When I Was Young

Image via Wikipedia

June 30, 2009 -- Updated 2317 GMT (0717 HKT)

By Alan Duke

CNN

Story Highlights

• Public service for Michael Jackson to be held Friday at Neverland
  
• Jackson's hometown of Gary, Indiana, hoping to be burial site
  
• Gary will host a memorial service July 10
  

Michael Jackson, shown at a rehearsal June 23 -- one of his last -- was to perform in London in July.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Michael Jackson's body will be taken to his Neverland Ranch on Thursday morning for a public viewing Friday, a law enforcement source said Tuesday.

A private memorial service is scheduled for Sunday at Neverland.

Also, a Jackson will written in 2002 has been found, according to family lawyer Londell McMillan.

Planning is under way for a 30-car motorcade carrying Jackson's remains to leave the Los Angeles area at 10 a.m. for Santa Barbara County, California, on Thursday, a source said.

Another state law enforcement source said the California Highway Patrol had not been formally requested to escort the motorcade.

The question of where Jackson will be buried remains unanswered.

The singer's hometown of Gary, Indiana, is asking the family to send him there, according to the mayor's spokeswoman.

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay has been in contact with the Jackson family, hoping to make that happen, spokeswoman Lalosa Burns said Tuesday.

Clay told Chicago radio station WGN that he expects that Jackson's body will, at the least, be taken to Gary for a memorial service he is planning next week.

"I believe that his body will lie in state in Gary, Indiana," Clay said Tuesday. "Now, it may not happen, but I believe it will."

The Jackson memorial service is set for July 10 at U.S. Steel Works ballpark in Gary, Burns said.

It would be "a memorial that's fit for the prince of peace and a memorial that's fit for Gary, Indiana's favorite son, the greatest entertainer that ever lived," Clay said.

A burial site for the singer could be near a proposed Jackson family museum and a performing arts center, Burns said.

"The mayor had spoken with a contact of the Jackson family and expressed our interest in having that to be a part of the history of this great family," Burns said. "We have not received confirmation on that."

Jackson's father, Joe, visited the city last year and talked with Clay about a Jackson museum, Burns said.

Michael Jackson purchased the Neverland Ranch, north of Santa Barbara, in 1987 and filled it with animals and amusement rides. He ran into financial problems with the property but retained a stake in it at the time of his death June 25.

The ranch is named for the fictional world in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan."

The newly discovered will may be one of several, lawyer McMillan said.

"We need a certain amount of time to look at that," he said of whether other wills exist. "I don't personally know, but it's possible."

Until now, the Jackson family has said it has not seen a will for the singer.

Without a legal will, the division of his estate would be decided in court.

The 2002 will surfaced Monday after a Los Angeles judge gave the singer's mother, Katherine Jackson, temporary control of her son's "tangible personal property."

The pop icon's three children -- ages 7, 11 and 12 -- were also placed under the temporary guardianship of Katherine Jackson.

McMillan said he has seen the will but would not disclose its details.

"There is a process called 'probating the will' that will validate any will in due course," he said.

Probate is the legal process to prove whether a will is authentic and valid. The process is used to pass on items in the will from the deceased to the beneficiaries.

The biological mother of Jackson's two oldest children, Debbie Rowe, will be invited to a hearing Monday in which the judge will consider who should have custody of them. She has not publicly indicated whether she will challenge the Jacksons for custody.

From CNN.com; see the source article here.

AFP - 56 minutes ago

A painting is seen as people wait in line for a public memorial for pop star Michael Jackson at the Apollo Theater in the Harlem section of New York. Jackson's body will make a poignant final journey to Neverland Ranch, it was reported Tuesday, fueling speculation that the sprawling fantasy retreat could become a permanent memorial to the tragic pop icon.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - - Michael Jackson's body will make a poignant final journey to Neverland Ranch, it was reported Tuesday, fueling speculation that the sprawling fantasy retreat could become a permanent memorial to the tragic pop icon.

A 30-car motorcade reportedly plans to escort the body on Thursday to the King of Pop's 1,050-hectare (2,600-acre) estate, a monument to Jackson's obsession with childhood that once included a fairground and a private zoo.

CNN and the celebrity news website TMZ.com, quoting police sources, said the Jackson family planned a public viewing on Friday -- which could draw a crush of fans to the isolated ranch north of Los Angeles.

Jackson's death at the age of 50 last week has sparked a worldwide outpouring of tributes which continued on Tuesday with crowds gathering at New York's famous Apollo Theater for a celebration of the star's life.

Friday's public viewing could be an indication that the Jackson family has permanent plans for Neverland.

Santa Barbara County officials said Tuesday they had received no formal notification of a memorial but said departments were "preparing to accommodate a large event" if a request for a Neverland funeral was made.

Some fans say the star should be buried at the ranch and want it to be transformed into a shrine similar to Elvis Presley's Graceland.

Neverland was named after the fantasy island of Peter Pan, Jackson's inspiration who refused to grow up.

But the estate fell into disrepair after becoming the alleged crime scene in Jackson's 2005 trial on child molestation charges. Jackson vacated the property following his acquittal and never lived there again.

The estate was reportedly on the verge of foreclosure before Jackson's death as his extravagant lifestyle and mounting personal and legal problems took their toll on his finances.

The long-term fate of Neverland has been one of the myriad legal issues arising from Jackson's sudden death.

A judge on Monday gave Jackson's 79-year-old mother, Katherine, temporary control over his estate including Neverland and the rights to songs of the Beatles. She was also named temporary guardian of his three children.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Jackson drafted a will in 2002 that divided his estate between his mother, his three children and one or more charities.

Conspicuously absent was his father, Joe Jackson, who groomed his nine children into musical sensations but had an uneasy relationship with his son.

Michael Jackson said the family patriarch, a steelworker, would beat him when he missed a note and humiliate him, leading to the pop star's fragility and obsession with childhood.

Joe Jackson said Monday that he and his wife were ready to be supportive parents to the pop star's three children.

"This is where they belong," Joe Jackson, also 79, told reporters after the decision. "We're going to take care of them and give them the education they're supposed to have."

Jackson's former wife of three years, Debbie Rowe, is the mother of the two eldest children -- Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11. The third, seven-year-old Prince Michael II, was born in 2002 to a surrogate whose identity has never been made public.

It remains unclear where the star would ultimately be buried. The family has hesitated at funeral plans after authorizing a second autopsy to determine how he died.

The Los Angeles Times reported that police detectives are seeking to identify and interview "multiple doctors" who treated Jackson in the years before his death.

Attention has so far focused on the role of Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray, who was with the star just before his death last Thursday.

Lawyers for Murray and law enforcement sources have said he is not suspected of wrongdoing and has co-operated with the investigation.

On Monday, coroner's office investigators removed several plastic bags of medication from Jackson's rented mansion in Holmby Hills, described as "additional medical evidence."

Meanwhile the organizers of a series of Jackson's planned comeback concerts in London revealed Tuesday that video footage of his rehearsals existed and could be released to the public.

The president of promoters AEG Live, Randy Phillips, told Sky News television that video of the pop legend's performances would disprove rumors that he was incredibly frail before his death.

"We may at some point release some footage of him in rehearsal that would totally refute that," he said.

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.

Reuters - Monday, June 29

By Mary Milliken and Alex Dobuzinskis

Michael Jackson is honored on a marquee at the Los Angeles Theater in California, June 27, 2009. REUTERS/Joshua Lott

LOS ANGELES - Both Michael Jackson's family and his personal physician were at pains to explain on Sunday what caused the troubled pop star's sudden death weeks before his long-awaited comeback.

Dr. Conrad Murray, who was at Jackson's side when he died, told police he did not inject the singer with painkillers before his fatal cardiac arrest on Thursday, his lawyer said on Sunday after reports he received a shot of narcotic Demerol.

When asked at Sunday's BET Awards about the care his son received from doctors in his last moments, Jackson's father, Joe, said, "I have a lot of concerns. ... I can't get into that, but I don't like what happened."

He said funeral arrangements for the King of Pop were still being discussed. A family friend said services could take place on Wednesday and the body could be buried at Jackson's famous Neverland Ranch.

Tension over the mysterious death came to the surface at the BET Awards, modified at the last minute as a tribute to Jackson's musical genius. Some stars bristled over coverage of Jackson's downward spiral during the last decade, filled with accusations of child molestation and bizarre behavior.

"He is one of our heroes," said rap artist and music impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs. "As African Americans, we are not going to let everybody beat him up."

Jackson, 50, was weeks away from an anticipated comeback with a series of 50 concerts in London. He rehearsed regularly up to the night before his death.

Concerns about his health had been rampant during his 2005 trial in California on charges of child sex abuse, of which he was acquitted. Last year, he was photographed in Las Vegas in a wheelchair.

'BARELY ATE, DRANK'

Promoter AEG Live said Jackson had passed a four-hour medical exam earlier this year.

Murray -- a cardiologist hired ahead of the concerts and paid by AEG, according to his lawyer -- was surprised to find Jackson unconscious and not breathing in his rented chateau in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood.

"He barely ate, he barely drank. But nothing which would lead the doctor to believe that he had any possible problems that would cause sudden death," said Edward Chernoff, the attorney who accompanied Murray during three hours of police questioning on Saturday.

Los Angeles police said after questioning Murray that they do not consider him a suspect. Law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times the meeting revealed "no red flag" of criminal activity.

The Jackson family holed up in their L.A. compound making plans for a funeral that could take place on Wednesday, possibly at the Neverland estate in central California, family friend Stacy Brown said.

Brown told Reuters that a family source said Jackson had received an injection of the narcotic painkiller Demerol shortly before paramedics were called to the mansion.

"They have been concerned about his addiction to medicines for years," said Brown, who co-wrote the book "Michael Jackson: The Man Behind the Mask."

"It's been no family secret that they've been trying to get him help for his addiction," Brown said.

The family arranged for a second, private autopsy on Saturday after the Los Angeles coroner said it would need four to six more weeks to determine the exact cause of death.

Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader who was with the Jackson family last week, echoed Joe Jackson's doubts about what transpired in his son's final hours.

"There is a concern about what happened the last 12 hours of Michael's life," Jackson told People magazine. "The doctor has shown some bizarre behavior."

Jackson is survived by three children aged 12, 11 and 7, the first two from his ex-wife Debbie Rowe and the last from an unidentified surrogate mother.

Addressing speculation of a custody battle over the children, Joe Jackson said in a statement from the BET red carpet that only he and wife Katherine "have authority for our son and his children."

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.