Mystery surrounds Jackson’s sudden death

One day after Michael Jackson’s sudden death, speculation was already turning to what killed the 50-year-old ‘King of Pop’ just weeks before a long-awaited series of comeback concerts.

A Jackson family member told celebrity website TMZ.com the singer had been given an injection of the painkiller Demerol before he went into full cardiac arrest at his rental home around midday on Thursday. TMZ soon after broke the news that Jackson had died at a Los Angeles hospital.

The doctor who was with Jackson at the time of his death has been identified as a cardiologist from Houston, Texas. Website TMZ.com said that Dr Conrad Robert Murray, who had been living with Jackson in his rented mansion, attempted to revive Michael until paramedics showed up at the scene. He has been missing since then.

Law enforcement authorities are looking for the doctor so they can question him. A law enforcement source said the doctor gave Jackson an injection before he died.

Jackson’s lawyer and family claimed the singer’s death was caused by a ‘greedy coterie’. MJ’s lawyer said doctors over medicated Jackson because his agents wanted him fit to perform in concerts. The lawyer also said MJ was against performing 50 concerts in the UK since he was not fit enough to perform 50 gigs but that his coterie was pushing him.

The family also claimed that Jackson was surrounded by a group of greedy people including doctors who were billing Jackson for thousands of dollars for drugs and vitamins making him unable to function without them.

Authorities were conducting an autopsy on Friday but they cautioned it could take weeks to determine a cause of death, which will likely have to wait for the return of toxicology tests.
Those tests will determine if Jackson had any drugs, alcohol or prescription medications in his system.

Lawyer Brian Oxman, a spokesperson for the Jackson family, told CBS’s The Early Show on Friday that he had been concerned about the prescription drugs that Jackson took due to injuries suffered while performing.

“I had warned everyone that I could warn and I told them that one day, Michael Jackson is going to wake up dead, which is a very odd way of putting it ...,” Oxman said.