Police clear Michael Jackson doctor
Article from: Submit comment Rob Woollard and Carly Crawford
June 30, 2009 12:00am
FUNERAL arrangements are being planned for Michael Jackson as reports say police who interviewed the star's doctor for a second time have found "no smoking gun".
Jackson's family members are to meet activist Reverend Al Sharpton to discuss plans for a tribute to the star, whose sudden death last week at the age of 50 has triggered a global outpouring of grief.
Sharpton was cited in several media reports as saying Jackson's family was considering a series of simultaneous memorials around the world.
Sharpton said the family were upset by media coverage of Jackson's death which had focused on allegations of child abuse, financial woes and battles with prescription drugs.
"They want to see their brother treated right. They told me 'You've gotta keep out there and defend Michael'," Sharpton told the New York Daily News.
Jackson's family on Saturday ordered a second autopsy be carried out after growing frustrated with "unanswered questions" surrounding the star's death, family advisers said.
Los Angeles police on Sunday conducted a second interview with doctor Conrad Murray, the only person with Jackson when he collapsed.
The Los Angeles Times cited a source close to the investigation as saying "no red flag, no smoking gun" emerged from the interview.
The Times reported late on Sunday that the second autopsy ordered by Jackson's family had been completed. There was no word on the findings.
A preliminary autopsy on Jackson was inconclusive and a final cause of death would not be known until exhaustive toxicology tests are completed in "six to eight weeks", a Los Angeles coroner's official said on Friday.
Meanwhile, uncertainty over the future of Jackson's children continues as his ex-wife Debbie Rowe insists the singer did not father his two eldest children.
Breaking her silence, Rowe says she does not want custody of her children, Prince Michael and Paris Michael, who she says were born to an anonymous donor.
"I offered him my womb – it was a gift. It was something I did to keep him happy," she said from her Los Angeles ranch.
Ms Rowe, 50, waived her rights to the children for $5.2 million. Ten years later, she still does not want them.
"I was never a good mother, I never felt any attachment to them," she said.
"It was a better feeling giving them to him than it was keeping them as my own."
The confessions, reported by British newspaper News of the World, could complicate the looming custody fight, with Jackson's mother Katherine indicating she will fight for custody.
