Jackson doctor's girlfriends talk calls, shipments
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China.org.cn / Agencies, October 17, 2011
Dr. Conrad Murray's complicated love life became entangled with the life and death of his patient Michael Jackson, prosecutors suggested October 4, 2011 as they called a parade of women witnesses who received phone calls from the doctor as Jackson was near death.
The evidence was designed to show that the doctor was trying to juggle his medical practice, personal life and superstar patient all at the same time and was so distracted he failed to give Jackson proper care.
Murray's phone records from the day Jackson died were displayed in court as a backdrop for testimony of those at the other end of the cell phone calls. Three of them were current and former girlfriends and one was the manager of Murray's Houston office.
Nicole Alvarez, who lives with Murray and is the mother of his small son, was a key witness. She said she received a phone call from Murray as he rode in an ambulance beside Jackson's lifeless body on June 25, 2009.
"I remember him telling me that he was on the way to the hospital in an ambulance with Mr. Jackson and not to be alarmed," Alvarez said. "He was worried I would hear about it."
Three more calls to her were recorded that day but she didn't remember the conversations.
Alvarez was depicted as an unwitting conduit for Murray's purchases of the powerful anesthetic propofol which Jackson craved as a sleep aid. Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter, accused of giving the star an overdose of the drug and failing to respond properly when he found him not breathing.
Murray has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys claim Jackson took the fatal dose himself.
Alvarez recounted how she received many shipments of boxes for Murray in April, May and June 2009 but didn't open them and had no idea of their contents. The pharmacist who shipped them to her Santa Monica apartment from Las Vegas testified that he thought he was shipping to Murray's medical office.
FedEx and pharmacy receipts displayed by Deputy District Attorney Deborah Brazil showed that they contained large amounts of propofol, sedatives and a skin whitening cream used to treat the skin disease vitiligo from which Jackson suffered.
Tim Lopez, the Las Vegas pharmacist who filled orders from Murray, testified that over four months he purchased 255 vials of propofol, 20 vials of the sedative lorazepam, 60 vials of midazolam and several tubes of lidocaine which was intended to numb injection sites. He also purchased saline solution in IV bags.
Alvarez, who had given birth to Murray's son in March 2009, recalled the doctor telling her that he was Jackson's private physician. The 29-year-old actress said she found it exciting.
"It was Michael Jackson!" she exulted when she recounted meeting the star. She said Murray surprised her, telling her he was taking her to meet someone and then they arrived at Jackson's home.
"I was speechless," Alvarez said. "I couldn't believe I was meeting Michael Jackson."
Alvarez smiled frequently and was often breathless during her testimony. She told of her romance with Murray that began at a Las Vegas night club and drew her into the glamorous world of Jackson's inner circle.
She said she and Murray met Jackson several other times. "Michael was very interested in the baby," she said. "He saw my stomach growing with the pregnancy. He wanted to schedule a visit so he could see my son."
Alvarez said she brought the little boy to Jackson's home twice for visits.
When they settled into her Santa Monica apartment, Alvarez said, Murray began keeping odd hours but she never asked why. He would leave at about 9 p.m. and not return until the morning. He would tell her he was "going to work," she said, and she presumed he was at Jackson's home.
She said she had plans to move to London with Murray when he toured with Jackson but those plans ended when the superstar died on June 25, 2009. "I never finished packing," she said sadly.
Houston cocktail waitress Sade Anding, who met Murray in February of 2009, took the stand. Prosecutors asked her about the odd phone call she had with Murray on the day of Jackson's death, during the moment when prosecutors believe Murray discovered Jackson had stopped breathing.
During today's hearing, she reiterated statements made earlier this year in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America."
Anding told GMA during the call Murray "sounded like something was wrong."
"He was like, 'Well.' And it seemed like he wanted to say something. And I wish I would have just shut up and let him finish. Because he just said, 'Well.' And then he took forever," she said. "He didn't sound like himself to me at all."
Then, she says, Murray became distracted.
At today's hearing she testified, "I said, 'Well let me tell you about my day and I started telling him about my day...that's when I realized he was no longer on the phone … I was just talking and the next thing you know I said, 'Hello? Hello?' and I didn't hear anything. That's when I pressed the phone on my ear and I heard mumbling of voices … I heard coughing and nobody answered."
Anding also told the court today that after she told Murray she had been questioned by police he allegedly told her not to speak to them again without his lawyer.
He said, "I'm going to give you my lawyer's number and make sure before you speak to LAPD you have my lawyer present," she recalled.
During her interview with GMA, Anding said Murray had lied to her, saying he was divorced with two children when he really had seven kids. Prosecutors said he supported several girlfriends, along with his family, on a $150,000 a month salary as Jackson's personal cardiologist.
Murray reportedly lavished Anding with gifts and tips. She went to dinner with him twice after meeting him at the steakhouse where she worked.
"The first thing he said to me was, 'You are too beautiful to be waiting on people -- at a place like this,'" Anding said.
"I thought he was very nice. He was very friendly. He's a good person," she told ABC News.
Although Conrad Murray's ex-girlfriend Michelle Bella is reportedly a stripper, pre-trial rulings dictated that information couldn't be shared with the jury. In court it was said that Bella met Murray at a "social-type club" in Las Vegas where they exchanged phone numbers.
On the day of Jackson's death Murray sent her a text, and she testified today that he left her a voicemail message on June 16, nine days before Jackson's death, telling her he was Jackson's doctor.
Bridgette Morgan met Murray in 2003 at a club in Las Vegas, according to court documents.
She testified Monday, just as she had in January, saying she had called Murray on the day of Jackson's death but didn't speak to him, because "he didn't answer his telephone."
In opening statements, a prosecutor said Murray had received more than 4 gallons (15 liters) of propofol while working with Jackson, most of it sent to Alvarez's home. Murray told police after Jackson's death that he was giving the singer propofol as a sleep aid.
