July 01, 2009

'Medical Evidence' Confiscated From Michael Jackson Home

By Gil Kaufman (MTV.com)

On Monday, Los Angeles County Coroner officials paid a second visit to the Los Angeles-area home that was being rented by Michael Jackson in a search for further evidence in the 50-year-old singer's sudden passing on Thursday.

According to the Los Angeles Times, officials confiscated "additional medical evidence" from the Holmby Hills mansion in their second pass through the home, during which a team from the medical examiner's office was joined by a photographer and Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter.

While they would not specify what was found during the second search, Chief Investigator Craig Harvey told reporters that they had removed a significant amount of prescription medication from that home last week, and two large evidence bags of medical materials were taken from the home on Monday.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives have been interviewing an unknown number of doctors who treated or prescribed medication to Jackson, an unnamed law enforcement source told the paper. The source also stressed that detectives have not determined if prescription drugs played a role in the singer's death, but they hope to get a better sense of his medical condition and what medications he was taking.

An initial autopsy showed no signs of trauma or foul play, but the coroner's office has deferred determining a cause of death until the results of toxicology tests are returned, which could take four to six weeks. On Monday, Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, said the family is holding off on announcing funeral arrangements until they get some results from a second autopsy.