Jackson doctor ‘ordered aide to remove vials’

Michael Jackson’s doctor ordered an aide to help remove medical equipment including a “milky-white substance” from near the star’s bed, even as he lay apparently lifeless, a court heard yesterday.

Alberto Alvarez, Michael Jackson’s logistics director, said Conrad Murray got him to help remove vials and a saline bag from an intravenous (IV) drip stand next to the star’s bed at his plush Holmby Hills home on June 25, 2009.

He also recounted how the King of Pop’s distraught daughter Paris screamed “Daddy” as she entered the bedroom and saw her father’s body.

Dr Murray is accused of manslaughter over Jackson’s death, allegedly by giving him an overdose of the powerful sedative propofol, which the singer referred to as “milk” to help him sleep.

“While I was standing at the foot of the bed he reached over and grabbed a handful of vials, and then he reached out to me and said ‘Here put these in a bag’,” Mr Alvarez told the Los Angeles Superior Court.

With paramedics not yet on the scene, the doctor then asked him to remove the saline bag and put it in another bag, Mr Alvarez said. As he removed the bag he noticed there was a bottle inside the bag.

“There was what appeared to me like a milky white substance. I recalled seeing it at the bottom of the bag,” he said, before prosecutor David Walgren offered evidence that the bottle was a 100 mg bottle of propofol.

He specified that Dr Murray asked for his help in removing the vials before asking him to call 911.

The five-week trial opened on Tuesday, when prosecutors laid out their case that Dr Murray was guilty of “gross negligence”, while the doctor’s lawyers said the drug-addicted star effectively caused his own death.

On the first day jurors saw chilling images of Michael Jackson’s dead body on a gurney and heard a haunting audio recording of the heavily-drugged singer talking on the phone only weeks before his death.

But it also heard evidence that Michael Jackson, while giving cause for health concerns a week or two before he died, was in reasonable form in his last days, rehearsing for an ill-fated series of comeback shows in London.

On Wednesday two key Jackson aides recounted Dr Murray’s “frantic” efforts to save the singer’s life while his children wept – and how the doctor suggested a cover-up minutes after he died.

Personal assistant Michael Williams recalled the last rehearsal on the night of June 24. “He was in good spirits,” he said, adding of Michael Jackson’s last time on stage: “I thought it was amazing.”

But things went wrong overnight, when Dr Murray allegedly gave the singer a series of drugs to help him sleep – the doctor’s lawyers claim the star secretly took more – before going to the bathroom, and coming back to find Michael Jackson lifeless.

After the singer was pronounced dead at the UCLA hospital, Mr Williams recounted what he called an “odd” conversation with Dr Murray. “I was in a hallway. We were making small talk about how horrible this is.”

Then, “he said that there’s some cream in Michael’s room . that he wouldn’t want the world to know about. And he requested that I or someone give him a ride back to the house to get it.” He refused the request.

Yesterday, Mr Alvarez described the scene when he entered Jackson’s bedroom.

“I remember seeing him and he was laying on his back, with his hands extended out. I observed that his eyes were slightly open ... and his mouth was open,” he said.

“Paris screamed out ‘Daddy!’” he said, referring to the singer’s daughter, who was there with son Prince Michael. He then “ushered them out and said ‘Kids, don’t worry, we’ll take care of it, everything’s gonna be okay’.”