Dr Conrad Robert Murray, the doctor who was reportedly with Michael Jackson when he collapsed at his home last Thursday, is a Trinidadian. Murray has emerged as a potentially crucial figure in the investigation, with him reportedly being the last person to see Jackson alive.
Murray, 51, an experienced cardiologist, was hired to help oversee the star's physical condition ahead of his gruelling concert comeback, US news reports say.
Described as having an unblemished disciplinary record, he is said to be licensed to practise medicine in California, Texas and Nevada in the USA, where he recently closed his practice to work for Jackson full-time.
According to TMZ.com, (a celebrity news website) Murray sent a letter to patients and friends on June 15 saying he was ceasing to practise medicine indefinitely "because of a once in a lifetime opportunity."
"I am deeply saddened to leave you at this point, but please know my absence is not permanent," Murray wrote, adding that he would continue to manage his practice "from a distance".
Yesterday, at St Clair Medical Centre at 18 Elizabeth Street, St Clair, sources said that Dr Murray had visited the centre in 2003 to help set up its Cardiac Cauterisation Lab and subsequently paid occasional visits to the clinic to check on its progress.
The St Clair source said that Murray enjoyed his visits to T&T and talked about his life growing up in San Juan.
Also, a woman, who did not want to identify herself, called the Sunday Express newsroom to say that she grew up in the house next to the Murray family in Bagatelle Road Extension in San Juan in the 1960s. She said she and Murray were classmates at the Febeau Government Primary School on Saddle Road and that the family migrated to the US when Murray was in Standard Five.
An attempt to visit Bagatelle Road Extension yesterday by a Sunday Express team failed; taxi drivers and 'ph' drivers collectively refused to take us into the area with one man just saying that it is a "bad" area.
Reports said Murray graduated in 1989 from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, an independent, historically black university that touts itself as "perhaps the major educator of black physicians in the US".
In Houston in 2006, he helped open the Acres Home Heart and Vascular Institute, fulfilling part of a promise he made after the death of his father, a longtime community leader and doctor. He opened Global Cardiovascular Associates, his Las Vegas practice, in 2000.
The Los Angeles Times quoted officials from Jackson's concert promoters as saying the singer had "insisted emphatically" on Murray's recruitment.
Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live (a concert promoter), told the paper: "Michael told me personally that he trusted this man."
Phillips said Murray had been present at Jackson's rehearsals in Los Angeles and "seemed to care about Michael very much. He was very professional."
Phillips told the Times Murray had been due to travel with Jackson throughout his entire concert run in London.
"...Michael was insistent that he be hired," said Phillips, "Michael said he had a rapport with him."
Police have said that Murray has been cooperative and do not consider him a criminal suspect.
"We will do a thorough interview with the doctor to discuss some of the unanswered questions that have been raised by the death of Michael Jackson and, you know, we expect the doctor will be able to shed some light on some things," deputy Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief Charlie Beck told the LA Times.
Some news reports have also said that records reveal years of financial troubles for Murray. His Nevada medical practice, Global Cardiovascular Associates, was slapped with more than US$400,000 in court judgments, and he faces at least two other pending cases and several tax liens.
