Jackson Search Turned Up Skin-Whitening Cream

More than three dozen tubes of topical medicine were found along with sedatives and other medical equipment in the King of Pop's home

By Natalie Finn Mar 26, 2010 10:20 PMTags
Michael JacksonAP Photo/Reed Saxon

The postmortem on Michael Jackson confirmed that the singer was suffering from a disease that attacks skin pigment, creating smooth white patches where there once was deeper color.

But, apparently, Jackson wasn't one for patches.

A search of the Beverly Hills residence he was renting when he died June 25 turned up 18 tubes of Benoquin, a skin-whitening cream commonly prescribed to those suffering from Jackson's condition, vitiligo, to lighten the normal skin surrounding the affected areas.

Investigators also found 19 tubes of the skin-bleaching agent hydroquinone and an empty bag with a sodium chloride I.V. drip, which is used as a general anesthetic, according to newly released search-warrant documents obtained by E! News.

View the search warrant docs

As previously reported in the course of the investigation into Dr. Conrad Murray's role in Jackson's death, a number of sedatives and the anesthetic propofol were also found during the June 29 search.

According to other court documents released last week, a Jackson employee who was at the scene when he went into cardiac arrest and who said he aided Murray in the resuscitation efforts said that Murray mentioned creams he didn't want people to find.

Alberto Alvarez told investigators that, after Jackson was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center, Murray told him he needed to return to the house so that "he could pick up some cream that Mr. Jackson has so that the world wouldn't find out about it."

The search warrant documents released today included a hand-written note from Los Angeles Police Detective Daniel Myers, requesting that the warrant be sealed until the final cause of death was determined.

"Disclosure of this document would compromise my ongoing investigation into the death of the decedent and would jeopardize the integrity of the investigation," he wrote.

Murray has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in connection with Jackson's death from acute propofol intoxication.

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It's never a bad time to remember Michael Jackson the man, not the warrant subject.