Six nights a week at the secluded Neverland Ranch, $150,000 a month, and an insomniac pop legend pleading “just make me sleep” were enough to cloud the ethics of Dr. Conrad Murray. A combination of isolation in a strange environment, inadequate qualifications, monetary incentive, and the borderline insanity of one of this country’s most famous, most questionable celebrities ever.

Michael Jackson having been performing since early adolescence, awkwardly entered the adult world and never truly assimilated. By age 8, he had a full-time job in show business and continued to experience various forms of abuse. As a young boy, he was noted for his “old soul,” but in adulthood, it seemed Jackson sought to recapture the youth he was deprived of, leading to a plethora of dramatic disturbances throughout his life and successful career.  Molestation scandals, numerous cosmetic surgeries, questionable parenting. However, Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop,” was a legend. And so despite the oddities of his personality, he had (and has) adoring fans and an even larger mass of people who retain a nostalgia for the music and performances he created. Jackson made some of the most remembered pop classics as a prepubescent child. As music producer Rick Rubin so accurately put it: “Regardless of anything else, he’s still Michael Jackson.”

Despite the highly critical popular reception to anything Michael Jackson in the last decade or so of his life, the star was widely mourned after his death. And when Dr. Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for administering an inordinate amount of anesthetics in combination with other drugs to help him sleep, a crowd of LA fans cheered outside the courthouse with a sense of fulfilled vengeance.

 

 

“Murderer, murderer” yelled an avi