Michael Jackson's Kids Asked to See Singer's Dead Body
Paris Jackson cried that she didn't want to be an orphan.
LOS ANGELES Oct. 11, 2011 — -- A crying Paris Jackson asked to see the body of her father Michael Jackson one last time and sobbed that she didn't want to be an orphan.
"You know, I will wake up in the morning and I won't be able to see my daddy," Dr. Conrad Murray recounted to police two days after the king of pop's death.
"She [Paris] cried and was very stark and then she asked to see him," Murray said.
Jurors in Murray's manslaughter trial listened to a taped interview of Murray describing to police how Jackson's children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, reacted to the king of pop's shocking death.
When Murray, accompanied by Jackson's personal assistant and manager, told Jackson's children that the singer was dead, they weeped. Murray told police that he hugged the children to comfort them.
"After they cried and cried and cried, then his daughter uttered a lot of words of unhappiness...she will live alone without her dad and she didn't want to be an orphan," Murray told police in the July 27, 2009 interview.
Paris, then just 11 years old, asked Murray why he couldn't save her father.
"She asked me, Dr. Murray, you said you save a lot of patients. You know, you save people with heart attacks and you couldn't save my dad. I said, I tried my best," Muray told police.
Murray asked emergency room doctors at UCLA Medical Center to prepare the singer's body for his children to say goodbye to him. Murray also described the reaction of Jackson's mother, Katherine Jackson, to her son's death.
Katherine Jackson interrupted doctors as they broke the bad news by saying, "He's not dead is he?" Murray told police.
"She broke down and began weeping. We stayed there, held her hand. The doctor left. I stayed and then I asked for the social workers to come in," Murray says on the tape.
The taped interview of Murray was done two days after Jackson died of a drug overdose of the powerful anesthetic propofol on June 25, 2009. It was conducted by Los Angeles Police detectives in the presence of Murray's attorneys.
Katherine Jackson and her daughter, Rebbie Jackson, were in the courtroom today as the tape played. They showed little emotion. Jurors did not look at the family but were engrossed in reading a transcript of the interview.
Last week, jurors heard Murray's detailed account of the sedatives and propofol he administered to Jackson on the day he died. He and his defense team claim that Jackson himself took a lethal dose of propofol and another sedative without Murray's knowledge. Murray claims he was trying to wean the addicted Jackson off of propofol.
Propofol is an anesthetic that is typically administered in a hospital setting and is a milky substance. Jackson referred to it as his "milk" and begged Murray claims he begged for it on the day he died.
Prosecutors argue that Murray recklessly administered the drugs and when he should have been monitoring Jackson, he was instead talking to his girlfriend and working on his contract to be Jackson's personal physician on his comeback tour.
In addition to the details revealed about Jackson's family, Murray revealed details about the singer's health. Jackson, 50, had horrible eyesight and did not eat and drink regularly, Murray says on the tape.
"He don't drink and eat. He says all his life his mother has had to force him to eat. ..the foods that he eats when he eats are basically chicken and rice," Murray says to police.