Translated material
Show Must Go On
The first official data on the causes of death of Michael Jackson have been released
On Monday, police for the first time released official documents filed in a court in Houston, Texas, in the case surrounding the death of the King of Pop Michael Jackson. So far, Jackson, who died two months ago, has not been buried.According to the released documents, the famous singer's death may be ruled a homicide, but most likely unintentional, and therefore the pop star's doctor, Conrad Murray, may become the first suspect. The documents used the legal term homicide, which in the language of American jurisprudence means that the victim died from the actions of another person, but these actions are not necessarily criminal in nature.
The court was presented with forensic evidence, according to which the death of the King of Pop was caused by a lethal dose of the drug propofol, usually used in outpatient settings as an anesthetic and at the same time a sedative.
Pathologists completed an examination of Jackson’s body two weeks ago, but the results were not disclosed “for security reasons,” although some of the information did leak to the press. Los Angeles Chief Forensic Pathologist Dr. Satyavageeswaran said in a statement to the court that the direct cause of Michael Jackson's death was a lethal level of the drug propofol.
Back in July, before the official statement from medical experts, a series of searches were carried out in the office and home of Michael Jackson's personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, MD, a cardiologist by specialty. Mr. Murray himself, who was with Jackson immediately before his death, was questioned by police several times, but was not officially considered a suspect.
Immediately after the death of his patient, Dr. Murray did not consider it possible to hide from the police that he regularly administered 50 mg of propofol intravenously to Jackson for six weeks as one of the remedies for insomnia. The doctor told police that he was afraid the patient would develop an addiction to a fairly strong drug and therefore began to gradually reduce the dosage.
In addition, Michael Jackson regularly took Valium, lorazepam and midazolan, and he used these medications on his last night. All these drugs belong to the group of fairly strong tranquilizers and have a strong sedative (hypnotic) effect. For a number of years, the King of Pop suffered from neuralgic pain from injuries and plastic surgery, and the psyche of the idol of millions was far beyond the point of foul, so Jackson had quite a lot of potent drugs in his home medicine cabinet. The singer felt especially bad at night, so before going to bed he was forced to take more and more medications, both in the form of pills and injections.
To be fair, it should be noted that in the United States it is impossible to obtain such drugs in pharmacies without prescriptions for any money, so all the drugs in Michael Jackson’s house were purchased on completely legal grounds. As for insomnia, it affects almost a third of the US adult population, so the presence of sleeping pills and tranquilizers in home medicine cabinets is not the exception, but rather the rule of the American way of life. However, this does not worsen the quality of life, and in terms of its duration, Americans are far ahead of many developed countries of the world.
The BBC reports that several empty packets of propofol, prescribed by different doctors, were found in Jackson's home. According to Dr. Murray, on June 25, the day of Jackson's death, he gave his patient several drugs, including 25 mg of a sedative intravenously. The Los Angeles Times previously reported that Dr. Murray left Jackson for a while, and when he returned, the singer was no longer breathing. In turn, Conrad Murray's lawyer said that much of what was previously published was police speculation, and a large number of reports citing anonymous sources turned out to be untrue.
Due to a judicial investigation, Michael Jackson's funeral has been postponed to September 3. The king of the show, even with his death, never ceases to keep the multi-million army of fans of his undoubted talent in suspense.