LaToya Jackson: Michael was murdered in a conspiracy

Echoing her father’s claim that “foul play,” was at hand in her younger brothers’ death, LaToya Jackson, 53, has claimed that Michael was murdered in some kind of conspiracy.

LaToya foolishly granted an interview to News of The World in which she gave evidence such as Michael telling her he was on a detox and the fact that he looked healthy the last time she saw him – two weeks before his death at their parents’ 60th anniversary party.

Refusing to name the people involved for fear of jeopardizing the police investigation, LaToya said that Jackson told her two years ago that he was afraid he would be murdered for the rights to his song catalog. She also claims that $2 million in cash and jewelry went missing from his rented home in the hours following his death:

Speaking out for the first time since Michael Jackson’s sudden death on June 25, the singer’s sister LaToya Jackson, 53, is raising alarming allegations.

“Michael was murdered,” LaToya claims in an exclusive interview with London newspaper the News of the World.

“We don’t think just one person was involved in the murder,” she added, refusing to name the people she believes are responsible for the death during her four-hour interview in L.A. “It was a conspiracy to get Michael’s money.”

According to LaToya, Jackson himself always feared for his life. “A couple of years ago Michael told me he was worried that people were out to get him,” she told the paper. “He said, ‘They’re gonna kill me for my publishing. They want my catalogues and they’re gonna kill me for these.’ ”

In the months leading up to his London performances, Jackson told his sister that he was on a six-month detox to prepare for his comeback, but LaToya says she had other suspicions.

“Michael was being inappropriately treated by people who got him hooked on drugs,” she told the News of the World. “He had many needle marks on his neck and on his arms, and more about those will emerge in the next few weeks. But nothing has changed my mind that this was murder.”

And despite the family’s best efforts to reach out to Jackson recently, LaToya claims that those plotting against Jackson “tried to keep the family away at all times.”

LaToya is not the only family member who believes there was a conspiracy to take Jackson’s life. The family patriarch, Joe Jackson, echoed his daughter’s sentiments, telling ABC News on Friday, “I do believe it was foul play. I do believe that.”

Family always want to believe the best about a loved one, especially after they pass. From many accounts Jackson fired anyone who questioned him at all or tried to curtail his prescription drug use. Even the longterm nanny to his children, Grace Rwaramba,claimed that he got rid of her when she tried to stage an intervention with his family.

She also supposedly said that Jackson’s mother asked her in their first phone conversation after Michael died where he hid his money. Someone may have opportunistically lifted his cash and jewelry and it doesn’t mean he was murdered for it.

We’ll learn more about this case when the toxicology reports come back in an expected two weeks. It’s hard to see how Michael wasn’t responsible if he engaged in the kind of drug-seeking behavior we’ve been hearing about.

He’s definitely worth more in death than he was in life, but his family also stands to benefit. Maybe people did conspire to keep Jackson in a kind of weakened state, but it seems like he was determined to stay there. If someone did kill him deliberately, would that show up in the toxicology reports or was he taking so many drugs on a daily basis that it will be hard to tell if he was murdered?