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By now, you’ve almost certainly heard that Michael Jackson’s former private physician Dr. Conrad Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Over the course of the last few weeks, the court system has given us access to a number of realizations, many of which confirmed suspicions we already had about the King of Pop’s final days. And if nothing else, we learned that Murray is a physician of questionable ethics and skill. But how does this verdict, which finds Murray culpable for Jackson’s death, change the way we think about Jackson? Does it at all?
The portrait of Jackson painted in court was the one whispered about in the days following his passing back in June 2009. He was in constant physical discomfort, which is why he was seeking out the services of physicians like Murray who would give him drugs to help him sleep (most notably Propofol, the agent that ultimately killed Jackson) and to manage his pain (the jury never got to hear the testimony of Dr. Arnold Klein, who the defense claimed got Jackson addicted to Demerol in the final months of his life). It sounds like it was a life of non-stop physical suffering, without even taking into consideration his psychological and financial woes.
In fact, the trial acted as something of a counterpoint to the 2009 film Michael Jackson’s This Is It, which documented the singer’s quest to make a comeback via rehearsals for his planned London residency. READ FULL STORY »
