Michael Jackson’s personal doctor is the target of the manslaughter investigation into the singer’s death, according to court documents.
The documents were filed yesterday, the day after agents seized items from Dr Conrad Murray’s clinic in Houston, Texas, it emerged today.
A search warrant approved by a Houston judge allowed authorities to seek “property or items constituting evidence of the offense of manslaughter that tend to show that Dr Conrad Murray committed the said criminal offence”.
A receipt for the search warrant detailed items seized when government drug agents and Los Angeles police descended on Dr Murray’s clinic on Wednesday. Among them were 27 tablets of the weight-loss drug phentermine, a tablet of the muscle relaxant clonazepam, two hard drives, tax notices and a controlled substance registration.
Dr Murray’s lawyer, Edward Chernoff, referred queries to the statement he made a day earlier in which he confirmed a search warrant had been executed and that none of the items seized had previously been requested by authorities.
Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Officer Bruce Borihanh said a search warrant was served but had no other comment.
Cardiologist Dr Murray was hired as 50-year-old Jackson’s personal physician not long before the pop megastar died.
He was in Jackson’s rented Los Angeles mansion when the singer was found unconscious on the morning of June 25 and tried unsuccessfully to revive him.
An official determination of what killed Jackson willl not be made until at least next week, when the Los Angeles County coroner expects to have a completed toxicology report.
Jackson had a long history of prescription drug use and investigators are speaking with a number of doctors who treated him.
AP