Shrieks of glee as Jacko doctor is convicted of manslaughter

MICHAEL JACKSON was killed by the personal doctor hired as a private pharmacy to fuel him through what should have been his comeback in the 2009 'This Is It' concert series in London, a jury in Los Angeles decided yesterday.

More than two years after the King of Pop's death, Dr Conrad Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by providing the drugs that killed Jackson at 50, in particular the sedative propofol which is usually used only in hospitals.

Prosecutors had argued that Murray, 58, who was being paid $150,000 a month, "grossly corrupted" the doctor-patient relationship with Jackson as he "sought payment for services rendered, the services rendered being the provision of propofol".

The verdict was greeted with shrieks of glee in court and Murray was promptly handcuffed and led off to the Los Angeles County Jail when Judge Michael Pastor denied bail pending a sentencing hearing on 29 November.

As a high-profile defendant in a celebrity trial, Murray has been labeled a "keep away inmate" and will stay in solitary confinement for his own safety, escorted whenever he moves through the jail to the showers or elsewhere, TMZ reported last night.

Jackson's sister LaToya declared the verdict "Victory!" on Twitter, which immediately began heavy traffic in celebrity tweets. "Right verdict", former News of the World editor and now CNN host Piers Morgan posted, regardless of the extent to which Jackson had courted his own destruction.

Jackson's parents, Katherine and Joe Jackson, who were in court, said they were "ecstatic" and that "justice has finally been served". They told TMZ: "We can't wait to go home and share this day with Michael's children."

The sacrifice of their own children - Michael and the rest of The Jackson Five - was made as clear to the court as the behaviour of Murray.

The jury heard that Jackson, whose Thriller album still holds the records for sales, had declined from the most popular performer in the world into delusion and a sleep-deprived haze sustained by drugs.

Prosecutors played a recording of Jackson talking to Murray on his iPhone, begging for drugs to enable him to perform the London concerts so that he could build the world's largest children's hospital with the proceeds: "My performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream. I love them. I love them because I didn't have a childhood. I had no childhood, I feel their pain."

Some saw the guilty verdict as another opportunity for the Jacksons to make money, with civil lawsuits to follow. "Murray's conviction is just a down-payment for the Jackson family," warned the Rev. Al Sharpton, the veteran New York race activist.

Murray, a cardiologist from Houston, Texas, faces up to four years in jail and the permanent suspension of his medical licence. But as The New York Times reports, jail overcrowding in California means he could serve months rather than years. ·