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The full episode, in writing.
At 12:21 p.m. on June 25, 2009, a security guard dialed 911 from 100 North Carolwood Drive in Los Angeles. Inside the house, Michael Jackson was lying on his bed, not breathing, his personal physician performing CPR. Paramedics arrived five minutes later, finding Jackson with no pulse, already in full cardiac arrest.
Michael Jackson was 50 years old at the time of his death. He was living in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles and was preparing for a series of comeback concerts called “This Is It,” scheduled to begin just weeks later at the O2 Arena in London. Jackson suffered from chronic insomnia, and his struggle to sleep had plagued him for years. In the months leading up to his death, concert promoter AEG Live had agreed to hire Dr. Conrad Murray as Jackson’s personal physician, at Jackson’s request, for a fee of $150,000 per month—the equivalent of about $225,000 in 2025 dollars. Murray’s contract was with AEG Live, but Jackson never signed the final version.
Conrad Murray was a cardiologist who had first met Jackson in Las Vegas while treating one of his children. Murray joined Jackson’s entourage in May 2009 and moved into the rented mansion on North Carolwood Drive. His primary responsibility was to help Jackson sleep so he could rehearse and perform for the demanding concert schedule. Jackson relied on a combination of prescription drugs, including anti-anxiety medications, sedatives, and in particular, the surgical anesthetic propofol, which he called his “milk.” The drug propofol is typically used in hospitals as an intravenous anesthetic for surgery, not intended for insomnia, and is known for causing cardiac and respiratory depression, especially outside a medical setting.
On the night of June 24, 2009, Jackson rehearsed at the Staples Center in Los Angeles until after midnight. According to magician Ed Alonzo, who was present at the rehearsal, Jackson appeared energetic, though he joked about having laryngitis and did not perform until 9 p.m. Jackson returned home and went to bed shortly after 1:30 a.m., but was unable to sleep. Dr. Murray spent the next several hours administering a series of medications: diazepam, lorazepam, and midazolam, all benzodiazepines intended to help with anxiety and induce sleep. Jackson remained awake, repeatedly asking for propofol.
At 10:40 a.m., after several hours of unsuccessful sedation attempts, Murray finally gave in and injected Jackson with 25 milligrams of propofol diluted with lidocaine. Jackson fell asleep. Murray later testified that he left Jackson’s bedside for two minutes to go to the bathroom, returning to find Jackson no longer breathing and with a weak pulse.
Murray said he attempted to revive Jackson for about ten minutes, performing CPR and administering flumazenil, a drug used to reverse sedative overdoses. Notably, Murray carried out CPR on Jackson while he was lying on a soft bed, rather than a hard surface as recommended by emergency protocols. Standard chest compressions require both hands and steady pressure on a firm surface. Murray, however, placed one hand beneath Jackson and used the other for compressions on the bed, a method that is widely regarded as less effective.
Murray did not immediately call 911, stating he was hindered by the lack of a landline phone in the house and that he did not know the exact address. In the hour after discovering Jackson was not breathing, Murray made several private calls on his cell phone, none of which he reported to law enforcement. It was a security guard who ultimately placed the 911 call at 12:21 p.m.—nearly an hour and a half after Jackson was found unresponsive.
Paramedics arrived at 12:26 p.m. and worked on Jackson for 42 minutes. They found no pulse and observed no change in his status during transport. The ambulance arrived at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center at about 1:14 p.m., where a team of doctors attempted to resuscitate Jackson for more than an hour. He was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m.
Jackson's body was flown by helicopter to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office in Lincoln Heights, where chief medical examiner Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran performed a three-hour autopsy the following day. The initial autopsy found no evidence of trauma or foul play. However, a subsequent, more detailed toxicology report revealed that Jackson died from acute propofol intoxication, exacerbated by the presence of lorazepam and, to a lesser extent, midazolam, diazepam, lidocaine, and ephedrine. The coroner ruled the manner of death as homicide on August 28, 2009.
The Los Angeles Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration led the investigation. The LAPD's access to the house was questioned, as the Jackson family was allowed entry before all evidence was collected, raising concerns about the chain of custody. The DEA’s involvement allowed investigators to trace prescription drug records, some of which bore fraudulent names or were unlabeled. At least five doctors were under scrutiny for their role in prescribing medications to Jackson, and police wanted to question 30 medical professionals, including dermatologist Arnold Klein.
Multiple bottles of propofol—some opened, some unopened—were found in Jackson’s house, along with various other prescription drugs. Cherilyn Lee, a nurse practitioner who had worked with Jackson, later reported that Jackson had asked her for propofol in May 2009 to help him sleep, but she refused, warning him of its dangers.
On July 22, 2009, detectives searched Murray’s medical office and storage unit in Houston, seizing computers, contact lists, and other records. Murray’s home and office in Las Vegas were also searched, as was a Las Vegas pharmacy. On February 8, 2010, Los Angeles prosecutors charged Conrad Murray with involuntary manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $75,000 bail. His trial began on September 27, 2011, and on November 7, 2011, a jury found him guilty. He received the maximum sentence of four years in prison and was released after serving two years due to prison overcrowding and good behavior.
The Jackson family publicly expressed suspicion and grief. La Toya Jackson claimed her brother “was murdered for his music catalogue,” and father Joe Jackson filed complaints against AEG Live, asserting that the concert promoter failed to provide the medical support and equipment Murray had requested. In 2010, Jackson’s children and his mother Katherine sued AEG Live, alleging the company negligently hired Murray. After a 21-week trial in 2013, a jury found in favor of AEG Live, determining the company had no reason to know Murray would be “unfit or incompetent.”
Jackson’s will, signed in 2002, named attorney John Branca and accountant John McClain as executors. All assets were given to the Michael Jackson Family Trust. At the time of his death, Jackson’s net worth was estimated at $236.6 million, with $567.6 million in assets and $331 million in debts. The guardianship of his three children was given to his mother, Katherine Jackson, or, if she was unable, to singer Diana Ross.
Jackson’s death triggered a massive global response. TMZ, the first outlet to report his death, announced it only 18 minutes after he was pronounced dead. The Los Angeles Times confirmed it at 2:51 p.m. Online traffic spiked so dramatically that Google mistakenly believed it was under a DDoS attack and temporarily blocked searches for “Michael Jackson.” Wikipedia reported nearly a million visits to Jackson’s biography within one hour. Twitter saw up to 5,000 tweets per minute mentioning Jackson, and AOL Instant Messenger collapsed for 40 minutes.
A worldwide television audience estimated at 2.5 to 3 billion watched Jackson’s memorial service, held at the Staples Center on July 7, 2009. The 17,500 tickets were distributed free through an online lottery that received over 1.2 million applications in 24 hours. His solid-bronze casket reportedly cost $25,000, and the funeral, held on September 3, 2009, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, cost $1 million, including $590,000 for the crypt.
Jackson’s record sales soared after his death. In the United States, his solo albums sold 422,000 copies in the week following his death, 1.1 million copies during the week of his memorial service, and 8.2 million albums by the end of 2009, making him the year’s best-selling artist. He became the first artist in history to have four of the top 20 best-selling albums in a single year in the US after his death.