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King of Pop Michael Jackson Dead at 50
By Michelle Nelson and Laurie Jervis, Noozhawk Staff Writers | 
6 p.m. | Published on 06.25.2009
Music icon and former Santa Barbara County resident Michael Jackson died Thursday after suffering cardiac arrest, according to media reports.
Jackson, 50, was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his BelAir home shortly before 12:30 p.m. Paramedics performed CPR, then took him to UCLA Medical Center, where he was in a deep coma and later pronounced dead.
The King of Pop rose to fame alongside his brothers as the lead singer of the Jackson Five in the late 1960s.
His 2,800-acre Neverland Valley Ranch near Los Olivos in the Santa Ynez Valley served as Jackson’s home and a private amusement park when it opened in 1988.
According to the Business Times, Jackson defaulted on a $24.5 million loan backed by the ranch last year. Los Angeles-based Colony Capital bought the loan for $23 million and put it into a joint venture with Jackson.
On Thursday, the co-owner said it wouldn’t comment on the future of the property.
“I can’t imagine we’re going to discuss that at this point,” Colony Capital spokesman Owen Blicksilver told the Business Times. “Right now, our thoughts are with him and his family.”
On June 13, 2005, Jackson was acquitted of 10 felony charges including molestation and conspiracy in a case that stemmed from allegations he molested a teen boy.
Jackson had been charged with giving alcohol to the teen and molesting him four times in February and March in his bedroom at Neverland.
The not-guilty verdicts brought to an end a four-month sensational trial that attracted fans, reporters and photographers from around the world to the Santa Maria court complex.
— Noozhawk staff writer Michelle Nelson can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and staff writer Laurie Jervis can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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» on 06.25.09 @ 12:17 PM
So who owns Neverland now and what’s to become of it?
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» on 06.25.09 @ 12:54 PM
RIP MJ
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» on 06.25.09 @ 01:50 PM
i don’t wish anyone any pain, but i do know for a fact that as of today there are lots of young boys who will be spared a lifetime of screwed-up psyches
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» on 06.26.09 @ 03:01 AM
PEACE
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» on 06.26.09 @ 06:54 AM
SBnative.. did you read the article? your answer is there, lol. Say what you might about Michael he was a musical genius and greatly influenced our music of today and tomorrow. And silverlining, If there was proof of his guilt then it should have been brought out, if you were so concerned about the kids then you are negligent in not proving he did harm to kids. Maybe your guilt about not doing something about it is speaking now?
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» on 06.26.09 @ 11:04 AM
Looks like this brilliant, but unanchored, artist will join other haunted, super-famous
talents like Elvis, Jim Morrison, Hendrix (and less talented brethren like Britney Spears, Anna Nicole Smith, Liz Taylor) who were destroyed, or almost destroyed, by too much ... of everything.
And, by too easy access to every form of prescription medication from too many doctors willing to take the easy money, write the forms, then look the other way, while their patients drove their ruined bodies into the ground.
But like Elvis, Morrison, Hendrix, the magic of the music will survive the artists’ messed
up lives, and the demons that haunted them. RIP.
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» on 06.26.09 @ 03:08 PM
On my,
Silver lining: you are the sick person.
If SB D.A. Sneddon had a freaking case, he would have prevailed. You bought into the stupid SB DA? The charges and indictment were online, in papers, and any person who could read knew. And, for challenged readers, it it was the subject of a TV program. Line for Line.
Anyone bother to reserach history of Jackson’s father who made his family’s lives miserable? It’s a wonder any of the Jackson Five are still alive or sane. The old man beat those kids to ‘work’ so he cold sit on his arse and reap the rewards. Good grief. The family moved just a few blocks from Ventural Blvd where any and everyone could see how life was at that house.
Death is probably the only way Michael will finally be at Peace.
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» on 06.26.09 @ 05:09 PM
Jackson was found not guilty and Sneddon was disgraced. But ‘silver lining’ obviously ‘knows’ something that the rest of us don’t. Or just doesn’t believe in the rule of law.
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» on 06.26.09 @ 05:46 PM
Hey “Gone Too Soon”—You idiot. Yes, I did read the article. WHO OWNS Neverland is not easy to determine, but I’m sure all the financial professionals who will be plowing thru the estate for the new co-borrower, the heirs, etc. will be happy to have you solve it for them. Where do people like you come from?
Silver Lining, I wish you would say more… because where there’s smoke there’s fire. The fact that Michael “got off” has more meaning than one… but of all our sick society will do is lionize him. He was very talented boy, yes. A very disturbed one too.
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