Has Jackson's Autopsy Photo Been Leaked?

Roslan Rahman, AFP / Getty Images Rumors are swirling that someone leaked a photo of the King of Pop’s autopsy. The Daily Beast’s Gerald Posner investigates.

Last week I received a telephone call from a photo agent in London who I had met in 1999 while investigating the death of Princess Di for Talk magazine. Then, he had helped me chase down rumors of photos snapped immediately after the accident in the Pont Alma tunnel. In the spring of ’99, surrounded by tight security in a clandestine location, I was shown low-resolution images of a dying Diana still trapped in the crumpled Mercedes. Those pictures were offered to me for $2 million. I passed. Some of the less graphic ones were finally aired in 2004 by CBS’s 48 Hours. CBS was widely condemned for showing the pictures, from Diana's brother who said he was "sickened" to Prime Minister Tony Blair who called the broadcast of the grainy black-and-white images "distasteful."

But the call from London was not this time about Di. It was about Michael Jackson, and an equally distasteful photo, one supposedly snapped at Jackson’s autopsy.

“There are rumors that a photo is being flashed around Los Angeles,” he told me. “Supposedly was given to someone from who was at the autopsy.”

One executive who saw the alleged photo told The Daily Beast that he was certain it was “not a cellphone picture. The quality was far too good.”

If what he told me was true, it would constitute a remarkable breach of security for the Los Angeles investigators on the Jackson death probe, as well as the coroner’s office where the autopsy was conducted. Since that call, The Daily Beast followed a trail through dozens of people in the U.S. and Europe and tracked down a prominent Los Angeles restaurant owner who has a high-resolution copy of what is evidently a photo from the Jackson autopsy. That person has shown it to friends on his BlackBerry, including several California-based television executives. The restaurant owner told at least one of those TV execs that the photo had been given to him by a “high-ranking police friend.”

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• Gerald Posner: Did Jackson Drug Himself? Two of those who saw it described it to me independently, one of them saying it was “shocking.” It is of Jackson, his eyes wide open, lying on his back on a metal autopsy table. The picture is of Jackson’s head only, and taken from the corpse’s left side, from someone who was standing, and at about a 30-degree angle toward the body. The front of the pop star’s skull is shaved. His ashen face is stripped of any makeup. The lips are flat and wide, but without lipstick. A scar, which he had hidden under makeup whenever he went out, is visible on his left cheek. His tattooed eyebrows are the only other visible mark on his face.

One executive who saw it, although not a professional photographer, told The Daily Beast that he was certain it was “not a cellphone picture. The quality was far too good.”

I traded email and text messages with the restaurant owner. “Who gave u my contact infor?” he first replied to me. He refused a personal visit when I offered to fly to Los Angeles to see him. “Thanks for ur interest, good luck to u and ur continued success,” he said, trying to end any further contact.

When I continued pushing, he only replied, “Thnk u, but at this time I’m not interested.” When asked whether he still had the photo, he didn’t answer.

Though there’s no evidence the restaurant owner has offered the photo for sale, somehow word of what he has had spread across the pond to London. The photo editors from likely British tabloids buyers of such a picture—The Sun, News of the World, or The Daily Mail—refused to say whether they had heard about a Jackson autopsy photo for sale. However, one editor told me off the record that such a photo would fetch easily over $1 million for worldwide rights.

But no one with the photo better plan their retirement soon. If the picture is real, then the Los Angeles coroner and police might have something to say about that.