Michael Jackson’s personal Doctor Feelgood spent hours desperately dosing him with every drug in the book to get him to sleep — finally administering the hospital-grade anesthetic Propofol just before the singer’s heart gave out, court papers revealed yesterday.
The findings — laid bare in an extraordinary account of the star’s last hours written as part of a search-warrant affidavit — have helped lead the Los Angeles County coroner to officially rule Jacko’s death a homicide, sources added.
The “lethal levels” of Propofol in Jacko’s body interacted with at least two of the sedatives already in his system to put him in a fatal coma on June 25 in his LA home, said one source familiar with the coroner’s soon-to-be-released report.
The insomnia-wracked Jacko knew the extremely powerful Propofol well — he called it “his milk” because of its cloudy white appearance, his rent-a-physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, told authorities, according to the affidavit.
Murray, a Las Vegas cardiologist who is now the target of a manslaughter investigation into Jacko’s death, had been treating the singer for sleeplessness for six weeks, giving him 50 mg of Propofol diluted with lidocaine every night through an IV line.
Jacko was so used to being doped up with the drugs that he also nicknamed the lidocaine, dubbing it “anti-burn” because it would help ease the burning sensation the Propofol created, Murray told officials.
But the doctor quickly sensed that his world-famous patient was becoming addicted to Propofol. And so, Murray said, he tried to wean him off the drug.
The doctor started cutting down Jacko’s dosage of Propofol to 25 mg, but still mixed it with two sedatives, lorazepam and midazolam.
On June 23, two days before Jackson’s death, Conrad administered those two medications but tried withholding the Propofol, and it worked — Jackson slept.
But on June 25, the doctor had less success, according to the affidavit.
Murray said he gave Jackson a 10 mg tablet of Valium at 1:30 a.m. When that didn’t put the singer to sleep, the doctor said, he injected 2 mg of lorazepam intravenously at 2 a.m.
At 3 a.m., with Jackson still awake, Murray administered 2 mg of midazolam.
Two hours later, Jackson still hadn’t slept, Murray said, so he administered another 2 mg of lorazepam. After 2½ hours, the doctor gave him another 2 mg of midazolam.
Then finally, at 10:40 a.m., Murray administered 25 mg of Propofol after Jackson begged for his favorite drug, according to the records.
The cardiologist reportedly told authorities that 10 minutes later, he left Jackson’s bedside to go to the bathroom.
He stated he was out of the room for no longer than two minutes before returning to find the pop star was no longer breathing.
He says he began CPR at 11 a.m. and at some point ran downstairs and asked Jackson’s chef to send up Prince Michael Jackson, the star’s 12-year-old son, to continue CPR.
But police doubt that account. Records for the morning of June 25 show Murray made three phone calls totaling approximately 47 minutes beginning at 11:18 a.m.
The 911 call came in at 12:21 p.m.
Murray accompanied Jacko to the hospital — but refused to sign his death certificate, the affidavit states.
Although Murray acknowledged to police that he administered Propofol, authorities said they could find no evidence that he had purchased, ordered or obtained the medication under his medical license or Drug Enforcement Administration tracking number.
Murray told detectives that he was not the first doctor to administer the powerful anesthetic to Jackson.
Detectives wound up finding about eight bottles of Propofol in the house, along with other pills that had been prescribed to Jackson by Murray, Dr. Arnold Klein and Dr. Allan Metzger.
Other drugs that were confiscated in the search included Valium, tamsulosin, lorazepam, temazepam, clonazepam, trazodone and tizanidine.
Officials also found Propofol in Murray’s medical bag.
The coroner has not yet released his official autopsy findings, citing a request from detectives to withhold results until their investigation is complete.
But the affidavit quotes the coroner report’s “preliminary” results as saying, “Jackson’s cause of death was due to lethal levels of PROPOFOL.”
The coroner’s report also sadly describes the 51-year-old singer as being riddled with bed sores, a source said, presumably still lingering from when he refused to get up in the morning after his child-molestation trial a few years earlier.
As for Jackson’s family members, they “looks forward to the day that justice can be served,” a spokesman said last night.
“The Jackson family has full confidence in the legal process, and commends the ongoing efforts of the LA county coroner, the LA district attorney and the LA Police Department.” With AP and LA Times