LA police hunt for Michael Jackson's doctor
Police were investigating claims last night that Michael Jackson received a painkilling injection minutes before his death amid intense pressure to prepare for a series of lucrative comeback concerts in London next month.
A cardiologist who was allegedly with Jackson when he collapsed on Thursday was at the centre of a police inquiry amid claims that Jackson had been receiving daily injections of Demerol, a synthetic painkiller similar to morphine. Detectives seized a car linked to the doctor, and Karen Rayner, a police spokeswoman, said that it might contain “medications or other evidence that may assist the coroner in determining the cause of death”.
An unidentified man who called the emergency services replied: “The doctor has been the only one here,” when asked about witnesses to the collapse. Detectives were searching Jackson’s rented home in the upmarket Los Angeles neighbourhood of Holmby Hills.
The Jackson family’s former lawyer Brian Oxman criticised “enablers” in his entourage for allowing him to abuse prescription drugs. The night before his death Jackson was rehearsing for 50 concerts due to start at the O2 arena in London on July 13. “This was something which I feared and which I warned about,” said Mr Oxman, who was with Jackson’s sister La Toya and brothers Jermaine and Randy at the hospital. “This is a case of abuse of medication, unless there is another cause I did not know about.”
Uri Geller, the self-styled psychic and friend of Jackson, told Sky News: “Stress is a killer, any doctor will tell you that. I think the anticipation of this mammoth challenge that was coming upon him, doing these 50 concerts, wanting to be close to perfection when he was going to be on stage, put him under huge, huge pressure.”
Preliminary results from a postmortem examination at the county coroner’s office in Los Angeles could be released overnight but the full results may not be ready for eight weeks. Tohme Tohme, Jackson’s business manager, insisted that the singer was fit, despite cancelling the first of a series of concerts at the O2. Mr Tohme told The Times: “Michael Jackson never did any drugs as far as I know. There is no way on earth.”
Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG, which owns the O2, said that Jackson had shown “pride and confidence” during production rehearsals on Wednesday night. Despite reports of Jackson’s ill health, the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4½-hour physical examination.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6586686.ece
Oh my god...
