LOS ANGELES: Michael Jackson's three children cried, screamed, and then prayed together as medics battled to save their apparently lifeless father, the pop icon's personal chef said in court Thursday.
Kai Chase recounted how she was preparing lunch for Jackson and the family on June 25, 2009 when doctor Conrad Murray – on trial for manslaughter – came down the stairs shouting, “in a panic, frantic.”
Earlier a bodyguard told how Paris, Jackson's daughter, screamed “Daddy” as she entered the bedroom in their Holmby Hills mansion where the star was lying seemingly dead, but with eyes and mouth open.
“I saw Dr. Murray come down the stairs into the kitchen in a panic, frantic ... he was flustered, his eyes were big, he was screaming and he was panicked,”the celebrity chef told the Los Angeles Superior Court.
The doctor – who stands accused of allegedly administering a fatal overdose of the powerful sedative propofol – shouted at her to “get help, get security, get Prince,” referring to Jackson's elder son.
Chase, who had been hired as Jackson's chef while he was in Los Angeles rehearsing for an ill-fated series of concerts in London, said she rushed over to 12-year-old Prince, who was playing with his brother and sister nearby.
“I said 'Hurry, Dr. Murray needs you, there may be something wrong with your father,” she said, adding that she then went back to work in the kitchen, preparing a lunch of spinach cobb salad with organic turkey breasts.
A short time later she realized that the housekeeping staff and the children were crying, as Jackson's security was alerted and paramedics eventually called.
“The children were crying and screaming, and the next thing we did we started hugging and we came together and we held hands and we started praying,” she said. “The energy in the house did not feel good. It (was) not the energy that I have always felt in this home.”
Murray, 58, faces up to four years in jail if convicted at the end of the five-week trial, which started on Tuesday. The prosecution accuses him of gross negligence, but his defense lawyers claim Jackson caused his own death by taking extra drugs while the doctor was out of the room.