Conrad Murray

A Los Angeles County jury convicted Michael Jackson's personal physician of involuntary manslaughter, concluding a trial that offered a glimpse of the last days of one of the world's most famous men by deciding that his death was a criminal act. The verdict was delivered Monday in a windowless downtown L.A. courtroom a world away from the turreted Holmby Hills mansion where Dr. Conrad Murray had a $150,000 a month position that included providing...

Dr. Conrad Murray was placed on suicide watch at the L.A. County Jail on Monday, hours after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death and being taken into custody. Immediately after the verdict, Murray was placed in handcuffs at the direction of the judge, to remain behind bars pending his Nov. 29 sentencing. A law enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said Murray was placed on suicide watch once in custody.

It was the promise of a big celebrity trial with its alluring mix of Hollywood and death that ringed a downtown courthouse with camera crews. Citizens rose before dark for seats in the packed courtroom, where they heard intimate details of Michael Jackson's death, even viewing a photo of his body, laid out on a gurney in a hospital hallway. When the prosecutor and a defense attorney rose for their closing arguments Thursday, they dealt with that celebrity in starkly different ways.

Testimony drew to a close in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's personal physician Tuesday as the doctor announced he will not testify in his own defense. Dr. Conrad Murray waited until the last possible moment to declare his intention not to take the stand, telling the judge as late as Monday afternoon he had yet to make up his mind. After the final defense witness completed his testimony Tuesday, Murray took his time responding to the judge's question about his final decision.

Michael Jackson's doctor has yet to decide whether he will testify at his involuntary-manslaughter trial. But if he does, he may say he was on the phone in a bedroom foyer when the pop star killed himself with a syringe of leftover drugs, according to trial testimony Monday. The scenario emerged during the cross-examination of a defense medical expert who said his testimony was informed by "two extended conversations" with Dr. Conrad Murray. The witness, an expert in the surgical anesthetic that killed Jackson, was warned repeatedly not to disclose any information from the meetings, initially by a prosecutor and then by an exasperated judge who threatened contempt of court charges.

The Conrad Murray manslaughter trial is mercifully limping toward its end, with the defense team trying to put the victim on trial — portraying pop star Michael Jackson as a desperate drug abuser who concocted his own fatal brew. In summing up testimony Thursday night, NBC news anchor Brian Williams asked whether Jackson might have been nothing more than a hopeless, doctor-shopping drug addict. If that was the case, then Jackson had several high-powered accomplices and plenty of mainstream company.

A leading anesthesiologist told jurors Friday in the trial of Michael Jackson's personal physician that the singer probably caused his own death by injecting himself with a dose of the drug while his doctor wasn't looking. In his testimony, defense expert Paul White directly challenged the theory put forth by the government's main medical witness, Dr. Steven Shafer. The prosecution expert testified that the only plausible scenario was that Dr. Conrad Murray had left a large intravenous drip of the anesthetic propofol running into the singer's bloodstream for three hours, even after Jackson had stopped breathing.

The star medical expert for Michael Jackson's physician began his testimony Thursday with the acknowledgment that not even he could explain the doctor's treatment of the pop star. "Let's deal with the elephant in the room here," a defense attorney said to Dr. Paul White, the most important and probably final witness for the physician. "Conrad Murray has been accused of infusing a dose of propofol and leaving his patient. Can you justify that?" "Absolutely not," White replied.

The 82-year-old woman walked with a cane and had to be helped into the witness box, but once there, she was forceful in her defense of the doctor accused in Michael Jackson's death. Dr. Conrad Murray, Ruby Mosley told jurors at the physician's manslaughter trial, was neither greedy nor brusque. In a hardscrabble Houston neighborhood a world away from Jackson's rented Holmby Hills mansion, Murray was generous with his time and care for the low-income patients who crowded his office every two weeks, she said.

In his three decades in the music industry, Randy Phillips founded a successful record label, worked with stars from Prince to Celine Dion and propelled his concert promoting company, AEG Live, to annual revenues of more than $1 billion. But he is likely to be remembered best as Michael Jackson's last boss, and it was that role that took Phillips to the witness stand Tuesday at the trial of the pop icon's doctor. For two hours, Phillips walked jurors through "This Is It," Jackson's planned comeback concert series, from its genesis in a Bel-Air hotel suite to a final rehearsal at Staples Center that left a normally cynical music executive with goose bumps and his star performer with a great confidence.