Los Angeles (CNN) — Dr. Conrad Murray, physician to Michael Jackson, never mentioned to emergency responders that he had given the pop star a powerful surgical anesthetic to help him sleep, prosecutor David Walgren said today in opening statements in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter trial.
Such a glaring omission was but one example of gross negligence on Murray’s part that ultimately led to Jackson’s death at his home on June 25, 2009, Walgren said.
Between April 6, 2009, and the time of Michael Jackson’s death, Murray ordered enough propofol to give Jackson 1,937 milligrams a day, Walgren said.
Prosecutors played a recording of a police interview with Murray in which he said he gave the entertainer doses of propofol virtually every night for two months, with the final dose coming on June 25, 2009, after a restless night during which a slew of other drugs failed to make Jackson sleep.
Murray “repeatedly acted with gross negligence, repeatedly denied care, appropriate care, to his patient, Michael Jackson, and it was Dr. Murray’s repeated incompetent and unskilled acts that led to Michael Jackson’s death,” Walgren told jurors.
At one point during his statement, prosecutors played part of a recording of Jackson made on Murray’s iPhone on May 10, 2009. The recording appears to feature a drugged Jackson, slurring his words as he says he wants people to leave his show saying, “He’s the greatest entertainer in the world.”
If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Murray could spend four years in a California prison and lose his medical license. (CNN)
