Michael Jackson’s brain taken out for tests before burial

LONDON - King of Pop Michael Jackson, whose funeral is slated for Tuesday morning, will be buried without his brain. The singer’s brain has been taken out for neurological tests.

Following an autopsy at the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office, the singer’s brain has been taken our for further neurological tests, including ones to see what drugs he had taken. Jackson’s family doesn’t want to postpone the funeral. Therefore, they have decided to bury him without his brain, reports dailymail.co.uk.

The star’s funeral is taking place in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Los Angeles county, after permission for burial at his Neverland ranch was refused.

The tests, which cannot be done until the brain has sufficiently hardened, are expected to show up any past drug or alcohol abuse, or overdoses the star may have suffered.

According to The Sunday Mirror, a source from the coroner’s office said that removing the brain was “the only way to carry out the tests”.

“The tissue has to be examined. I can’t tell you how long that is going to take,” he said.

The test results could also play a crucial role in criminal investigations into the star’s death, the Sunday Express has claimed.

Six of his doctors now face being quizzed by the Drug Enforcement Agency, and State attorney general Jerry Brown has ordered an investigation into which pills were prescribed and dispensed to Jackson and by whom.

“If there has been abuses, charges will follow,” a spokesman for Brown said.

The family had initially planned a funeral procession from the morgue to Jackson’s 2800-acre Neverland ranch, where a viewing of the body would be open to the public.

Now they are holding a closed-casket family ceremony followed by a public send-off at LA’s Staples Centre, during which Stevie Wonder will perform.

There has been huge demand for tickets to Jackson’s public memorial in LA’s Staples Centre. Fans have been allocated 11,000 tickets for the event, with an additional 6500 to watch it on giant screens at the nearby Nokia Theatre.

They were up for grabs over the weekend via an online lottery system. Demand was so great, the website crashed when half a million people tried to access it in the first 24 hours. The televised concert is expected to attract a global audience of three million people.