Michael Jackson had enough anesthetic in system to kill him

Houston cardiologist Conrad Murray gave pop singer Michael Jackson an assortment of sedatives and the powerful anesthetic drug propofol the morning he died, according to a court document unsealed here Monday.

“At the time of his death, toxicology analysis showed Michael Jackson had lethal levels of propofol in his blood,” said a search warrant affidavit, which attributed the conclusion to Los Angeles County Chief Coroner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran.

The affadavit, filed in a Harris County district court before last month's raid at Murray's Houston clinic and storage facility, said Murray told investigators he gave Jackson 25 mg of propofol — a relatively small amount, according to one expert.

But the Associated Press reported Monday that a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Sathyavagiswaran has ruled the death a homicide and the combination of drugs the cause. The coroner's office would not comment on the report.

The 32-page warrant affidavit said Dr. Murray, briefly Jackson's personal physician, told investigators he had been treating the 50-year-old pop singer for insomnia for six weeks and that he was not the first doctor to inject him with propofol.

Murray said he had been injecting Jackson every night with 50 mg of propofol, diluted with Lidocaine. But he became concerned he may have been forming an addiction to the drug and tried to wean him off it, using combinations of other drugs. He said they worked to help Jackson sleep the two nights before he died.

But on June 25, the other drugs failed to put Jackson to sleep, Murray told investigators. After five separate doses of sedatives given from 1:30 to 7:30 a.m. failed to do the job, Murray said he administered 25 mg of propofol “after repeated demands/requests from Jackson.”

“Jackson finally went to sleep and Murray stated that he remained monitoring him,” said the affidavit. “After approximately 10 minutes, Murray stated he left Jackson's side to go to the restroom and relieve himself.

“Murray stated he was out of the room for about two minutes maximum,” the affidavit continued. “Upon his return, Murray noticed that Jackson was no longer breathing.”

Attempts at CPR failed and paramedics rushed Jackson to UCLA Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

‘Much is police theory'

In a statement, Murray's lawyer disputed the accuracy of some of the affidavit's contents.

“Much of what's in the search warrant affidavit is factual,” said Houston attorney Ed Chernoff. “However, unfortunately, much is police theory. Most egregiously, the timeline reported by law enforcement was not obtained through interviews with Dr. Murray, as was implied by the affidavit.”

Chernoff said Murray never told investigators he found Jackson not breathing at 11 a.m.

A leading Houston anesthesiologist said 25 mg of propofol is a tiny amount, unlikely to stop someone from breathing under normal circumstances.

“The whole story sounds fishy, but who knows?” said Dr. Joseph Naples, chairman of Anesthesiology at Methodist Hospital. “With all those other drugs in his system, maybe 25 mg of propofol could have stopped him from breathing.”

Naples said that a 150-mg dose of propofol commonly is used to induce unconsciousness in an average-sized adult in the hospital. He said without follow-up drugs, the patient would recover in 7 to 10 minutes.

No evidence on purchases

Naples said the doses of the sedatives Murray claimed he gave Jackson — 10 mg of Valium and 2 mg twice of both Ativan and Versed — are normal amounts individually, but may have proved too much in the aggregate.

The court document said police could find no evidence that Murray had purchased, ordered or obtained the medications under his medical license or Drug Enforcement Administration tracking number.

The document said police saw about eight bottles of propofol in Jackson's rented mansion, along with other vials and pills that had been prescribed to the pop singer by Murray and other doctors. The drugs confiscated in the search included Valium, tamsulosin, lorazepam, temazepam, clonazepam, trazodone and tizanidine.

A Harris County judge's approval of the search warrant and affidavit allowed Houston and Los Angeles police and federal drug agents to make the raid on Murray's Acres Homes clinic July 22.

todd.ackerman@chron.com