“He was murdered”

The strongest version of this theory starts with real facts. Jackson was worth far more as a catalog than as a debtor; people around him were paid well to keep him working; he was given a dangerous drug by a doctor who was badly in debt and paid by the tour. His sister La Toya said in July 2009 that he had told her people would kill him for his music catalog, and that a “shadowy entourage” was responsible. [1][2]

The coroner did rule the death a homicide. [3] But the investigation that followed, including a criminal trial with a full presentation of the evidence, found that the death came from Murray’s gross negligence. Prosecutors charged manslaughter because they had no evidence of intent. [4][5]

There is no evidence in the trial record, the AEG civil trial or the coroner’s report of a plan to kill him. The theory survives because the fears were his own and because the money is real. Neither is evidence of a murder.

In one sense this is an argument that people make openly: that the pressure to tour, the money riding on him and the people willing to give him drugs to keep him working killed him. Katherine Jackson’s lawsuit against AEG made a version of that case in court. [1] Kenny Ortega’s warning five days before his death is part of the record. [2] So is Jackson’s own 2002 accusation that the labels exploited Black artists. [3]

In that sense the claim is a fair moral argument, and some of it is documented. In the literal sense, that executives planned his death, there is no evidence. The jury in the AEG trial, which heard months of testimony about the tour, found the promoter not liable. [4]