A common practice in tabloid journalism, Jackson’s payment for the interview was confirmed for CNN by an unnamed source said to be close to the Jackson family and “another source familiar with the interview arrangements.” It was not disclosed how much money LaToya was paid, but Caroline Graham, the reporter for the Daily Mail who conducted the interview last Thursday, said Jackson was “very candid” throughout the four-hour sit-down, which took place in Los Angeles just two days after her brother’s public memorial.

LaToya, 53, a onetime Playboy model who was estranged from the rest of the Jackson family for a time in the early 1990s after she claimed her brother acted inappropriately with children, did not give any proof to back up her murder claim. She told the Mail that the family has received the results of a private autopsy it ordered, but she declined to reveal the findings of those tests.

“I believe Michael was murdered, I felt that from the start,” the Mail quoted LaToya as saying over the weekend. “Not just one person was involved; rather it was a conspiracy of people.”

Reporter Graham said the choice of words from LaToya “stopped me dead in my tracks,” prompting her to ask, “Are you sure the word ‘murder’ is what you want to use?” Jackson responded that she purposely chose that word. “He was surrounded by a bad circle,” LaToya said in the interview. “Michael was a very meek, quiet, loving person. People took advantage of that. People fought to be close to him, people who weren’t always on his side.”

A cause of death has not yet been announced pending the results of toxicology tests. The tests were ordered after the initial coroner’s autopsy could not determine what triggered the cardiac arrest that is believed to have felled the singer just weeks before he was to begin a 50-show residency at the O2 Arena in London.

While at press time the family had not commented on LaToya’s interview, Jackson’s father, Joseph Jackson, has also suggested in several interviews that he believes foul play was involved in Michael Jackson’s death, though he too has not revealed what evidence he has to support those claims. Los Angeles’ assistant chief coroner told CNN that the autopsy report on Jackson could be released within a week, and several media outlets reported on Tuesday (July 14) that the results of the toxicology tests could also be available within the week. Source:MTVnews

Excerpts from the Dailymail interview:

He was surrounded by a bad circle. Michael was a very meek, quiet, loving person. People took advantage of that. People fought to be close to him, people who weren’t always on his side. ‘Less than a month ago, I said I thought Michael was going to die before the London shows because he was surrounded by people who didn’t have his best interests at heart.‘Michael was worth more than a billion dollars. When anyone is worth that much money, there are always greedy people around them. I said to my family a month ago,“He’s never going to make it to London.” He was worth more dead than alive.’La Toya revealed Michael himself ‘never believed he would live to be an old man’ and feared he would die in his fifties.

‘I screamed, “Is it true?” and she said, “Yes, he gone.” I couldn’t stop crying. I’m screaming and the kids are screaming. My mother was sitting there with all three of them on her lap, just crying.’ She says Paris demanded to see her father ‘one last time’. After a nurse told La Toya it would help the children grasp the reality that their father was dead, she held Paris’s hand as all three children, together with Michael’s brother Randy, went into the small ante-room off the emergency room where Michael lay, still warm to the touch. She says: ‘There was a towel over his face and I lifted it and the kids saw him and Paris said, “Oh Daddy, I love you.”‘We hugged and kissed him and the children lifted up his hands. He didn’t look like he was gone. His eyes were half open and he looked like he was sleeping. He wasn’t cold. ‘The kids had been screaming and crying but once they were in that room and saw Michael they stopped and became calm. We said prayers over him. I asked them, “What do you want to say to Daddy?” and they said private things to him.Paris was holding his hand. We were all sitting around the bed. His chest was very red from the attempts to revive him. I lifted the covers to see his legs. Everything looked fine.’

Forwomenonline.com