, hired him to be Mr. Jackson’s personal physician during a planned series of 50 concerts in London, for a monthly salary of $150,000.
A special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, which investigates prescription fraud, said records showed that despite the discovery of bottles of propofol at Mr. Jackson’s home, Dr. Murray “never ordered, purchased nor received any propofol.”
Dr. Murray told investigators that Mr. Jackson obtained propofol from various sources, including two unidentified doctors in Germany and an anesthesiologist in Las Vegas.
Mr. Jackson’s relatives and associates have said the singer used several aliases to obtain prescription drugs.
Public records show that Dr. Murray was in serious financial trouble before he became Mr. Jackson’s doctor, facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in debts and liens and a Las Vegas home in foreclosure proceedings.
Ed Chernoff, a lawyer for Dr. Murray, said in a statement Monday: “Much of what was in the search warrant affidavit is factual. However, unfortunately, much is police theory. Most egregiously, the timeline reported by law enforcement was not obtained through interviews with Dr. Murray.”
Lt. Fred Corral, an investigator at the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, said the toxicology tests and a final autopsy report had been completed but were being kept confidential at the request of the Los Angeles Police Department, which continues to investigate Dr. Murray.
A spokesman for the police department said he had no official statement regarding the case since the investigation was continuing.
