Jackson son tells of day his dad died

‘Nothing will ever be the same’: Prince

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson’s oldest son described the frantic efforts to revive his father to a jury, a scene of tears and agony that ended a dozen idyllic years being raised by one of pop music’s superstars.

Michael Joseph “Prince” Jackson Jr. told the panel Wednesday how he knew there was trouble in the singer’s rented mansion when heard screaming upstairs and went into his father’s bedroom. His father was lying halfway off the bed, eyes rolled up into the back of his head as his physician tried CPR. His sister Paris screamed for her father and Prince, now 16, told jurors that he was crying. On the ride to a hospital, the teenager recounted how he tried to calm the fears of his sister and younger brother.

It wasn’t until his father’s doctor, Conrad Murray, came out of the emergency room and said he had died that Prince knew his father was gone.

“Nothing will ever be the same,” the teenager told jurors. He said while his younger brother doesn’t totally realize the loss, his sister has had the hardest time and he has had many sleepless nights since his father died four years ago.

His voice wavered at times and tears appeared to form in his eyes, but Prince remained composed as he publicly recounted for the first time what he saw the day his father died. The re-telling of the scene in Jackson’s bedroom came after nearly an hour of Prince describing happier times, showing photos of him and his sister when they were younger and a series of videos of the children filmed by their father.

He testified in a lawsuit accusing concert promoter AEG Live of negligently hiring Murray, who was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter for giving Jackson an overdose of the anesthetic propofol.

AEG denies it hired the physician or bears any responsibility for the entertainer’s death.

Prince testified that he saw AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips at the family’s rented mansion in a heated conversation with Murray in the days before his father died. The teenager said Phillips grabbed Murray’s elbow. Phillips “looked aggressive to me,” Prince testified.

His father wasn’t at home at the time and was probably rehearsing, he said.

He said he saw his father cry after phone conversations with Phillips, and wanted more time to rehearse and was unhappy with pressure to perform his 50 scheduled comeback concerts titled This Is It.

Murray’s attorney Valerie Wass and AEG defence attorney Marvin S. Putnam later denied outside court that the meeting Prince described ever happened.