LOS ANGELES — As Michael Jackson’s lifeless body lay on a bed in his palatial mansion, a bodyguard obeyed a frantic doctor’s instructions to bag up medicine bottles and intravenous bags and shield the Jackson children from seeing their father — all before being told to call 911, court testimony revealed Wednesday.
Alberto Alvarez said he was the first security guard to reach Jackson’s room after word came that something was wrong. He described a shocking scene.
The King of Pop was on his bed connected to an IV tube and a urinary catheter. His eyes and mouth were open, and Dr. Conrad Murray was leaning over him doing chest compressions to try to revive him.
Alvarez said he was “frozen” at the sight.
“I said, ‘Dr. Murray, what happened?’ And he said, ‘He had a reaction. He had a bad reaction,’ ” Alvarez recalled.
The testimony came during a preliminary hearing to determine whether Murray, the singer’s personal physician, will be tried for involuntary manslaughter. Authorities say Murray gave Jackson a lethal dose of the powerful anesthetic propofol and other sedatives before he died June 25, 2009.
Deputy District Attorney David Walgren said in his opening statement that Jackson already was dead when Murray summoned help and tried to conceal his administering of propofol to the pop star. He said Murray had waited as long as 21 minutes, ordering the bodyguard to collect items, before paramedics were called.
Murray was providing Jackson propofol roughly six times a week since being hired as his physician in May 2009, as Jackson prepared for a series of comeback concerts, Walgren said.
In other testimony, paramedic Richard Senneff, who responded to Jackson’s mansion the day he died, said Murray never mentioned he had given propofol to the singer. Instead, the doctor said he had given Jackson lorazepam to help him sleep and indicated the pop star was being treated for dehydration, Senneff testified.
The paramedic testified that Murray’s responses didn’t add up because the singer looked so pale and thin that Senneff thought he was a hospice patient.
Earlier, Alvarez recalled Jackson’s children Paris and Prince walking into the room during the effort to revive their father.
“Paris screamed, ‘Daddy!’ and she started to cry. Dr. Murray said, ‘Get them out. Don’t let them see him like this,’ ” he said.
