Coroner to return Jackson's brain for funeral
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Michael Jackson's coffin during his memorial service on Tuesday 7th July. Photo: Getty Images
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By James Bone in Los Angeles
Thursday Jul 9 2009
MICHAEL Jackson lay in his golden casket at his memorial on Tuesday night's service without his brain. The Los Angeles coroner confirmed yesterday that the organ was retained to carry out tests.
The death certificate, which was signed by Jackson's sister La Toya, lists the cause of death as deferred.
"As soon as we are done with the brain, we will return it," Ed Winter, the assistant chief coroner, said. "The last I heard, they are not burying the body yet."
It is still not known where Jackson will be buried. His body was transported to the memorial service on Tuesday from Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood's "cemetery of the stars".
The absence of a burial has revived hopes by fans that Jackson will be laid to rest at his Neverland ranch, or be cremated and have his ashes sprinkled there.
The family have reportedly filed for a burial permit with the vital records department in Los Angeles County, suggesting that the body will be interred in Los Angeles rather than Neverland, in Santa Barbara County.
Ken Ehrlich, who produced the Jackson memorial, said yesterday that the Jackson family had insisted on a church-style service -- not a television show. "We were kind of mandated to bring Michael home in church," Ehrlich said on The Early Show on CBS.
He said that he gulped when he learnt that the casket would be taken to the service. He said that Jackson's physical presence "lifted everything" at the memorial.
The memorial, described by the 'Los Angeles Times' as "sombre, evangelical, thunderous and hushed", won widespread acclaim in the US press. The 'New York Times' called it a "religious pageant meets awards show" and The 'Washington Post' described it as "part musical feast, part religious experience, part examination of a man who seemed not a man, but something else his public was always trying to figure out".
Drugs
The coroner is awaiting the result of toxicology tests amid reports that Jackson abused prescription drugs, including the anaesthetic propofol, which is marketed as Diprivan.
Police are reportedly investigating at least five doctors who prescribed drugs to Jackson. Arnold Klein, the dermatologist in Beverly Hills who treated the star for 20 years, insisted that he had not been questioned by police.
"I was not one of the doctors who participated in giving him overdoses of drugs or too much of anything," Dr Klein said on Good Morning America on ABC. "I was the one who limited everything, who stopped everything." (©The Times, London)
- James Bone in Los Angeles
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