Cops Still Seeking Doc For Answers About 'Agonizing' End
Police have ruled out foul play in Michael Jackson's death, and the Associated Press is reporting the singer suffered a heart attack (not just cardiac arrest). All eyes are on Jackson's cardiologist, Conrad Robert Murray, who police have yet to interview.
Murray was apparently hired away just a couple of weeks ago from his private practice to keep Jackson healthy during his planned comeback tour. This indicates there was ongoing concern about the singer's heart; a medical finding of a heart attack would of course also point to likely heart disease. As AP puts it:
Heart attacks can indicate a long-term problem, such as heart disease. It would not necessarily rule out another factor, such as drug use, however.
Murray is said to have injected Jackson with his daily Demerol shot within an hour before the singer's death; Jackson family members reportedly believe the dosage was too high and caused his demise, despite the evidence his heart was already weak.
This is why Los Angeles police are eager to have a detailed conversation with the doctor, extending the brief interview he granted Thursday night. As of Friday evening, they still had not reached Murray.
The British tabloids, meanwhile, went into overdrive; the Mirror produced a lengthy report on Jackson's "final 24 hours in agony," which the singer entered in a "permanently medicated state, kept going by an increasingly dangerous mix of seven prescription drugs and vitamin shots."
When he came down from an artificial high, he came down hard and was being treated with various depressants to ease the crash...
Jackson complained of being ill Wednesday, the Mirror said, but later felt well enough to watch re-runs of his old performances in his rented mansion's theatre room and take notes on choreography ideas. The singer, who had trouble sleeping more than two hours straight, woke up the next morning "woozy and disoriented," according to the British tabloid. Then came the demerol shot, cardiac arrest and death.
One of Jackson's former producers has said the singer was surrounded by "charlatan doctors who were billing him thousands and thousands of dollars worth of drugs, vitamins." Murray, who left his Las Vegas practice only this month, is presumably preparing to show police he was not one of those "charlatans." Given Jackson's, err, complex condition prior to his arrival on the scene, that must be quite a task.