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Photos of Jackson lying dead in a hospital bed shown at LA manslaughter trial of Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray More than two years after Michael Jackson’s death from an overdose of a powerful surgical anaesthetic, the irrepressible circus surrounding the King of Pop was back in full swing on Tuesday as the personal physician who attended to him in his dying hours stood trial for involuntary manslaughter. Fans with gold “MJ” armbands and T-shirts bearing the silkscreen likeness of their idol crammed the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles for a glimpse of the courtroom entourage – and a shot at one of the few open seats in the public gallery. Bloggers, gossip columnists and news crews were also out in force, just as they were at Jackson’s child molestation trial in 2005 and at the rehearsals for the ill-fated final tour – hauntingly named This Is It – that never took place in 2009. Inside judge Michael Pastor’s courtroom, an altogether more sober David Walgren, representing the district attorney’s office, delivered an opening statement laying out the evidence that Conrad Murray was single-handedly responsible for Jackson’s death. “The acts and omissions of Michael Jackson’s personal doctor, Conrad Murray, directly led to his premature death at the age of 50,” Walgren said. “He … repeatedly acted with gross negligence, repeatedly denied appropriate care to his patient … it was Dr Murray’s repeated incompetent and unskilled acts that led to Michael Jackon’s death.” Using a video monitor to present still photographs, charts, extracts from voicemail and other recordings, Walgren walked the jury through Jackson’s final two and a half months. Grim photos of Jackson lying dead in a hospital bed were juxtaposed with a picture of the singer rehearsing the day before his death. In that period, Murray ordered a staggering 15.5 litres of the surgical anaesthetic propofol, the prosecutor said. Walgren alleged that Murray relied on the drug – which Jackson referred to as his “milk” – to get the singer to sleep every night, even though it has no known application as a sleeping aid, and routinely administered it without monitoring equipment to check Jackson’s response. The prosecutor gave a stark narrative of how Murray realised he had lost his patient – apparently while he was on the phone to a cocktail waitress he regarded as his girlfriend – on the morning of 25 June 2009. This was just moments after he emailed an insurance agent for Jackson’s upcoming tour and said that press reports of health problems were entirely “fallacious”. Walgren said Murray did not ask his girlfriend, Sade Anding, to call the emergency services. Nor did he ask Jackson’s personal assistant, Michael Williams, when they spoke about 20 minutes later. Instead, according to the prosecutor, Murray said “Mr Jackson had a bad reaction” and urged Williams to come over to the star’s plush hillside mansion right away. When the paramedics who eventually arrived asked Murray what he had given Jackson, he made no mention of propofol. Nor did he mention it to the emergency room team at UCLA Medical Center where Jackson was pronounced dead shortly after. Only two days after Jackson’s death, according to Walgren, did he acknowledge to the police that he had administered the drug – and then said he had injected just 25mg, diluted with another drug called lidocaine. “The evidence will reveal that much more than 25mg was given to put Michael Jackson to sleep,” Walgren told the jury. Murray, crisply dressed in a white shirt and pale blue tie, showed no reaction as Walgren painted him as a man willing to abandon his medical responsibilities to earn a lucrative $150,000 per month paycheque. He was equally impassive as Walgren characterised his activities in the minutes after realising Jackson was dead as those of a man frantic not to be caught. Also in attendance were Jackson’s parents, Joe and Katherine, and his magician, Majestic Magnificent. Walgren described how Alberto Alvarez, who also worked for Jackson, came into the upstairs bedroom where Jackson’s lifeless body was laid out on the all-white bed covers and saw Murray administering CPR with one hand. Murray, according to Alvarez’s testimony, told him to grab a bag and started filling it with medicine vials and a saline bag which he told Alvarez to get rid of. Alvarez was also struck by the sight of a catheter running out of Jackson’s penis – a urine-collecting device usually used on patients knocked unconscious for major surgery. A jug of urine sat on a chair, and the jacket and trousers Jackson had worn to a rehearsal the night before lay strewn on the floor. Walgren’s opening statement was relatively brief, lasting about an hour and half, and was expected to be followed by the defence. Murray’s lawyers have previously indicated they intend to place much of the blame for the death on Jackson himself, characterising him as a propofol addict whom Murray tried in vain to wean away from the drug. United States Michael Jackson trial California Michael Jackson Andrew Gumbel guardian.co.uk