Cardiologist and personal physician. Dr. Conrad Murray/ Robert Earl Carter was born February 19, 1953, in St. Andrews, Grenada. He moved to the United States in 1980. In 1999, he opened a private practice. Michael Jackson hired him as a personal physician for Jackson's 2009 concert tour. In June 2009, Jackson died of a prescription drug overdose. Dr. Conrad will stand trial for involuntary manslaughter.
Early Life and Medical Training
Cardiologist, personal physician. Born Conrad Robert Murray on February 19, 1953, in St. Andrews, Grenada.
The man who would become embroiled in the controversy surrounding the King of Pop's death in June 2009 did not come from money. With his mother Milta spending most of her time in Trinidad and Tobago in search of better paying work, Murray lived with his maternal grandparents, two Grenadian farmers. His fractured family life was compounded by the total absence of his father, Rawle Andrews, a Houston area physician who, up until his death in 2001, focused his career on offering medical services to the poor. Conrad didn't meet his dad until he was 25.
At the age of seven, Murray relocated to Trinidad and Tobago to live with his mother, where he became a citizen and finished high school. Like Milta, Murray was determined to make a better life for himself, demonstrating at an early age a propensity to work hard. After high school he volunteered as an elementary school teacher in Trinidad, an experience he followed with work as a customs clerk and an insurance underwriter in order to pay for his college education. Murray also wasn't afraid to take advantage of an opportunity. At the age of 19 he bought his first house, then later sold it for a decent profit to support his university tuition in the United States.
In 1980, two years after first visiting Houston and getting a chance to introduce himself to his father, Conrad Murray returned to Texas to enroll at Texas Southern University, where in just three years he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in pre-medicine and biological sciences. From there, Murray followed in his father's footsteps and attended the primarily African-American Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
Upon graduating Maharre, Murray enrolled for additional training at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and then completed his residency at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. Other training stints followed; he studied at the University of Arizona on a Cardiology Fellowship, and landed back in California, where he eventually worked as the associate director for the interventional cardiology fellowship-training program at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego.
Practicing Medicine in Las Vegas
In 1999, Dr. Murray left California for a second time and struck out on his own, opening up a private practice in Las Vegas. Locating his office just east of the strip, Murray—again taking a cue from his father—aimed to serve not just the city's wealthy, but its underserved as well. In 2006, Murray expanded his scope and returned to the city where his father had made a name for himself to open the Acres Homes Heart and Vascular Institute.
"We have been so lucky to have Dr. Murray and that clinic in this community," Houston patient Ruby Mosley told People magazine. "There are many, many patients that thank God this man was here for them."
Those who've had financial dealings with the doctor, however, might feel otherwise. Unpaid debts, lawsuits, and tax liens have followed Dr. Murray's life. More than $400,000 in court judgments alone were issued against his Las Vegas practice, and in December 2008 Dr. Murray, who has an unknown number of children, was ordered to cough up $3,700 in unpaid child support. Treating the King of Pop
In fact, it was Dr. Murray's debt situation that set the stage for his working relationship with Michael Jackson. The two men had first met in 2006 when the singer, a frequent Vegas visitor, had contacted Dr. Murray about treating one of his children for an unknown medical situation. Reports indicate that the two men soon became friends and, as Jackson began making plans for his upcoming 2009 concert tour, he hired Dr. Murray to be his personal physician for an astounding $150,000 a month.
Jackson's motivation to bring Murray aboard, though, may have had less to do with friendship and more to do with the singer's own complicated reliance on prescription medicine. Following Jackson's death, police discovered more than 20 prescriptions inside his rented Holmby Hills home, including methadone, fentanyl, percocet, dilaudid, and vicodin.
By all accounts, Jackson had become an insomniac and had pushed for the use of propofol, an anesthetic, to help him rest. Along with a mix of other drugs Jackson used to go to bed, he often referred to the concoction as his "milk" or "liquid sleep." But it was propofol he seems to have had a particular fondness for. Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse and nutritionist whom Jackson employed, told ABC News that the singer begged her to buy more of the drug for him. She refused.
"The problem with you telling me you want to be knocked out," Lee said she told him, is "you might not wake up the next morning. You don't want that."
Michael Jackson's Death
Dr. Murray, however, was another matter. While court documents showed he never actually purchased the drug for Jackson, over the course of the six weeks he worked for him, the doctor administered a nightly intravenous drip of propofol—despite his concerns that Jackson may be addicted to the drug.
That was the case on June 25, 2009, when Jackson, exhausted from a long rehearsal session at the Staples Center in Los Angeles that went past midnight, returned home and tried to get some rest. A familiar routine followed, with Murray hooking up his client to an IV in order to administer the propofol. Dr. Murray also gave Jackson lorazepam, an anti-anxiety medicine, and midazolam, a muscle relaxant.
According to records, the doctor then left Jackson's side for a few minutes to go to the bathroom. When he returned he found the singer with a weak pulse and had stopped breathing. Reportedly, Murray immediately started applying CPR to revive the singer. In addition, in what has garnered plenty of controversy, Dr. Murray also administered another drug, flumazenil, to try to offset the sedatives already circulating in Jackson's body. Some experts have said Murray's use of this additional medicine may have actually exacerbated the problems propofol had caused.
While questions remain about Dr. Murray's work to try and save Jackson's life in those first harried moments, what is clear is that 82 minutes passed before the doctor or anyone else at Jackson's home called paramedics to the house. When emergency officials did finally arrive, Dr. Murray at first failed to tell them about the drugs he injected into the singer. Jackson was officially pronounced dead at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he had arrived via ambulance with Dr. Murray at his side. Investigation & Indictment
In the months that followed the pop star's death, Conrad Murray's working relationship with the singer became not only the target of irate and shocked Jackson fans, but police investigators as well. In mid August more than two dozen DEA agents, LA police detectives, and Houston officers raided the doctor's Houston medical office to take a forensic image of Murray's computer and collect a myriad of medical documents.
Around that same time, news reports indicated that Dr. Murray was soon going to be charged with manslaughter, something that was heightened on August 24, 2009, when preliminary findings by the chief coroner for Los Angeles county revealed that Jackson had died as the result of lethal levels of propofol.
For his part, Dr. Murray said little about his work with Michael Jackson and the circumstances surrounding the singer's death, confining his remarks to a teary-eyed video he posted on YouTube. "I have done all I can do [to help the police]," Dr Murray tells the camera. "I told the truth, and I have faith the truth will prevail." Unfortunately for the doctor, after a six-week trial and a two-day deliberation process, a Los Angeles jury found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter on November 7, 2011.
On November 29, Murray was given the maximum sentence of four years in prison. In the sentencing, Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor called Murray "a disgrace to the medical profession" and said he showed a "continual pattern of deceit."
Murray will serve out his sentence at a Los Angeles County jail, where prisoners have been released because of overcrowding. It's believed Murray will serve less than two years before being released.
24 hour party people- Conrad Murray as Bailey Brother
Dr. Conrad Murray's trial for involuntary manslaughter produced colorful testimony today from three of Murray's current and former girlfriends, including Nicole Alvarez, the mother of one of his seven children -- an actress who said she spends her time going to rehearsals and "refining my instrument."
Four women, including one who testified Monday, were among the distractions preoccupying Murray during Michael Jackson's final hours of life, prosecutors allege.
Murray, who is accused of allegedly giving the pop legend a fatal dose of sedatives, admitted to administering 25 mg of the sedative propofol but claims that Jackson took an additional dose without Murray's knowledge.
In the hours preceding Jackson's death, Murray was reportedly communicating with four women: Sade Anding, Nicole Alvarez, Michelle Bella and Bridgette Morgan. Phone records show he made several calls during the critical period during which Jackson should have been closely monitored, prosecutors argue.
Today, Alvarez, Anding and Bella testified about their conversations with Murray during Michael Jackson's last hours.
Sade Anding
Today 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.
Nicole Alvarez
Actress and former cocktail waitress Nicole Alvarez, the mother of one of Murray's children, also testifed today, telling the court she spends her time going to rehearsals, "refining my instrument," which she defined as her "being."
She found out Murray was Jackson's doctor in 2008, and eventually met Jackson, saying she was "star struck" during the brief visit to Jackson's home.
"I can remember because Michael was very interested in the baby…he wanted to schedule visits so that he could see my son," she said today.
During Jackson's death she lived with Murray, and received his packages in the mail, but claimed she didn't know the contents.
He said "that he was going to be receiving something, that if there was knock on the door, it was going to be a delivery that I could retrieve it for him," Alvarez said.
In January, during the preliminary hearing, Alvarez made the same claim. Prosecutors believe those packages were shipments of propofol.
Phone records show Murray called Alvarez from the ambulance that transported Jackson to the hospital. Prosecutors asked her about their two-minute conversation.
"I remember him telling me that he was on the way to the hospital in the ambulance with Mr. Jackson and for me not to be alarmed … because he knew I would learn this through the news," she said today.
"This is a different witness entirely than the other women…This is a witness who was receiving the propofol shipments at her house," said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney David Walgren during the preliminary hearing in January. "This is an uncooperative witness who has refused to cooperate with the police, has refused to open the door for the police, has reached out to Dr. Murray's attorney. Whenever we tried to reach her… And it's not simply a phone call..."
Murray met Alvarez at a Las Vegas club a few years ago. He still stays in her Santa Monica apartment when he is in Los Angeles.
Her biggest acting role was in a 2008 movie called "Days of Wrath," produced by Foxy Films
where she played the role of "Hot Chick."
Michelle Bella
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
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."
