I have included her testimony from the site. I hope it helps.
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Samantha's testimony
Last Updated on Friday, 09 October 2009 20:14
Tuesday, 06 October 2009 16:24
I don’t know where to begin with my testimony. There is simply too much to say and so many feelings involved, feelings of sadness, regret, anger, confusion and helplessness. However, I need to share my story with the rest of you, for what it’s worth. It won’t bring Michael back and the vultures around him will keep fighting for whatever is left of him and his estate. This campaign we are putting together isn’t to try and stop the unstoppable, but to simply do Michael justice by telling who we can that he wasn’t well and that he DID reach out to us and that we owe him at least the truth by telling you what he told and showed us in th elast few weeks of his life. Whether he expressed his anguish and distress in words or in obvious physical and mental states, I believe (and I am not alone) that he was crying out for help and no-one around him came to his rescue, blinded by greed, fear, self-interest, disregard or even lack of compassion.
I have been a fan for over 20 years but only over the last 8 months of Michael’s life had I become what is called a “follower”. By that meaning I followed Michael on a regular if not daily basis. I got to see where he went and how he was and the people around him. I got to see his physical and mental state and how quickly things deteriorated in the last few weeks/months of his life. This is my recollection of the events preceding his death and how some of us, including myself, knew he was running out of time and was in great danger. We tried to intervene but we were too late.
In November 2008, Michael who was then staying at the Bel-Air hotel, met with a group of us outside and spoke to us for quite a while and he was kind enough to bring us food from his favorite restaurant which he had ordered for himself too that evening. He looked great and was very calm, very clear and lucid. There was obviously nothing “wrong” with him that evening. He spoke to us about many things and hinted at many projects coming up. At that time we had no idea that concerts were in the works. In the next few weeks Michael had many meetings at that hotel, meetings which now we know were about the Tour.
After the 02 concerts were announced in March, Michael began rehearsing at Center Staging between April and May. It is around that we started seeing a pattern in the increased visits to Dr. Klein’s office. The increase in visits and their duration began to alarm me and some others, especially when we began noticing the effects they had on him. He would start leaving the facility looking "groggy". We began realizing the procedures must have involved mind-altering substances.
It reached the point where some of us commented that it was pointless to give him fan letters and gifts after doctor’s visits as he would just send them back out signed, even though they were clearly letters addressed to him and not pictures from autograph hunters.
Something alarmed me more than usual on Saturday, April 25th,2009. It was the first time Michael went to see Dr. Klein on a week-end and it was late. He stayed there from 5pm-9.30pm.
When he came out from Klein’s office Michael smelled very strongly of I would say either rubbing alcohol or Ether and looked groggy.
On May 29th, Michael brought some of us in to Center Staging to talk to us about what was going on (after some fans told him they couldn’t get tickets to the concerts and how the ticket sales didn’t make sense and how things seemed to be a mess and was he aware of it). He told us he wasn’t aware of the problem, that he wasn’t aware that it was a seated venue and that he would do something about it. He told us he had gone to bed thinking it was 10 concerts and woke up finding out it was 50! He said “They did it without my consent. They just did it for obvious reasons”. He added “They did the schedule wrong too. It was supposed to be day, show off, day, show off, day, show off”. (He meant show, day off, show, day off).
His voice was breaking as he was going to start crying and he put his hands together in a prayer position and stood quietly. We were quiet with him. It was a very intense moment and filled with, in my opinion, sadness and worry.
I left feeling like our worries were validated and so did most of us there.
Unfortunately, the day after Michael made this statement it came out in the press. We don't know, but AEG was quick to refute it and call it a lie.
This also coincides with the timing of everything changing for the small group of us who used to have open contact with Michael.
After AEG found out about Michael’s statement to us everything changed.
Security shut us out and Michael stopped being as “available”.
With restricted access (although we still saw got to see him and somewhat speak to him) the doctor’s visits became more frequent and we noticed more of a physical change in him, especially his weight. He just looked too skinny and something felt wrong overall. Even his security guards’ attitudes and ways changed.
On June 1st Michael started rehearsals at the Forum in Inglewood
A couple of weeks into it, Michael Amir (Michael’s personal assistant and security) said that Michael was very tired, that he hadn't slept the entire week-end and that AEG kept on calling him all the time.
It was around that time that Michael would go to rehearsals later and later and sometimes cancel.
One of those times was on June 12th. Michael went late to rehearsals. On arrival there he didn’t stop for us the way he usually did. Shortly afterward his security came to see where we were, driving by our cars a block away where we usually parked and waited. They made no attempt to tell us what they were doing. This was about 8-9pm. At around midnight one of his security guards called “Biggie”, came out and told us: “Michael says this is “dangerous” (?!) and that “Michael didn’t want to go to rehearsals tonight”, “he’s tired”. And then we were asked to line up one by one and that we would get to have 15 seconds each alone with Michael. It all felt awkward for all of us involved. We didn’t understand what was going on but of course we did line up and had our time individually. It was very impersonal and we were being closely monitored by his security.
In the last few days of Michael’s life I also remember noticing his security guard Alberto Alvarez often looking very agitated and breaking into a nervous sweat. He would tell us, when questioning him on whether Michael was okay or not, that Michael was “focused” and in “tour mode” and not actually answering the question. Yet we could see it was more than that, that Michael had become increasingly altered, groggy and emaciated and that his security was nervous about something. In fact, instead of having 2-3 guards behind the gates at his house, it doubled and tripled and I even counted up to 12 of them on the night he died.
Something was up, something had changed and we knew it was time to act.
In an attempt to do an intervention to save his life, a couple of dozen fans (including myself) wrote letters to Michael the week before his death. It was out intention to give him the letters and to make a statement on behalf of all the fans who felt something was wrong.
We knew it was a matter of time before he died unless an action was taken. No-one else around him seemed to care enough to do it. Once all the letters were collected and a plan was in place, we decided to intervene on June 24th, 2009.
We did in fact manage to get them in his hands that afternoon. That night would be the last time I’d see him, leaving Staples Center at around 1.30 am on June 25th,2009.
This was my letter to him:
“Michael,
I have admired and loved you since the age of 14 when you first saved my life. You have kept saving it throughout the years, as blunt and odd as it may sound to someone who doesn’t even “know” me. You kept me going and gave me hope and strength.
Now it’s my turn, all of our turns, to reach out to YOU and tell you we’re here or you and that we want to help.
Please understand we love you so much we can’t afford to lose you. You mean so much it hurts to see you unhappy the way we have seen you for a while, as hard as you’ve tried to hide it. We feel and see something is wrong.
Michael, don’t ever do anything you DON’T want to do, whether it be concerts or anything-else people want you to do to make money.
Don’t let anyone or anything stress you to the point where you lose sleep, worry or do whatever else that ultimately affects your health. None of it is worth it and you don’t need to prove yourself.
You’ve paid your dues, more than once.
I need you and love you so deeply and truly, we all do.
Samantha”
Finally I want to end this by making something very clear. I am not saying Michael seemed high or groggy all the time. I want that to be understood. We did NOT perceive him as a junkie. We were just concerned (during a certain period of time) that he was too stressed and too pressured to be able to eat and function without medication and that people around him knew he was unwell and chose to close their eyes for profit, and God knows what other reason. But I know what I saw and I know it wasn’t a healthy, happy, fit man ready to go onstage less than 3 weeks later, and they know it too. It’s time for the truth to come out.
Samantha
