Time gap in Jackson death could prove key

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A key point of contention has emerged in the case investigators are piecing together about the death of Michael Jackson: Exactly when did Dr. Conrad Murray realize that his patient had stopped breathing?

There are currently two accounts of that moment on June 25, and about an hour separates them.

According to police documents, Murray told detectives he put Jackson to sleep with drugs just minutes before he found the singer not breathing around 11 a.m., then let nearly 90 minutes go by — much of that time on his cell phone — before an ambulance was called.

But Murray’s lawyer says the doctor didn’t discover a stricken Jackson until around noon.

Investigators have ruled Jackson’s death a homicide, based on tests showing he was killed by the combination of the anesthetic propofol with at least two sedatives, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the finding has not been publicly released.

The homicide designation does not necessarily mean a crime was committed, though it’s a helpful starting point should prosecutors choose to seek criminal charges.

Police have said Murray is the target of an investigation into manslaughter, defined as a homicide without malice or premeditation.

Murray told police he spent the morning of June 25 administering various sedatives to Jackson in an attempt to get him to sleep, according to an affidavit for a search warrant served last month on Murray’s clinic in Houston.

Unsuccessful in inducing rest, the doctor ultimately gave in to the singer’s demands for a dose of propofol around 10:40 a.m.

By 11 a.m., after a short trip to the bathroom, Murray said he saw Jackson was not breathing and began trying to revive him, both with a “rescue” drug and by performing CPR, according to the documents.

An ambulance was not called until 12:21 p.m., and Murray spent much of the intervening time making nonemergency cell phone calls, police say.

That timeline is flawed, said Murray’s attorney, Edward Chernoff, who was present when investigators spent three hours interviewing the doctor June 27.

Chernoff said Murray never told police he found Jackson not breathing at 11 a.m. — instead, it was more like noon.

“Their theory is he came back and wasn’t breathing. That’s not what Dr. Murray told them,” Chernoff said Tuesday. “They are confusing the time Michael Jackson went to sleep with the time he stopped breathing.”

Home use of propofol is virtually unheard of — safe administration requires lifesaving equipment and a trained anesthesiologist monitoring the patient at all times.

While the 25 mg dose Murray said he gave Jackson was relatively small, its combination with the sedatives lorazepam and midazolam proved deadly.

Even if Murray found Jackson around noon, he still waited too long to call an ambulance, said one medical expert.