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Witness: Jackson's children reacted in horror

Witnesses on day two of the Michael Jackson death trial on Wednesday told of a panic-stricken doctor and the pop star's children crying in disbelief with their father lying unresponsive on his bedroom floor, mouth agape and eyes wide open.
/ Source: TODAY news services

Witnesses on day two of the Michael Jackson death trial on Wednesday told of a panic-stricken doctor and the pop star's children crying in disbelief with their father lying unresponsive on his bedroom floor, mouth agape and eyes wide open. Faheem Muhammad, the ex-chief of Jackson's security team, testified that Jackson's oldest children reacted in horror when they saw their father's lifeless body. Other witnesses said Dr. Conrad Murray, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death, telephoned the singer's assistant before calling an ambulance and may have sought to hide evidence of drug use. Prosecutors claim Murray not only caused Jackson's death by giving him the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid, along with other sedatives but that the physician also was negligent in his care of the "Thriller" singer and failed to get timely medical assistance.

Michael Jackson death trial

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Michael Jackson death trial

Fans of the late King of Pop and supporters of the doctor charged in his death converge outside an L.A. courthouse.

Murray has admitted giving Jackson propofol — the principal cause of his death — but his defense attorneys claim Jackson administered additional propofol to himself, leading to an overdose.

Wednesday's most dramatic testimony came from Muhammad, who told of a frantic call from Murray that brought the security chief rushing to the singer's bedroom.

He testified that he arrived at Jackson's bedroom to find Murray sweating and nervous, leaning over Jackson and trying to revive him. He said that Jackson's two older children, Paris and Prince, were in shock, and that Paris fell to the ground, curled up and weeping.

"Paris was on the ground balled-up crying and Prince, he was just standing there, he had a real shocked — just slowly crying — look on his face," Muhammad said.

Moments later, Muhammad said, he heard Murray ask if anyone knew CPR. Timeline for help
In other testimony, prosecutors sought to draw a timeline between when Murray found Jackson unresponsive at 11:56 a.m. on June 25, 2009, and when the doctor finally sought help. Initially, Murray called the singer's personal assistant, Michael Williams, at 12:12 p.m. with the message "Call me right away," rather than calling for an ambulance.

Williams testified that he called Murray back at 12:15 p.m., and was told Jackson had suffered "a bad reaction." "When I hear a 'bad reaction,' I wouldn't think anything fatal, personally, and I wasn't asked to call 911," Williams said. He said Murray told him to get to Jackson's mansion immediately and also to send up a security guard. An ambulance was finally called at 12:20 p.m. and it was already there when Williams arrived at the Jackson mansion.

"It was real frantic. I got there when the gurney (carrying Jackson) was coming down" from the bedroom, Williams said. The assistant said that at the hospital where Jackson was later pronounced dead, Murray made a request that seemed strange. "He said, 'There's some cream in Michael's room that he wouldn't want the world to know about,' and he requested that I or someone would give him a ride back to the house, so that he could get the cream," said Williams. Prosecutors have suggested Murray probably wanted to return there to remove evidence of the drugs that he had given Jackson before he died.

The testimony on the second day of the trial helped shed light on what Murray did and didn't do after he found Jackson unconscious in June 2009. Murray, 58, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face up to four years in prison and would have to relinquish his medical license.

Earlier on Wednesday, a lawyer who drafted Murray's contract to provide medical services for Jackson said the doctor had assured her multiple times in the days before his death that the singer's health was good. "Dr. Murray told me repeatedly that Michael Jackson was perfectly healthy, in excellent condition," Los Angeles attorney Kathy Jorrie said on the witness stand.

Jorrie said Murray had added to his contract a provision for a CPR machine when they got to London for the highly touted show that would include 50 concerts over nine months. "He needed to be sure if something went wrong he would have such a machine available," she said. "He also told me it was customary."

Murray signed the contract, which would give him $150,000 a month, and faxed it to her that night, she said. Jackson, however, would never get to sign it.

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Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.