Conrad Murray

Conrad Robert Murray (born February 19, 1953) is a Grenadian cardiologist who was the personal physician of Michael Jackson at the time of the singer's death on June 25, 2009, in which he was implicated.^[1] Murray was subsequently charged and convicted for involuntary manslaughter and served a two-year jail sentence.

Early life

Murray was raised by his maternal grandparents who were farmers in Grenada until he joined his mother, Milta, in Trinidad and Tobago when he was 7 years old. He grew up poor in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. He did not meet his father, Rawle Andrew, also a physician, until he was 25. Andrew, who died in 2001, was devoted to providing medical services to the poor. Murray finished high school and worked as a volunteer elementary school teacher in Trinidad for a while. After teaching, he worked to save up for college tuition as a customs clerk and insurance underwriter.^[1]

Education

In 1973, Murray moved to Houston, Texas, where his father worked, to attend Texas Southern University, and graduated Magna cum laude with a degree in pre-med and biological sciences. Murray continued his education at Meharry Medical College, in Nashville, Tennessee, the same school his father attended, and the first school in the south for African Americans. He began his internal medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and completed it at the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. He then completed a cardiology fellowship at the University of Arizona.^[1]

Career

Murray worked at the Sharp Memorial Hospital, in San Diego, as an associate director of its cardiology fellowship training program. In 1990, he opened a private practice in Las Vegas, and in 2006, he founded the Acres Homes Heart and Vascular Institute in Houston. Dr. Murray met Michael Jackson in 2006, in Las Vegas, and treated his daughter Paris when she fell ill. Jackson hired Murray to be his exclusive personal physician prior to his tour in July 2009.^[1] Jackson insisted that Murray be hired by his show promoter, AEG Live, for $150,000 monthly, although AEG later claimed that there was never a contract with Murray.^[2][3]

Personal life

At the time that he began working for Jackson in May 2009, Murray had reportedly fathered seven children by 6 different women.^[4] He was in arrears on the mortgage for the Las Vegas home occupied by his first wife and children, and owed child support to children outside of his marriage, which he couldn’t pay due to the amount of money he owed to Michael Jackson’s family. He was married to Blanche, his second wife, whom he met at medical school, and helped pay rent for another woman, Nicole Alvarez. Murray met Alvarez at a gentlemen's club in Las Vegas when she worked as a stripper, and Alvarez gave birth to their son Che in March 2009.^[5] Another relationship, with a cocktail waitress from Houston, was also reported.^[6]

Murray was at risk of losing his California medical license due to unpaid child support to one of his children, and owed $13,000 to a California woman, Nenita Malibiran.^[7] Murray was a defendant in numerous civil lawsuits (though none for medical malpractice). By 2008, he had accumulated over $600,000 in court judgments against him for medical equipment and unpaid rent for his practices in Texas and Nevada. He also owed $71,000 for student loans at Meharry Medical College.^[8] Murray filed for bankruptcy in 2002, in California.^[9]

Michael Jackson's death

On June 25, 2009, only weeks after hiring Murray, Michael Jackson died due to a lethal dose of propofol administered by Murray. Jackson's death was ruled a homicide; Murray admitted administering 25 mg of propofol intravenously, for insomnia, on the night of his death. Murray said he tried treating Jackson with other drugs, and claimed he only administered the propofol after Jackson insisted. Murray said he worried that Jackson had become dependent on the drug as a sleep aid, and was trying to wean him from it.^[10][11] Propofol is normally given in a hospital or a clinical setting with close monitoring, mostly used for general anesthesia during surgery and is not indicated or approved as a sleep aid.

In February 2010, Murray was formally charged with involuntary manslaughter.^[12] On September 27, 2011, Murray went on trial in Los Angeles. He was convicted in November 2011 and received the maximum penalty of four years in prison. His Texas medical license was revoked, and his California and Nevada licenses were suspended.^[13] After serving two years of his sentence, Murray was released on parole on October 28, 2013.

Jackson's father, Joseph Jackson, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Murray in 2010,^[14] but dropped it in 2012.^[15] Also in 2010, Jackson's mother Katherine and three children filed a separate wrongful death suit against AEG, claiming that the company was negligent in hiring Murray; a jury found in favor of AEG in 2013.^[16]

References