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Jane Velez-Mitchell
Did Obsession Seal Susan Powell`s Fate?; Daughters of Convicted Murderer in Disbelief
Aired September 26, 2011 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST (voice-over): Tonight an exclusive interview with the man who was with Michael Jackson nearly every day in the months leading up to his death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had a lot to prove to himself. He had been down and out for a couple years.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Find out what he has it say about Michael`s behavior just hours before he died.
Plus, you won`t believe what he saying about Dr. Conrad Murray.
And did a sick obsession lead to the disappearance of Susan Powell. Days after the missing Utah mom`s father-in-law was arrested on child porn charges, Steve Powell`s friend comes forward to say Steve was sexually obsessed with Susan. Where is Susan Powell, and what will happen to her kids now?
Hysterical sobbing and fist pounding from the daughters of a millionaire convicted of murdering his wife and their mother. All this and more and we`re taking your calls to night.
ISSUES starts now.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Good evening, everyone. I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live from Los Angeles, a city buzzing on the eve of the Conrad Murray trial.
Opening statements start tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. Eastern, right in back of me at the L.A. courthouse. I`ll be there all day long from the crack of dawn. You`re going to hear all of the testimony from the start, right here on HLN. Tonight we have all of the fast-break developments in this case. Check it out.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course, I`m not the guy to help the defense. Because I think that it was Conrad Murray being a doctor that IT should have been his business when something went wrong.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Plus, in an exclusive, I will talk to that man, Michael Jackson`s voice coach. He spent countless hours with the King of Pop. In fact, he was with him the day before he died, and he is not holding back when it comes to his feelings on Dr. Conrad Murray. That`s coming up. But first ...
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am relieved that the children are no longer in that household.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know of any photographs in Mr. Powell`s possession were up of the grandchildren?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t know that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My own children have not had much contact with him. And I chose that when we first got married.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have photos from his neighbor`s houses of little girls in bathrooms and naked and totally inappropriate pictures. We also have pictures of Susan Powell that were taken, that she probably doesn`t know they were taken of her.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Did this alleged dark and depraved obsession have anything to do with Susan`s disappearance? Or is it some crazy coincidence?
We`ve got a stunning twist. Are you sitting down? ISSUES just learned, Steve Powell, the father-in-law of missing mom Susan Powell, was sexually obsessed with Susan, his daughter in law, and obsessed with pornography for years.
This brand-new insight coming from one of Steven Powell`s own friends. That`s right.
Steve Powell sitting in jail tonight after cops caught him with thousands of child porn videos. Cops say he would allegedly videotape little girls living next door and videotape them in their most private moments, in the tub or on the toilet, and focus on certain body parts. You do the math.
There were also photos that Steve Powell took of himself masturbating. This is disturbing, disturbing stuff, but it`s what cops say was really going on. We`re telling you about it.
Steve Powell, the father-in-law of Susan Powell, who vanished nearly two years ago from her Utah home while her husband, Josh Powell, was taking a very bizarre and, cops say, suspicious middle of the night freezing cold camping trip with their two young sons.
Now on "Good Morning America," Powell made us feel very uncomfortable -- that`s Steve Powell, the father-in-law -- when he talked about his so- called relationship with his daughter in law.
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STEVE POWELL, FATHER-IN-LAW OF SUSAN S. POWELL: Susan was very, very sexual with me. She was very flirtatious. We interacted in a lot of sexual ways, because Susan enjoys doing that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think a part of you started falling in love with Susan?
S. POWELL: That`s pretty likely, yes. Yes. I would say so. And there`s no question in my mind that the feelings were mutual.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: So did the sick obsession lead to something a whole lot darker, some now starting to point the finger at Steve Powell, the father-in-law. Did he have anything to do with Susan`s disappearance?
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S. POWELL: One of their people came by and said to the manager, "You`re talking to a murderer," referring to me. They`ve accused me of -- their group has accused me of murdering my daughter-in-law. They don`t want to look at any other theory except the possibility or what they think is the probability that her husband killed her and that I had something do with it.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Right now, Susan`s parents trying to get custody of their two grandsons, who were put in foster care, because they`d been living with Granddad, who was now under arrest.
Susan`s father says this proves his daughter was right all along. Listen to this, the missing woman`s father.
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CHUCK COX, SUSAN POWELL`S FATHER: I think it is disgusting. I think it very clearly shows that her concerns were justified about Steven Powell.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: No one`s been charged. Susan`s case is still a mystery. Cops have long considered her husband, Josh, the only person of interest. But could all this information about his dad, the father-in-law of the missing woman, change that?
Call me: 1-877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297.
Straight out to Ann Bremner, attorney for Susan Powell`s parents, this is a shocker now, that a friend of the father-in-law is talking about this sexual obsession. What do you make of it, Ann?
ANN BREMNER, ATTORNEY FOR SUSAN POWELL`S PARENTS: Well, it is a stunner. But it`s been so stunning, Jane, since Thursday night, when I first found out about Steve`s arrest, in terms of Steve Powell`s arrest, in terms of the voyeurism, the masturbation, the pictures of Susan Cox Powell, and, of course, the little ones, 7- and 8-year-old girls in the neighborhood.
But then a friend to confirm that he has an obsession. It obviously is an obsession, but now a friend saying -- confirming that he did, indeed, have that obsession is very important in looking at this whole investigation.
You know, one thing I will say, Jane, is that in the very beginning when I got involved in helping Chuck and Judy Cox, the thought was maybe she`s being held somewhere by Steve Powell, because he wanted to share her with Josh.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: He wanted to share her with Josh. OK, yes. It takes a little while for my mind to get around these concepts.
BREMNER: I know.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Not having a devious mind myself, thank God.
BREMNER: Exactly.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Here is what`s so scary about this. Sandy Crane Anderson, who is this friend, OK, this friend of the father-in-law, Steve Powell, who`s now in jail, says that he was infatuated with Susan. And he became infatuated shortly after his son married her in 2001 and would often speak about how beautiful she was.
Quote, "He was hung up on her sexually, it seemed. And he`d talk about trying to see under her clothing, see her breasts. Even back then, he had this idea that she was flirting with him."
Mike Brooks, HLN law enforcement analyst, you take the porn addiction, you take the porn addiction, you take these comments from the friend now, saying he was obsessed with this missing woman. How does that dovetail with his son`s suspicious behavior on the night that she went missing? Because presumably he was -- he was theoretically, anyway, in another state. And his son and this woman were living together in a different state.
MIKE BROOKS, HLN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Exactly. And I think that`s what law enforcement needs to look at now, that maybe they should have looked at back a number of months ago when they were alerted to the possibility that, you know, he might have -- might want to take a look at him, too. Take a look at his cell records on the night of the disappearance. Go back and check everything else.
Now, when they did the raid on August 25 at his home in Washington, when they found all this evidence that they charged him with, Jane, you know, maybe they found something else, too, that they`re not really releasing. And there`s always a possibility.
Because you always look at the people closest to the victim. And he was one of the people who was closest to this victim, along with his son, Josh.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, let`s listen to Steve Powell`s biological daughter, Jennifer, who says, she`s glad that her dad got caught. This is extraordinary.
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JENNIFER GRAVES, DAUGHTER OF STEVE S. POWELL: He`s had a pornography issue for a long time. And then he was not faithful to my mom. There were other issues, verbal abase, things like that. So, you know, one thing just kind of leads to another in that kind a situation, when you start down a path like that.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Kiirsi Hellewell, you are Susan Powell`s best friend, the missing woman`s best friend. You`re joining us tonight, thank you. I know this is difficult.
But as we hear this sort of mounting evidence of the sexual obsession by the father-in-law of the missing woman, even though he was presumably in another state, I don`t know. I have no independent confirmation of where he was on the night she disappeared. What do you make of this bizarre new revelation from his friend that he was completely sexually hung up on her?
KIIRSI HELLEWELL, SUSAN`S FRIEND (via phone): I already knew that because Susan herself told me many times.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, what do you make of it?
HELLEWELL: What do I make of it? I thought for a long time that he is a very disturbed and sick individual. Because who in their right mind would be treating their son`s new wife that way? I mean, not to mention how wrong it is to be -- trying to go after someone who`s already married. But it`s his son`s wife we`re talking about. And he apparently sees nothing wrong with that.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, but that would be inappropriate behavior. Except something else happened. The woman disappeared. Almost two years ago. And she is probably -- well, I don`t know. I assume cops presume she`s dead, because they`ve been searching for her body in desert areas near where her husband went camping, very bizarrely, in the middle of a night, on a Sunday night, when he was due at work Monday, in sub-freezing temperatures with two young kids.
So why would the son go camping in the middle of the night on the very night his wife disappears? And now we`re learning that his dad, who supposedly was in another state, was sexually obsessed with this woman. Is there a nexus?
By the way, we`ve been trying to reach Steve Powell`s attorney without success. But he has an open invitation to appear on our show to tell his side of the story. We`d like to hear your side. We`re curious, and we have questions for you.
More on the Susan Powell mystery in just a moment. We`re taking your calls. I know they`re lining up. Hang in there. We`ll get to you on the other side.
And later, I have an exclusive interview with somebody who was with Michael Jackson hours before he died and tells us right up to the moment, what Michael Jackson was doing and how he was behaving. Unbelievable stuff, coming up.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think part of the reason that Michael had it, whether it was legal or not, right or not, he was there. He should have been the guy to step in and help Michael when something went wrong. I don`t -- I don`t believe Michael was administering the drug himself. What would he need the doctor there for if he was doing that?
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: I followed Michael Jackson, as most Americans have, for my entire life. To see him die in this way, way too young, it was such a tragedy. What happened in that room? What happened to Michael Jackson?
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JOSH POWELL, SUSAN`S HUSBAND: A lot of times I would just go camping with my boys. You know, not anything big. Just go overnight, and we would do s`mores and stuff like that.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Big issues. Tonight, family cover up? We`re just asking the question.
I mean, did you hear that bizarre explanation that Josh Powell just offered about what he was doing on the night his wife mysteriously disappeared> He said he went on a camping trip with his kids in the middle of a snowstorm? His kids are little. OK? He was due at work the next day. He forgot it was Sunday. Didn`t make a lost sense. So he was considered a person of interest.
But now his dad, with whom he went to live after, basically, this scandal blew up, taking his two young kids with him. His dad has been arrested and accused of child porn and sexual obsession with his missing wife.
Wow, you can`t make this up, Victoria Taft. You`re out there in Portland, KTIM 860. What do you make of this? Is there a possible nexus?
VICTORIA TAFT, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, it seems to me that the cops have got to be looking at this. For the Utah police to say that there was no connection between this kiddy porn and pornography addiction that this man had and the disappearance of Susan Powell? Doesn`t even pass the laugh test.
Pornography is not a victimless crime. You can have a lot of people who view pornography, and they`re not criminals. But almost exclusively criminals are porno addicts. People behind bars, people who have violated women, people who have done and committed acts of violence towards another human being, almost exclusively have pornography addictions.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. But wasn`t he in another state? He was in another state when Susan Powell disappeared. At least, that`s my understanding. And another thing...
TAFT: I wonder.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Apparently -- go ahead.
TAFT: Jane, I`m sorry. But what I was wondering was, I mean, how much of this has been passed on to his son? His daughter knew of his addiction. His daughter got away from him. That`s two women -- correction, three women who have gone to great lengths to get away from the father.
What happened to Josh? What was visited upon this guy? What kinds of weirdness does he have in his own life? How is that then given off to his sons? I would like to know what happened to those kids. I would like to know what happened to Josh. He`s not in any hurry to get way from his father. His wife disappeared. What does he do? He goes and lives with his father? Are you kidding me?
If he knew half of what his sister knew -- and you and I both know, Jane, if your sister came to you and said, "Hey, Dad`s got a deal here, he`s got a problem," you`d be saying, man, would you want to have your kids connected with the father? Heck no, techno. And that`s what happened.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You raised a lot of important questions. We`re going to Louise in Illinois -- Illinois. You`re question or thought, Louise.
CALLER: Hi. I have a theory on Susan Powell. I think either Steve Powell had Josh do it, or they did it together, because she was going to turn him into the police.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, let me just say this, Louise. We don`t want to convict anybody here. Nobody has been charged in this case. Nobody has even big named a suspect.
But I do find it very interesting, and I don`t know if we have other callers, but I do find it very interesting, Mike Brooks, that this friend says she went to the police a long time ago. I mean, this woman has been missing almost two years. And she told cops about the father-in-law`s obsession a long time ago. Right after Susan disappeared.
BROOKS: Right. And she said didn`t -- she didn`t hear back from them for almost seven months. But now police, you know, what did Josh say right from the very beginning, Jane? He said that his wife ran off with someone else. Now, they`re living together. Josh and his father, Steve, living together in the state of Washington.
You tell me that maybe Josh didn`t talk to his father and now maybe, law enforcement is going to use these charges against Steve now, say, "Look, do you know something about this? Now is the time to start running your mouth and tell us what you know, if you know anything."
Could he possibly be involved in this? We don`t know. Law enforcement doesn`t think there`s any connection. But there still may be. And I think law enforcement, they`re still investigating this, all the things against Steven, and any connection to Josh.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Ann Bremner, attorney for the missing woman`s parents, Mike Brooks raises an excellent point. This arrest of the father of law can be used as leverage to get information.
BREMNER: Absolutely. And Mike makes a great point. And the fact is, they came into a treasure trove of evidence in this case in terms of keeping Steve Powell for a long time. And the fact is, that that gives leverage.
If they really think that Josh is the only person of interest and that Steven is not, or that Josh isn`t just a person of interest and that Steven is a suspect, I don`t know. Because they`ve never said much about Steven. But a dangerous obsession, it could be.
There`s all kinds of new information here, especially about Susan. And the pictures of Susan and his obsession of her. And things he said recently that Josh backed up, which is "She`s sexual; she came on to me. We could have been falling in love." And Josh says, "She`s a very sexual person."
These two seem to be in lock stop. And they both may point their fingers at each other, but it may break the case right now. Mike is right.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`ll tell you, it`s the most dysfunctional situation I have heard of, since let me think. There`s another family. We won`t get into that now. But they`re on trial. I think you know who we`re talking about.
Thank you, fantastic panel. Up next, Michael...
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Damn it!
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Sheer devastation and rage from Bob Ward`s two adult daughters after a jury convicts their dad, a Florida millionaire, real- estate developer, of murdering his wife. Happens to be their mom.
Look at that. After telling cops he shot his wife, Bob Ward changes his story and says, "Oh, she was shot. I struggled with her. She was trying to commit suicide. It went off accidentally." The jury didn`t buy any of it.
The daughters are grief-stricken. Take a look in court. They are sobbing, sobbing, sobbing as they find out this news. But it`s hard to know: what are they more upset about, their mom`s death or their father`s conviction?
Ward`s attorney, well, you want to know who he`s blaming it all on? Casey Anthony, of course.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly, what happened to Casey Anthony makes it more difficult for any defendant in this -- probably anywhere in the state of Florida to get a fair trial. And that`s a concern.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Florida prosecutor, Stacey Honowitz, this happened in the same courthouse where Casey walked. Do you think the jury was making up for that by convicting this guy?
STACEY HONOWITZ, FLORIDA PROSECUTOR: No, absolutely not. I think it`s a very convenient thing for the defense lawyer to say when his client was convicted.
I mean, in this case the evidence was strong. You had him changing his story five different times. You had the behavior, the flat affect when he gave his statement. The fact that he didn`t take the stand, I think, harmed him, because the theory was that she was trying to kill herself and he was trying to rescue her, and there was a struggle. It would have been very nice if he took the stand and told that story.
So I don`t think it had anything to do with Casey. I think it`s just a real convenient excuse for their client getting convicted. I mean, I practice down in Broward County. And, you know, there`s been acquittals since the Casey Anthony case. So I don`t think it -- I don`t think it really has an affect.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And of course, we have compassion for these two daughters. I mean, they`ve been through hell. Their father now handcuffed, going to jail for second-degree murder of their mother, who was shot to death and in a pool of blood. She`s dead. On one side see how they were goofing around right he was arrested. You see that jailhouse video. They seem to think it is a big joke. On the other side you see the reality has hit them. It is not so funny any more.
Do you think the fact that, they were so-called very wealthy, even though they had severe money problems, right behind the facade, had them sort of taking this less seriously than they should have, the dad included? Like, "Well, I`m bulletproof. I`m invincible, because I`m a society character"?
HONOWITZ: Well, I`m sure when you are a coveted in your community and you have a lost wealth and you`ve risen above everything in the past, you probably do have the sense of "it`s never going to be, and I`m never going to be convicted."
And I think what we saw in the behavior in the jail afterwards was quite telling.
I mean, quite frankly, her own sister, the daughter and he were goofing around, like you said, as if nothing really mattered. There was a dead woman, the mother, the wife, and the sister, and they really did not care.
And so I think there probably was this feeling of, he`s going to get away with it. He`s never going to go to jail. But his story holds water. And so maybe that`s why they`re taking it so hard right now.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. From one extreme to the other. Inappropriate laughter to outright grief. We`re going to have it leave it there. Thank you so much.
All right. Coming up next, an ISSUES exclusive. Michael`s voice coach. He was there hours before the King of Pop died, and he`ll tell us...
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twelve men and women will decide whether Michael Jackson`s doctor, Conrad Murray, should be held responsible for the king of pop`s death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Michael Jackson, the king of pop...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Taken to the hospital.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): He was apparently administered CPR in the ambulance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Legendary king of pop, Michael Jackson, passed away on Thursday, June 25.
DR DEEPAK CHOPRA, PUBLIC SPEAKER, AUTHOR: He was using multiple prescriptions and when I confronted him, he started to cry. He said, "You don`t understand. I`m in a lot of pain."
LATOYA JACKSON, MICHAEL`S SISTER: My brother was not healthy and they didn`t care.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: The jury`s been selected. We`re barreling towards opening statements tomorrow morning in Michael Jackson`s death trial. Tomorrow morning we`re going to hear Dr. Conrad Murray`s account of how the king of pop died. I`ll be at the courthouse starting at 11 a.m. Eastern, so keep it here on HLN.
The prosecution wants it trial to be about what happened to Michael Jackson, not about his problems with addiction, but by Michael`s own admission, his battle of drugs was been going on since at least 1993. At one point, Michael Jackson had, get this $100,000 bill at a local pharmacy for prescriptions. That`s a lot of prescriptions. There were 27 prescriptions drugs found at his home. He had an enormous amount of sedatives and tranquilizers in his system when he died.
Coming up, my exclusive interview with the man who spent nearly every day with Michael Jackson and was with him hours before he died. But first, another close friend of the king of pop`s joining me. Spiritual advisor. Rabbi Schmuley Boteach.
Rabbi, what addictions of Michael`s did you see firsthand?
RABBI SCHMULEY BOTEACH, SPIRITUAL ADVISOR TO MICHAEL JACKSON: Well Jane, the reason why this is such an important trial is that when we saw Amy Winehouse die or going back, Janice Joplin or especially Elvis Presley, no one was held accountable for their deaths. These are drug addled superstars who were being fed prescription drug medications in vast quantities and no one paid a price.
What`s on trial here is fame itself. Every single show like "American Idol," "X-Factor" tells you, you could be the next Michael Jackson. Where does it all end? In a life of isolation and a life of pain. And then you have these groupies and these bloodsucking leaches that feeds you any prescription drug medication you want so long as they can remain in your orbit. That`s why this trial is significant. Michael was like many people who are very famous...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yeah, but let me say this -- let me say this. They`re trying not to focus on his addiction. They`re going to try to limit it to what Dr. Murray did in the hours up until his death. So, I was asking you, what do you see? Because have you`ve told stories of knowing that Michael Jackson was going after certain drugs, when he hurt his back, or what have you, did you see -- what did you see?
BOTEACH: What I saw, Jane, was that Michael lived under the constant impression that he was being almost persecuted by physical ailments. One day he broke his toe and then he was bit by a spider and then fans pushed him against the wall and hurt his back. And he kept on thinking that the best way it treat this was to absorb these very painful sedatives -- I`m sorry, these, I`m sorry, these very powerful sedatives. And he therefore had doctors that were prepared to facilitate this. People like me who cared about him, told him he had to stop.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK, can I jump in for one second, because -- yeah. As recovering alcoholic myself, I know that we addicts, alcoholics, go to great lengths to even injure ourselves for the purpose of getting self- medicated.
Brian Osmond, do you think Michael Jackson`s drug addiction will come into this case?
BRIAN OSMOND, ATTORNEY FOR JOE JACKSON: I think Conrad Murray is going to make it a very big point. Because he was not the only doctor who was giving Michael Jackson medications. There are a whole host of them, Jane, and we`ve known about them for a long, long time. And to single out Dr. Murray really is an injustice. As the rabbi points out, this is about addiction in this case, but the people who pulled the strings aren`t there.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I disagree 100 percent. Because, I don`t care, if I`m an addict and I go no one doctor and get drugs wrong, if I go to another doctor and he prescribes drugs that are unnecessary because I want them and I`m pressuring them, that doesn`t make that -- that doesn`t exonerate that doctor.
I want to bring Eddie Jones in, president of the L.A. Civil Rights Association.
The jury has been selected.
EDDIE JONES, L.A. CIVIL RIGHT ASSN: Yes, it has.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: It includes six Michael Jackson fans, two have seen "This Is It," one who`s met Michael Jackson. And some of them, two of them, have medical knowledge of -- one has a wife who`s a nurse, another is an expert in medical marketing. I think that`s a very strong jury for the prosecution, do you agree?
JONES: Well, I think that it`s going to be a very interesting case and I think it`s going to be a case that is the biggest case in the world, right now, because Michael Jackson was the philanthropist, he gave a lot of money to kids, he helped a lot of people, and of course, he was the greatest entertainer in the world. So, the jury, I hope, that they`re ready to see the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: If it veers into Michael`s addiction, will that upset you?
JONES: It won`t is upset me as long as they talk about the truth of all that Michael did to make sure that his life was all that it could be. I mean, I didn`t see him as a drug addict, I saw him as an entertainer who carried the world on his shoulders.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, the interesting thing, Rabbi, is that he has this duality. So many people worked with him, we`re going to talk to somebody, next, said oh, he was always incredible, he was always there, he was dancing like a 20-year-old. Then other people are saying the guys was frail, sickly and desperately addicted. What do you think, Rabbi?
BOTEACH: There were always two Michael Jacksons. If you read my book, "The Michael Jackson Tapes," where he and I recorded these 30 hours of conversation where he wanted the world to know the kind of isolation and loneliness that he lived in. He was still the superstar while he recorded that. Michael was the frail human child who really wanted his father`s love, affection and validation but then he was also someone who was keenly aware of the kind of global impact that he made through his entertainment.
But Jane, I want to just validate something you said. I completely agree with you and Brian Osmond is my friend, but I have to disagree with him on this. We absolutely have to single out Dr. Conrad Murray. I mean, if this guy was taking a large amount of money to become Michael`s pusher then he has to be held accountable. What was Propofol doing in Michael Jackson`s bedroom? The fact is that if Michael couldn`t sleep, then this doctor who took the Hippocratic Oath, had a responsibility to say to him, then stay up the whole night and watch HBO, but I will not give you drugs that will kill you. And I was around...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Agree with you.
BOTEACH: I remember once, me and Michael went to a...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to continue this conversation. We are out of time. But Rabbi, Brian, Eddie, come back, because we`re going to be all over this until we get a verdict. And ISSUES exclusive, up next, Michael Jackson`s voice coach.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Legendary king of pop, Michael Jackson, passed away on Thursday, June 25.
911: Did anybody witness what happened?
CALLER: No, just the doctor, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (on camera): Michael was doing three or four times the worth as any of us.
CALLER: Yes, he`s not breathing, sir.
911: He`s not conscious, either, he`s not breathing...
CALLER: No, he`s not conscious, sir.
911: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Conrad Murray, on June 25, 2009 killed Michael Jackson.
DORIAN HOLLEY, JACKSON`S VOCAL COACH: He looked up to me and he looked in my eye and said, "You don`t need to be worried."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no way that Dr. Murray would pump Michael Jackson full of a bolus of Propofol sufficient for major surgery and walk out that room.
HOLLEY: If it`s up to me, Conrad Murray is going to jail for a long time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: The jury has been selected for the Michael Jackson death trial which starts tomorrow. Good evening, everyone. Jane Velez- Mitchell coming to you from Los Angeles where Dr. Conrad Murray will face a jury of his peers -- seven men, five women, must decide whether he killed Murray killed the king of pop.
I would like to welcome someone who was with Michael Jackson on a daily basis. I`m with Dorian Holley, vocal director for the "This Is It" tour. He has been a vocal coach on "American Idol." He`s one Hollywood`s most sought after musical directors.
Dorian, thank you so much for being with us in this ISSUES exclusive.
Dorian was with Michael the day before he died. He was there during all of Michael Jackson`s final r rehearsals.
Was he scared? Was he afraid? He had a lot to prove. He was acquitted of child molestation charges, but there were a lot of people who said he was still toxic and that nobody was going to buy his music. What did he have very to prove?
HOLLEY: I think he had a lot to prove to himself. In the beginning they announced a couple shows and then those shows quickly ballooned to 20 to 25 to 50 shows. He told me that we could tour for five years if we wanted to and if he felt like it. He was bragging about all the places where we`d go. He thought of a way -- he didn`t like touring and a lot of people don`t, but he found way to tour that was more to his liking. In other words, he would go to a place and park and let everybody come to him so that we weren`t going, you know, to a different place every other day or every week.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, that`s interesting, because a lot of people that that wow, when they expanded it from just a few shows to 50 shows, that`s when he became panicked and wondered whether or not he`d be able to do 50 shows. But you`re quite the quite the opposite. You`re saying that he was happy that I was 50 shows.
HOLLEY: You know, there are a lot of people are trading on their supposed relationship with Michael Jackson. I don`t know about all of the people that have or don`t have relationship with him. I know what he told me. And I said, how longer are we going to do this tour? He said we could do it for a couple of years, we could do it for five years. And I mean, think of all the places where...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: He was looking forward to doing this tour? He wasn`t fear-based? He wasn`t panicked?
HOLLEY: He was looking forward to it. He was happy about it, he was excited about the show. As you see, from viewing "This Is It," what exists of the show, it was an amazing show and every time they expanded the number, the show sold out.
You know, he felt good about that. I think that was a great shot in the arm for him.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, let`s take a look at the "This Is It" final rehearsals AEG and then we`re going to analyze them.
He`s dancing with a bunch of 20-year-olds. He`s a 50-year-old man. Now, if you believe the defense, he`s frail, he`s a desperate drug addict. Who was the person you saw? Who was the Michael Jackson you saw?
HOLLEY: Well, first of all, I`m not the guy to help the defense, because I think that with Conrad Murray being a doctor, that it should have been his business when something went wrong. I think part of the reason that Michael had him there, whether it was legal or not, whether it was right or not, he was there. He should have been the guy that stepped in and helped Michael when something went wrong. I don`t believe Michael was administering the drug himself. What would he need the doctor there for if he was doing that? But that`s the story in talking. So, if it`s up to me, Conrad Murray is going to jail for a long time, let me just put that on the floor.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Saw him there?
HOLLEY: I saw him at rehearsals a couple of times. I didn`t know who he was at the time. You know, I didn`t know until after.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, tell us about that. What was he doing at the rehearsals?
HOLLEY: He was there, like the last week of rehearsal, he came, I believe -- I remember him coming two times. They had a little spot off from the stage in the center, they had a few chairs together like pews stuck together, where he would sit or stand and watch the show. And he had an air about him that I just didn`t like.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Murray?
HOLLEY: Dr. Murray did.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What is that air?
HOLLEY: I couldn`t tell what it was and I didn`t -- you know, everybody there, I knew who was there. You know, you knew the wardrobe people, you knew the cast, the dancers, whoever. And when somebody was there that you didn`t know, they kind of stood out. And you know, I just remember going in my mind -- I didn`t ask anybody, I didn`t say anything, just, you know, just a vibe that I -- it was just an air about him that I didn`t like.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Arrogant?
HOLLEY: You know, I say sleazy.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Sleazy?
HOLLEY: But, I didn`t know now -- I mean, I don`t think that I thought that at the time, because I didn`t know what it was. It was just something like, "Who is this?" You know what I mean?
(CROSSTALK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Conrad Murray was sitting there and you`re not grooving on him.
HOLLEY: I wasn`t feeling it, I wasn`t feeling it.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: The defense will almost certainly claim that Jackson was an addict. And here`s the fact. Michael Jackson admitted back in 1993.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL JACKSON, ENTERTAINER: As you may already know after my tour ended, I remained out of the country undergoing treatment for a dependency on pain medication. This medication was initially prescribed to cede the excruciating pain that I was suffering after recent reconstructive surgery on my scalp.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right that was during a tour in 1993, and then he went to rehab for drug addiction. Now, you`ve worked with him for a long time. Once an addict, always an addict. I`m a recovering alcoholic. I`m always an addict. I`m just in recovery. An addict is never supposed to use any mood altering medications. Yet they found a slew of drugs in his system. They found a slew of drugs in his house. We have numerous people talking about how he was begging them for drugs and that they had to turn him down. How do you reconcile that with the person that you`re describing who seems so well balanced, so healthy, so vibrant, so energetic, so together?
HOLLEY: Well, you can`t and you know, as you know, there`s nobody in your house making sure you don`t drink. .
VELEZ-MITCHELL: That`s true.
HOLLEY: You know what I mean? So -- and if Michael and I are sitting there talking about some vocal stuff, he has some instructions for me, or he wants me to audition some people or he`s asking me about feedback from somebody I auditioned, I`m not going to go, hey Michael, back in 1993, you confessed to being addicted to drugs, are you still using drugs? I mean, I had a problem, there was something that I thought actually that the team thought Michael should have done and they made me go in and tell him and I was just naive enough to go in...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What?
HOLLEY: Just, you know, just some work that we need to do that was we were falling behind on. And he and I had a conversation and I tried to put it as delicately as I could. I said, Michael, we`re running outs of time. I`m a little bit worried. And whatever he was doing, he looked up at me and he looked me in the eye and he said, "You don`t need to be worried." Which said, mind your own business and don`t get out of your place and I was like, I`m not worried any more.
(LAUGHTER)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s take a look at this. Michael Jackson in his prime, in the video for "Beat It" from Sony records.
I have to say, that looking back on his history of touring, this "This Is It" tour was not going to be the biggest ever. He had done 82 concerts in 56 cities in 35 countries. He had done much bigger tours, so everybody is painting this as, oh, he`s terrified because of this big tour. It actually wasn`t going to be his biggest tour and all in one location, in London.
HOLLEY: I`m really happy to hear you say that, because it was -- what we had done previously, was much more and this was probably made difficult only because of his age, but again, he had figured out a way to make it easier on him, I such a thing can be easier. I mean it still was very, very physical.
When I was touring with him in the `80s, I mean, he`d lose two or three pounds a night -- a show, which is why we would only do three shows a week. I mean, we`d go to a place that -- touring with him was so great, because we`d go to a place and we`d be there a whole week and sometimes we`d only have one show, sometimes we`d only have two. And even if we had three, you know, it`s not like we were digging ditches every day.
So, this was much easier. I mean, they were renting apartments for all of us. You know, my family and I were going to just move in to London and just be there for months and months. I think it was a -- I think that you`ll see more people, just as people are imitating what Michael created in the `80s, you`ll see people imitating that, as well.
HOLLEY: Remember, Dorian is one of the last people to see Michael Jackson alive. And we are going to have more, much more of his revelations about the last hours of Michael Jackson, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: These will be my final show performances in London. This will be it. This is it. When I say this is it, it really means this is it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tell me when you got the phone call that something was wrong.
HOLLEY: I didn`t believe it. I`m like, it`s not -- I just saw Michael, there`s nothing wrong with Michael. I called Kenny Ortega and he said come on into rehearsal and you know, and nothing is wrong. I don`t remember exactly what he said. When I walked in the door of the Staple Center, I knew, then. Some of the set was taken down, it was dark in there. Some of the crew guys were around, you know, I mean, just crying and you could just feel a blanket of doom in the place. It was just -- I`m like he`s gone. He`s gone.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: It must have been so tough for you.
HOLLEY: It was -- you know, I mean, most of the rooms, the offices, the dressing rooms were empty. It was, you know, you could hear your footsteps walking down the hall. It was bad. It was really bad.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Paris and Prince are on the witness list. Do you think they should testify? They were there that day.
HOLLEY: Well, should they? I`m afraid that they`re going to have to. I understand that Conrad Murray, instead of calling emergency services, went to the kids to help, you know. I mean, you know, I mean how sad is that? How sad is that?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What about fact that he didn`t have the proper resuscitation equipment there?
HOLLEY: Well, that`s another thing to check off. That`s the -- you know, that`s another reason why he is in big, big trouble. And I`ll be the first one to say that Michael should not have been doing that, you know. I blame Michael for what happened, as well.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: How so?
HOLLEY: Well, you mean, you know, you`re not supposed to have a drug like that in your house and taking it. You know, he knew that, but and on the other side of it he was desperate to sleep and when you can`t sleep you just go nuts when you can`t sleep. I mean, there`s a reason why we need sleep every day to revitalize...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And you can perform physically. I used to be a runner. There`s no way if you don`t sleep that you can perform physically.
HOLLEY: I don`t sleep well, I don`t want to go to work the next day.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Right. So, does that go the defense` point that maybe he was desperate, desperate enough to take some more?
HOLLEY: Well, I don`t know if it goes the defense point, it goes to the idea that he was desperate. He was certainly desperate or he would not have been doing that. I understand that. Yeah, he was desperate and he was doing what he think he need to do to rest. Even still, the doctor is the one that he was charging with his care. So, it looks to me like the doctor is responsible.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, the doctor claims that an AEG was supposed to provide all this resuscitation equipment, all the proper medical equipment and that they failed to do so. They say, of course, the contract was never even signed.
HOLLEY: And they don`t -- and I`m sure they didn`t even know what was going on in that house. I mean, and I`m not trying to protect AEG, but they wouldn`t -- I mean, they`re going to make themselves liable for something like that. Oh, yeah, let`s sign off on some drugs for Michael that could kill him. I mean, if AEG is a company that is a giant multimillion dollar corporation and most people look at them as evil just because they are, they fall in that category. So if their bottom line is money, how much sense does it make for them to sign off on emergency equipment and drugs that could kill their investment, I mean, that doesn`t make any sense.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you make a fantastic point. I want to thank you so much, Dorian.
HOLLEY: Thank you, sweety.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s so great meeting you.
HOLLEY: OK, it`s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: As you know, Nancy Grace made the first-round of "Dancing with the Stars." We here at HLN are all rooting for her. Check this out because our Nancy, there she is with Lisa Rinna -- has been getting busy, busy, busy rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. And there she -- look at her. Look at her move. Nancy can move. Oh, my gosh. This is fabulous.
I know Nancy is getting into amazing shape. Look at her. I think she looks fantastic. And she says I`m on the "I`m too tired to eat diet." I read that somewhere. But look at her, she`s working out and I think Nancy did great on her first time out. I can`t wait to see how she does the second time around, but I know, Nancy -- nobody can stops Nancy. She`s going to win this thing. Get out and vote for Nancy.
Nancy is on "Dancing with the Stars" and we are supporting her 100 percent. It`s a lot of fun. Nancy, we`re all with you. Get that thing moving.
END
