UPDATE!
UPDATE 4:14 p.m.: Court is adjourned for the weekend.
UPDATE 3:57 p.m.: Cooper confirms there were no physical signs of trauma from her own personal observations. Upon Jackson's arrival to UCLA, he was clinically dead. She describes his pupils as fixed and dilated and describes what a dying heart is, that he may still produce a signal or activity, but no pulse.
UPDATE 3:27 p.m.: People call Dr. Richelle Cooper, witness is sworn in.Â
UPDATE 3:21 p.m.: Blount did not hear Dr. Murray tell Senneff about the lorazepam to help him sleep. He denies hearing Dr. Murray state Jackson had been down one minute prior to calling for help. He heard Dr. Murray instead say he had been down one minute prior to the medics arrival.
MORE: Five Big Moments from Day Three of the Trial
UPDATE 2:36 p.m.: Blount says he saw Dr. Murray put the lidocaine bottles into a black bag. Brazil shows the bedroom picture to the court, Blount establishes the location of the lidocaine bottles. Thereafter, they transported Jackson into the ambulance, where additional resuscitation efforts took place. He saw Dr. Murray speaking on the phone inside the ambulance and heard him say "It's about Michael. It doesn't look good."
UPDATE 2:28 p.m.: Brazil projects photograph of Jackson's bedroom. Blount uses a pointer to establish where he was located inside the bedroom and describes that he saw three open bottles of lidocaine, a heart drug. He confirms that paramedics do not carry lidocaine and do not administer the drug. He also tells the court that he never heard Dr. Murray mention that specific drug or propofol.
UPDATE 2:19 p.m.: Blount never noticed any activity on the heart monitor and confirms it was flatlined. He heard Senneff asking Dr. Murray about Jackson's health and medication; Dr. Murray responded ‘No' in response about taking any medications, including recreational drugs, or medical conditions. Dr. Murray said Jackson was a "healthy 50-year-old man."
UPDATE 2:16 p.m.: Blount "felt he was dead, ma'am" in regards to his assessment at that time of Jackson. He describes the oxygen tube that goes into the nose and around the ears of the patient. He noticed the nasal cannula on Jackson's face and confirms there was an IV attached to his right leg, and there was an IV bag attached to an IV stand. He noticed no other medical equipment, no pulse oximeter, which contradicts the security's statements.
UPDATE 2:02 p.m.: Nest to testify is Martin Blount, a Los Angeles firefighter and paramedic. Blount depicts the scene when he entered the bedroom. He identifies Dr. Murray, who he confirms was inside the bedroom, there were also two individuals helping him move Jackson's body onto the floor. He does not recall seeing anyone other than Dr. Murray inside the bedroom (he did not see any security guards). He immediately recognized the patient to be Michael Jackson. He witnessed his colleagues moving the singer to the foot of the bed (not Alvarez).
UPDATE 2:00 p.m.: Justice is swift. Pastor ordered Alford to appear in court on Nov. 15 to show cause for contempt, which will determine whether his comments violated the judge's orders. Meanwhile, Senneff has resumed testimony and said that Murray looked like "a deer in headlights" and clearly surprised when he saw the paramedic reenter Jackson's room after his body had been placed in the ambulance. Senneff returned to pick up medical equipment and walked in on Murray picking up vials of medicine from the floor and placing them into a garbage bag. His testimony complete, he finally stepped down from the stand.
UPDATE: 12:30 p.m.: Today's proceedings are still recessed for the lunch break, but word has broken that Judge Michael Pastor has issued a gag order in the case in response to Murray's defense attorneys making the press rounds. The decision came down in the wake of attorney Matt Alford, a partner of Ed Chernoff, speaking on the Today show this morning. He was also scheduled (until now, of course) to appear on Piers Morgan Tonight. The decision came down after a sidebar early this morning, prior to the jury entering court.
Pastor ordered Alford to be in court when the session resumes at 1:30 p.m. for what we can only assume will be a public reprimand. The judge relayed a statement, saying those close to the case are not authorized to speak out or "make any comments about the case or credibility of witnesses." Alford told Today that the the unsequestered jury (and therein lies the rub) was "smart enough" to know the prosecution hadn't proven their case.
UPDATE 11:55 a.m.: After confirming that he say no signs of life in the 42 minutes he spent in Jackson's presence, the cross-examination began. As the defense is attempting to show that Murray was really just trying to wean Jackson off of what they claim was a self-administered propofol habit, they questioned paramedic Richard Senneff on the singer's condition.
After Senneff said that it "looked like he had a chronic health problem," the defense went a step further, asking if Jackson "looked like someone who had a drug problem?" Senneff didn't take the bait, explaining, "People who have chronic illnesses can look like a lot of things. I've seen drug addicts that are overweight, I've seen drug addicts that are underweight." The hearing has just recessed for the lunch break and testimony will resume at 1:30 p.m.
UPDATE 11:20 a.m.: Senneff said that there were several indications that Jackson was already dead: when he first moved him from the side to the foot of the bed, his skin felt "very cool to the touch," his eyes were "open and dry," his "pupils dilated" and when he hooked him up to the EKG machine, "it was flatlined consistently." One of the paramedics was also unable, after five attempts, to get an IV into either of Jackson's arms, or even find a vein, a possible result of his blood having not been circulating for some time.
At some point during their resuscitation attempts, Murray said he felt a pulse in the upper right groin region of Jackson. Senneff said that the heart monitor did not show any cardiac rhythms that would indicate a pulse, and both he and another paramedic tried unsuccessfully to find one in the region Murray indicated. "I did not feel one at all," he said. After speaking with the UCLA Medical Center, doctors there said they were prepared to cease efforts at resuscitation as all signs indicated Jackson had already passed.
UPDATE 10:55 a.m.: Senneff said that he had to prompt Murray three times to find out if Jackson (whom he did not immediately recognize as the patient) had any underlying conditions. He was told no, and said, "That did not add up to me." The reasons: because there wouldn't be a doctor on hand, an IV stand hooked up and oxygen tanks in the room of what he described as "an underweight patient" if there was not some present condition. "It didn't seem normal," he said.
Still, Senneff said he thought they had a good chance of saving Jackson, thanks to their quick response timeâ€"they arrived at 12:26 p.m. after having received the 911 call at 12:21 p.m. "We got there very, very quickly." Murray also informed him that he didn't have Jackson on any medication aside from lorazepam, a sedative, and that he was only treating him for "dehydration and exhaustion."
MORE: Nancy Grace speaks out on MJ trial
UPDATE 10:00 a.m.: Richard Senneff, the first of two paramedics who responded to the Jackson 911 call, has taken the stand. He testifies that the call was received at 12:21 p.m. and informed them that a 50-year-old man had suffered cardiac arrest and was "not breathing at all." Just a few minutes into his testimony, the court recessed for their 15-minute morning break.
UPDATE 9:45 a.m.: The voicemail Murray left for Russell was played for the court. Russell said, "I thought the message was odd." When pressed as to why, he said it was "strange" that Murray told him his heart, after suffering a heart attack, was now "repaired"â€""I'm looking for scientific facts," he saidâ€"and that the doctor informed him, yet again, that he would be leaving on sabbatical to England. "I've been aware of what he's doing before his staff was."
UPDATE 9:30 a.m.: Next up in the hot seat, another of Murray's patients, Robert Russell. Russell was the recipient of a phone call placed by a seemingly calm and collected Murray on June 25, 2009, at 11:49 a.m., during which he was informed of the results of a heart scan. That call was placed roughly a half hour before paramedics were called to attend to Jackson.
UPDATE 9:15 a.m.: Not exactly the most dynamic start to proceedings, but Nonin Medical executive Bob Johnson took the stand to offer up some on-the-record facts about the monitoring device his company produces that Murray used on Jackson.
Bottom line: the company specificially states that the deviceâ€"a $257 fingertip heart monitorâ€"is not designed for continuous monitoring and that it is "useless if you're not looking at it." In other words, it's noiseless, so if you're not in the room with it when it goes off, you won't know anything's wrong with whoever you're monitoringâ€"a conceit that seems to back the prosecution's argument that Murray lacked the proper monitoring and lifesaving tools to properly care for Jackson.
MORE: Get the play-by-play of testimony from day three!
The involuntary manslaughter trial of Conrad Murray is about to finish out its first week. You know what that means: just four more to go!
While yesterday saw nearly a full day of testimony from key prosecution witness Alberto Alvarez, Michael Jackson's security guard, today should prove equally as interestingâ€"and heartbreaking for the members of the Jackson family who have been showing up, without fail, in courtâ€"as first up on the stand will be the two paramedics who responded to Alvarez's 911 call and took over lifesaving measures from Murray before taking Jackson to the hospital.
At a preliminary hearing, paramedics Martin Blount and Richard Senneff testified that Murray never told them he administered propofol to Jackson, and also that they believed the superstar was already dead by the time they arrived at his home.
The sure-to-be dramatic action kicks off at 8:45 a.m. PT and, as always, E! Online will be livestreaming all the proceedings from the courtroom.
(Originally published on Sept. 30, 2011 at 8:40 a.m. PT)
â€"Additional reporting by Ken Baker
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