A tormented New Jersey dad, who spent nearly two decades grappling with his son’s sensational molestation claims against Michael Jackson, finally ended his pain with a gunshot to the head, authorities said yesterday.
The body of Evan Chandler, 65, the father of Jordan “Jordy” Chandler, was found in his luxury Jersey City apartment on Nov. 5 — still holding his .38-caliber revolver as he lay in bed, officials said yesterday.
There were five different prescription drugs in the home. No suicide note was found.
Chandler died a broken man, gravely ill and estranged from his entire family, loved ones said, living out his days in sad isolation 17 years after Jackson first infected his world.
Once a stunningly handsome and prominent Beverly Hills dentist, Chandler saw his life turned upside down by his son’s claims — enduring the collapse of his practice and physical assaults, and driven to disguise himself with repeated plastic surgeries to avoid abuse from rabid Jacko fans.
Jackson was never charged with a crime, paying Jordan a staggering $20 million to end the probe into allegations he had molested the boy at Neverland Ranch and various other LA locations.
The accusations initially tore Jordan, now 29, apart from his mom, June Chandler, who was blamed for getting him mixed up with Jackson.
But in recent years, that changed, with Jordan reconnecting with his mother at the same time he cut off ties with his father, family sources said.
Jordan claimed his dad attacked him with a dumbbell and got a restraining order against him in fall 2006. They never spoke to each other again.
“Over the years, [Evan] began to develop tremendous mood swings. He was always depressed,” a family member said.
“He stopped coming to family events because he was afraid of being recognized, like anyone in the family would care. That eventually turned into permanent estrangement from his family.”
Chandler’s son was 12 when he first met the King of Pop in 1992, after Jackson’s car broke down near the Los Angeles rental-car agency owned by the boy’s stepfather. His parents had long been divorced.
From the outset, Chandler was suspicious of MJ’s relationship with his son, who often stayed in the boy’s bedroom during creepy sleepovers.
Then a Beverly Hills dentist, Chandler put Jordan under anesthesia to remove a tooth — and that’s when Jordan first admitted Jackson had touched him inappropriately.
The youngster later repeated those claims to a psychologist, launching the massive probe in LA and Santa Barbara.
Chandler and his son remained tight for years after the settlement, and lived together as recently as 2006 in New Jersey before becoming estranged.
As much as Chandler loathed Jackson, the dad ended up going down the same freaky plastic-surgery path as Jackson, his family said.
Over the years, Chandler subjected himself to a series of cosmetic procedures, satisfying his own vanity and paranoia that Jackson’s fans were coming after him, family sources said.
Years of nips and tucks rendered Chandler virtually unrecognizable from the way he looked in the ’90s.
Chandler regularly self-administered Botox and cosmetic facial fillers.
“He was a handsomer version of Rob Lowe, that’s how drop-dead handsome he was,” a loved one said. “Since he was such a handsome guy, as he got older, he became more obsessive-compulsive about his looks.”
Former Santa Barbara County Sheriff Jim Thomas, who was in office when Jackson was investigated for touching Jordan, said he never held it against the family for taking the money.
Thomas said he feels bad for everyone in Chandler’s family.
“I don’t know that anybody came out of this in a better way,” he said.
Family members said Chandler owned at least one gun — and feared the weapon he used to kill himself was the firearm he purchased after being beaten up in a Southern California parking garage in the 1990s.
The family always suspected Jackson fans were responsible for the beatdown.
More recently, Chandler was a patient at the Colanta Hematology & Oncology Center in Bayonne, NJ.
The day he was found dead, Chandler had missed an appointment there, prompting doctors to call his apartment at Liberty Towers.
A concierge let himself into Chandler’s unit and found his body in the master bedroom, police said.
Chandler was suffering from a serious illness and had at least five different prescription medications in his home, sources said.
Doctors and cops declined to elaborate on Chandler’s ailment.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Perry Chiaramonte