GAYLE GOFORTH: What the Maid REALLY Saw in Michael Jackson’s Bedroom. Part 2

Making a follow-up about Gayle Goforth’s deposition in October 2016 was supposed to be an easy task as everything she says about Michael Jackson is a sensation.

But this is exactly where the difficulty is – Gayle Goforth’s account of her many years at Neverland is so novel a story that it should be read in its full 236 pages to be able to see Michael the man he really was.  

Her story definitely opens a new chapter in Michael Jackson’s saga. All this time we were busy refuting false allegations about MJ and involuntarily circled around the lies and hackneyed media scenarios about him – instead of opening the door wide open, breathing the fresh air, and seeing the real Michael Jackson who certainly had nothing to do with the image of him fabricated by the press.

And Gayle Goforth managed to open that door. When deposed by Vince Finaldi in the recent Robson/Safechuck case she somehow broke through the permanent re-enactment of stereotypes about Jackson and all-too-familiar routine of that ‘boys’ issue and showed us the normality of the man who had to live his life through the circumstances that were largely abnormal.

She tells you so many refreshing new details that you cannot believe that her story becomes known only 30+ years later. Her words were never reported by the media, so it is no less astonishing to hear that no one really asked her, and what she says now is literally heard for the first time.

And it is both irony and heavenly justice that it had to be Finaldi to extract all that information from Gayle Goforth.  Besides being the two rogues’ lawyer Vince Finaldi is also a dedicated Michael’s foe who is totally unscrupulous in his ways and means, so it was actually his insistent and often nasty questions that induced the usually reserved Gayle Goforth to really talk.

And Gayle Goforth does have a lot to say. But let me remind you of the basics first.

Gayle Goforth worked at Neverland for 12 and a half years, essentially since the time Michael settled at the Neverland ranch. At first Gale Goforth was a housekeeper, but since mid-1994 when Adrian McManus left and for 6 years thereafter Gayle Goforth cleaned Michael’s room and certainly had firsthand information about everything that was going on in his personal quarters.

Sometime in 1991/92 her 14-year old son – one of her four children – was molested by his baseball coach, so she had sad personal experience in that respect and was certainly not naive. The day it happened she immediately noticed that something was wrong with her son,  just by the way he was acting, so she proved herself to be very observant and sensitive to the smallest signs of trouble with a child.

But even despite her vigilance and sharp eye she never saw anything about Michael Jackson that could give her even the slightest suspicion. Here are only some excerpts from her deposition in 2016:

Q. Did you ever see behavior by kids at the ranch that made you concerned that Michael might be abusing them?

A. No.

Q. Okay. Did you ever have the occasion while you were on the property to observe anyone doing something that you thought was either illegal, or improper, or against the rules?

A. Not that I recall.

The same was said in her earlier testimony:

Q. And the next line is, “At no occasions did I observe Michael Jackson touch any child inappropriately.” Is that true?

A. Yes.          

She was quite definite in her answers, in three of her depositions and one declaration – in December 1993 in the Chandler civil case, in a written declaration in 2004, in her testimony at the 2005 trial over Arvizo’s allegations and then eleven years later in the Robson/Safechuck matter.

This what she said in 2016 about Jordan Chandler’s allegations, for example:

Q. If you had believed the Jordie Chandler allegations, would you have continued to work at the ranch?

THE WITNESS: No, I would not.

Q. But you continued to work there for several years, even after those allegations, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And you believe child molestation is a horrible crime, correct?

A. Yes, I do. I would have never brought up my son if I didn’t.

Q. Would you have let your kids stay the night in Michael’s room?

A. Yes, I would have.

Q. Throughout the entire time that you worked there, you would have?

A. Yes, I believe so.

Q. Despite the allegations?

A. Yes, despite the allegations.

Her sharp eye enabled her to see Michael’s real motives behind the so-called slumber parties which are the main point of controversy about Jackson.

She says that the kids whose families arrived at the ranch regarded the chance to stay with Michael as an honor for them (no one told her that, she said it was just a “given”), and Michael was so keen on making the kids happy that he was virtually unable to say no.

She knew it for a fact as their insistence on staying in Michael’s room brought him a lot of inconveniences and he often had to ask her to find a pretext and drive the kids away because he himself was unable to do it (see the previous post for details).

Gayle Goforth’s estimate of the occasions when kids stayed in Michael’s room was 40%, but this ratio included regular occurrences of having more than one kid in his room all at once.

See here, for example:

Q. You were asked about prior testimony about how often Mr. Jackson had kids staying in the room. Do you know if there was ever more than one kid staying at a time in his room?

A: Yes.

Q. Yes, there were more than one?

A. Yes.

Q. Was that a regular occurrence?

A. Yes.

While those slumber parties are usually depicted by the media in most sinister terms, Gayle Goforth describes them as a spontaneous congregation of all children in his room where the first thing they did was throwing around their jackets and other things as all children do. A big slumber party followed, a big free-for-all, and kids would be all over the place watching TV, etc.

As usual Finaldi tried to reduce those gatherings to the bed issue – for example, when reading some excerpts from Gayle Goforth’s first deposition in 1993:   

Q. On line 10, it says: “When children come to the ranch male and female, they congregate in Mr. Jackson’s room and they leave their jackets here and there, as children do. So it’s not necessarily for male or female.” Do you remember that occurring?

A. Yes. Everybody, it was like a big slumber party, a big free-for-all, because he would let all the children do whatever they wanted to.

Q. So they would be inside of his bedroom on his bed?

A: They would be all over, watching TV and different places.

As to their clothing scattered here and there Gayle Goforth says that it was mostly dirty socks, T-shirts, pants and sometimes underwear that she would pick up and take to the laundry room:

“A. The majority of the time, it was like dirty socks that sort of thing, shirts, pants.

“Question: Socks, shirts, pants, underwear?

“Answer: Sometimes, sometimes not.

If any underwear had to be picked up it was generally in the bathroom, and judging by the wet towels there the kids simply took a shower before changing into clean clothes. Finaldi wondered what she thought about it and she said:

…it didn’t necessarily mean it was around the bed. It was in the bathroom. It was near the shower or the bathtub or whatever [..] I saw everybody’s clothing around [..] Usually, I would pick up towels, and clothes, and everything all in one and just take it into the laundry room and wash it.

Well, I assume it was because they were changing clothes. You have to change clothes into clean clothes every day, and after they had taken a shower. 

When I was finding underwear and clothing on the floor and stuff, I did not think anything of it [..] There was nothing going on. I stated the fact to my husband that if I believed anything like that was going on, I wouldn’t have allowed my children to have been there. I wouldn’t have worked there. And I still was working there after my son was molested, so I did not see anything wrong with what was happening.  Everybody was going in there. They were staying there. They were normal kids. They throw their clothes around.

As you remember, the icing on the cake was her remark that during the kids’ stay in Michael’s room he himself had to sleep in the bathroom and it happened “more often than not”. She knew it for a fact because she collected his blankets from the chaise lounge in the bathroom that was surrounded by stacks of books she had put away the day before.

This piece from her latest deposition should be put into a frame and hang in the house of every MJ’s foe:

~

Q. Mr. Jackson would sleep in the bathroom?

A. On the chaise lounge. It was a large bathroom.

Q. What years was this?

A. I don’t recall what years, but it was more often than not.

~

Another refreshing new detail is that when only one kid stayed in Michael’s room, in the majority of cases both beds (downstairs and upstairs) had to be made, which means that each slept in his own bed. Or there would be sleeping bags sprawled on the floor.

Some excerpts were already quoted from Gayle Goforth’s 2016 deposition, so here is another one, from her earlier deposition in 1993:

Q. So you were asked about Mr. Jackson’s room and times that you cleaned his room, and you were asked about the beds and whether there was one upstairs. And I am going to read you a little section of your testimony.

“Question: And there was one upstairs?

“Answer: Yes.

“On those occasions after you went to bedroom after a child had spent the night the bedroom, which beds were messed up?

“Both.

“And they both looked like they had been slept in?

“Yes.”

Is that consistent with your recollection?

A. Yes, the majority of the time, yes.

The above makes me ask a couple of questions:

How often did the media tell you that the bed upstairs was “never slept in”?  

The answer is ALWAYS.

And how often did you hear that both beds were slept in, which means that each slept in his own bed?

The answer is NEVER.

In fact, even a hostile witness like Blanca Francia had to admit the same at the 2005 trial (page 5075 of the court transcripts), only the media certainly didn’t notice it:

Francia:  There were times that the other bed was used.

Q. … sometimes there was a bed upstairs that seemed undone, right?

A.  Yeah.

And Gayle Goforth says that it was not just “sometimes” but the majority of the time.

All of it means that the media stories about Michael Jackson were flatly false or at least grossly exaggerated, even though true information was also freely available to them. However, they cherry-picked only lies and fake news in order to promote their own agenda about Jackson.

I wonder how much longer people will ignore the fact that the media consistently worked against Michael Jackson and is manipulating public opinion even now? When will they call the media responsible for the ugly distortion of his image by suppressing the truth and blowing every little thing out of proportion?

And don’t people understand why the media is doing it? Isn’t it easy to connect the dots now, especially now, and see the reason why Michael Jackson has been smeared, vilified, and slandered for so long?

Because all this time the media and the authorities have been diverting public attention from real sex offenders – this is why.

And all the time while they were going after the innocent man, perverts like Sir James Savile and Epstein as well as the prominent visitors of Epstein’s child brothel were very well protected from prosecution and from minimal media attention by their power, connections, and whatnot.

The corporate media was certainly perfectly aware of it and simply laid on Michael’s shoulders the guilt of others whose crimes against children are revealed only now but were hushed up for decades in order to focus on the most vulnerable but innocent person.

The media needed to present a glossy picture of them being a whistle-blower and doing their job, so constant lies about Jackson was an easy coffee-table version of their “vigilance” presented to the public.

This is why it is so important to hear out people like Gayle Goforth.  

When you get familiar with her testimony it becomes absolutely clear that she is telling the truth about Michael Jackson. And that this woman is not only honest, but also has a sharp eye, is capable of great observations, and is very much worth listening to.

So what else does Gayle Goforth say?

THE GALLERY OF PORTRAITS

One of the first things attracting attention is that though being reserved by nature and benevolent to people Gayle Goforth drops some details here and there that show the essence of other persons like no other. Once you hear her short remarks about certain characters at Neverland their portraits become totally unforgettable.

Look at MARK QUINDOY, for example.

Mark Quindoy was the head housekeeper at Neverland for a little more than a year – from May 1989 to August 1990. His position was taken by Gayle Goforth when he and his wife (a cook at Neverland) left and returned to their native Philippines. 

Quindoy wrote a certain “diary” about Neverland which was a complete fabrication. Among other things he claimed that during  Safechuck’s stay at the ranch Blanca Francia went on a month-long vacation and he and his wife Faye cleaned MJ’s bedroom and found that the “room upstairs was never slept in”.

Mark Quindoy is reading from his “diary” at a press conference in 1993

The first thing the fact-check revealed is that during the specified period in June 1989 Michael Jackson was simply absent from Neverland (see this post for details).  Right at that time, he started recording a new album and according to his studio associates stayed the nights in his city condo not to drive 100 miles from LA to the ranch.

This fact makes it clear that Michael’s absence from Neverland was exactly the reason why his maid Blanca Francia went on a long vacation to her native El Salvador – she simply had no work to do there during that period. 

As to Safechuck and his family, well, they could stay at Neverland while Michael was away but probably only in the guest quarters, so if the bed upstairs or anywhere in Michael’s room was unoccupied, there are no surprises here.

Gayle Goforth confirmed that at first Jimmy Safechuck and his parents came “all the time” and interestingly, the parents stayed at Neverland for long periods even when Jimmy grew up.

See this excerpt from her 2016 deposition:

“When Jimmy first was coming all the time, his parents would always come also. And his parents always came, even later on after he grew up and stuff, they were guests for a long time.“

Mark Quindoy referred us to one of those Safechucks’ visits and wanted us to believe that in the absence of MJ’s personal maid, he and his wife were chosen to clean Michael’s room (of all people at the ranch). Let me also remind you that both he and his wife were hired only several weeks before the alleged task.

The idea of immediately assigning the newcomers to Michael’s personal quarters is highly strange in and of itself, but in addition to that Gayle Goforth’s remarks about Quindoy make it clear that he was totally unfit for the job.

Here is why:

Q.    Did you like Mr. Quindoy when you met with him and interviewed with him?

A.    Yes, I liked him, but —

Q.    Was there anything that made you uneasy about him?

A.    Not at first.

Q.    But later on?

A.    Later on working with him, yes.

Q.   Later on, what kind of things made you uncomfortable?

A.    Well, he was very — well, I am opinionated now. This is just my feeling.

Q.    Sure.

A.    He was Filipino, and he was very arrogant in that status.

Q.    What do you mean?

A.    Well, I don’t know. I may be putting words there, but he believed that women’s work was different. He didn’t really do anything other than just oversee everybody else.

Q. Seemed a little chauvinistic, maybe?

A.       Yes.

The above remarks are short but telling. It turns out that Mark Quindoy was so arrogant and even chauvinistic that under no circumstances would he do any “women’s work” like cleaning, for example. He was a lawyer by profession and all he did at Neverland was just “overseeing everybody else.”

A nice little touch was added to that by Gayle Goforth recalling another episode:

Q.  Do you remember the reasons why he left Neverland employment?

A.   I don’t remember specifically. I remember I was on vacation at the time that he left, and I don’t know exactly what took place.

Q. Here it says – do you recall an employee named Karen Edder Dobbin?

A. Yes.

Q. She so told you that there was an incident that occurred with Sophia Loren, Chris Tucker and Mr. Quindoy not wanting to bring them coffee?

A. Yeah. I kind of remember the instance. There was something that went on while I was gone.

Q. And was it your understanding that he quit or that he was fired over it?

A. I believe he quit.

Q. Okay. As far as you are concerned, that’s the only reason why they left?

A. As far as I know, yes.

And this arrogant guy is telling us that he regularly cleaned Michael’s room, changed his linen, and even handled someone’s underwear there?

In reality, Mark Quindoy was so overbearing a person that he refused to do as little as bringing coffee to Sofia Loren and Chris Tucker!

That incident was actually the reason why he quit. Or had to go, which is a much more likely scenario as he was surely reprimanded for his misconduct and the rebuke was also too much for this haughty guy.

By way of revenge Quindoy and his wife demanded $283,000 for their alleged overtime during the year they worked at Neverland (i.e. approx. $20,000 per month for the two of them), and when the demand was not met he wrote a fabricated diary about Michael Jackson and called a press conference in the Philippines to present it to potential buyers.

Despite the vast attention given to it by Diane Dimond, the rest of the media and the Santa Barbara DA Tom Sneddon whose “Prior bad acts” motion in 2004 was partially based on that fake, no one was willing to buy it for the millions asked and the Quindoys’ plan to make a fortune on lies about Jackson ultimately failed.

However, all of it still did enormous damage to Michael’s reputation because the media presented to the public only Quindoy’s outwardly respectable façade. And it is only due to Gayle Goforth that we know now the true measure of this guy.

~

Or look at the way Gayle Goforth describes BLANCA FRANCIA, for example.

When Mark Quindoy left, Gayle Goforth was promoted to the post of the head housekeeper at Neverland and became a supervisor of the entire housekeeping staff including Blanca Francia.  

Here is what it resulted in:

 BY MR. FINALDI:

Q. Before she left … did you get along with her?

A. No.         

Q. For what reason?

A. She didn’t feel that she had to answer to me because she was Michael’s personal housekeeper.  

BY MR. LISKIN:

Q. Did you consider Blanca to be an honest person?

A. No.

Q. And I believe you had mentioned or testified about a time, an issue with the timecards or with something getting ripped up. Can you explain to me your recollection of what happened?

A. It was a notice of a write-up to one of the other employees. And I asked who had torn it up, and I was told that Bianca had torn it up.

Q. And did you have an argument or discussion with Bianca about that?

A. I believe so. … I told her she didn’t have any right to do that. It was given to Vangie [Evangeline] and not to her, and it wasn’t her right, and we got into an argument. I don’t remember exactly. I remember the argument and stuff and it was, basically, “I don’t have to listen to you. I work for Michael. I don’t work for you and I don’t have to listen to you.”

Q. And is it your understanding that you were her supervisor?

A. Yes. I was told that I was supervisor of the whole entire housekeeping staff.

BY MR. FINALDI:

Q. Bianca said she didn’t tear it up; she found the papers on the floor in there or on the table [] and she put them in the plastic bag and pinned them up for someone to find. Do you know if Blanca actually tore up the papers?

A. I don’t know that for a fact. That’s what I was told.

BY MR. LISKIN:

Q. … did Blanca ever deny that she tore up the notice?

A. Not to me. The first I heard of her saying that she didn’t — I’m sorry, I forgot.

Q. Mr. Finaldi?

A. Yes.

Q. I just want to read into the record from Blanca Francia’s deposition in January 1994 in the Chandler litigation:

“Question: That Gayle later found out it was you who had torn up the time card and that Vangie got fired for something you had done and that Vangie was innocent; isn’t that correct?

“Answer: I ripped it up?

“Question: Yes.

“Answer: But I didn’t put it on the bulletin board.

“Question: But you tore it up, right?

“Answer: Yes.

“Question: And you saw your friend, Vangie, get fired for doing this, right?

“Answer: Yes.”

 You hear that she testified that she did, in fact, tear it up?

A. Okay. I didn’t remember Vangie being fired over that fact, though.

Q. But it sounds that she was fired for something that Blanca did?

A. Yes.

BY MR. FINALDI:

Q. Did you ask her why she ripped it up?

A. I don’t recall if I did nor not.

Q. Was that important to you? Knowing why she ripped it up.

A. I think she was doing it as a sign of defiance. That’s what I felt.

Q. That was your speculation, right?

A. Yes, that was my speculation, that it was a sign of defiance against me.

Let us make a short pause at this point – we’ve just found that Gayle Goforth had even more reasons to consider Blanca Francia dishonest than she initially thought.

Francia ripped that write-up paper herself, apparently as a sign of defiance against her supervisor, but told everyone that she had found those papers on the floor. And the worst part of it is that her friend Evangeline was fired for insubordination soon thereafter and most probably wasn’t even aware that she lost her job due to her “best friend” Blanca Francia.

The latter always denied anything to do with it except her deposition in 1994, but the deposition wasn’t disclosed to anyone and was revealed only recently, during the Robson/Safechuck case.

Here is an excerpt from that deposition where she initially admitted it:

“Question: The question is did you tell Norma that —

“Answer: No.

“Question” — that you had done it?

“Answer: No.

“Question: And Vangie got fired for this, right?

“Answer: Yes.

“Question: And you never said a word to help your friend, right?

“Answer: No.”

Incidentally, when Blanca Francia left her job sometime after Evangeline’s dismissal, Evangeline arranged for her best friend a deal with Diane Dimond and the Hard Copy program where Francia was paid $20,000 for going on TV and telling numerous lies about Michael Jackson.

Blanca Francia on Hard Copy in an interview with Diane Dimond

If you want to know why Blanca Francia left her job at Neverland, here is the reason:

BY MR. LISKIN:

Q. And so to the best of your recollection, she quit after you guys had a dispute over the incident with the write-up?

A. Yes. I think. I’m not sure.  — oh, I know what it was. I recall it now. I was trying to schedule her to come in at certain times to help out with the housekeeping, you know, like when we had guests and stuff like that. I was trying to get all the girls on a schedule to make it fair to everybody … And so I was told, I believe by Norma, that I needed to have all of the girls involved in this, and so I was trying to discuss with her that I needed her to be on the schedule. And she told me she didn’t — she wasn’t going to be on the schedule; that she was Michael’s personal — and that she wasn’t going to be on the schedule. And so that’s what we were arguing about, and that’s when she up and quit.

BY MR.FINALDI:

Q. Did you do anything to inquire as to whether she actually worked, indeed, for Michael directly or not?

A. Yes. I spoke to Norma about it [..] She said “She is part of the housekeeping staff.” That’s what she told me.

Q. And that you are her boss, basically, or you are her supervisor?

A. Yes; otherwise, I wouldn’t have pursued it.

Q. And did you tell Blanca that afterwards?

A. Yes, I did.

Q. What did Blanca say?

A. That was part of our argument, she kept telling me, “No, I work for Michael. No, I work for Michael.”

Q. Did you ask Michael what his opinion was on the issue?

A. No. I spoke to him about it after the fact.

Q. What did he say?

A. He said, “That’s okay, Gayle. Don’t worry about it.” And Norma had stated to me that she figured she was going to — Bianca was going to go crying to Michael figuring that he would beg her to come back.

Gayle Goforth was respectful of Blanca as she knew that she worked for MJ even at Havenhurst and thought that she had stayed with him for fifteen years. The actual term of Francia’s work for MJ was much shorter of course and was five years only (from 1986 to 1991).

But during that time Blanca still became extremely possessive of MJ and even affectionately called him “my Michael” which she readily admitted in one of her earlier depositions:

“Question: Did you refer to Michael as ‘my Michael’ around the house there when you worked there?

“Answer: Yeah.

“Question: When you said ‘my Michael,” would other people start laughing when you would say that?

“Answer: Yeah.”

Simple logic suggests that she regarded herself as someone special to Jackson, was probably even in love with him (everyone was), and didn’t accept any other authority over herself except her Michael. This is why she was so resentful that Gayle Goforth treated her like all the others and quit after she apparently complained to MJ and was disappointed that he didn’t implore her to come back.

But Michael was still very appreciative of Blanca Francia as he gave her a letter of recommendation that helped her find a new job just within one or two days. Finaldi asked Gayle Goforth if she knew about it:

Q. Do you know that she got a letter of recommendation?

A. She did? I had no idea.

However, despite all Michael’s goodwill and their perfectly amicable parting in 1991, two years later Blanca Francia went to Diane Dimond, and following their story on TV all media gleefully presented Francia as the maid who “quit in disgust” after “she saw naked boys at Neverland”.

The media gleefully reported Blanca Francia’s lies about Michael Jackson. To be precise she never spoke of any “disgust” and never saw MJ “naked with boys”.

Imagine a teary embrace with your boss, getting a letter of recommendation from him, and then going on TV to tell abhorrent lies about him?

No, I cannot imagine anything like that – even for $20,000.

In the meantime, Gayle Goforth’s deposition moved on to other subjects where time and again she made other remarkable comments.

THE PURSE, CLOSET, PICTURES AND VIDEOS

BY MR. LISKIN:

Q. Are you aware that Blanca acknowledged under oath in multiple depositions that she also went through your purse?

A. My purse?

Q. To look at your check?

A: That doesn’t surprise me.

BY MR. FINALDI:

Q. So other than this paper incident and her not wanting to listen to you because she said that she doesn’t answer to you, any other reasons you didn’t like Blanca?

A. No. That’s basically it. She did her job.

Then she reveals that Blanca Francia didn’t like her either:

Mr. Jackson’s fax machine wasn’t working properly and I went and asked her if she would check it. And she came out and she looked at me and then walked out towards the door and she turned around and said, “Mr. Jackson’s fax machine is working properly.” And she turned around and stalked out the door. So it was a mutual. She didn’t like me either.

Q. So Mr. Jackson had a fax machine inside his bedroom?

A. It was in the closet.

Q. On the right-hand side, is that where he had the boy’s pictures and everything, the same one?

A. The boys’ pictures?

Q. Yeah. In one of closets they testified that there were pictures of Emmanuel Lewis, Macauley Culkin, maybe 40 different pictures of kids in frames. Do you remember that?

Oh, so according to Finaldi someone claimed that MJ had 40 pictures of kids in frames in his closet? See what Gayle Goforth says about those pictures:

BY MR. LISKIN:

Q. …I believe there was testimony that there was a framed picture of Macauley Culkin; is that correct?

A. I believe so.

Q. And also Emmanuel Lewis?

A. Yes, I believe so.

Q. And also Muhammad Ali, correct?

A. Yes. I believe there was a picture of Muhammad Ali. There was several pictures there. He had all kinds of posters and pictures and all kinds of memorabilia. He had a pair of boxing gloves from Muhammad Ali that were signed in a case, too, with his picture.

Q. And did you think it was at all odd for Mr. Jackson to have framed photographs of Mr. Culkin and Mr. Lewis?

A. No. I just assumed that they had given them to him.

Q. And there was some discussion about photographs or stacks of photographs which included kids and adults, correct?

A. Yeah. I read over — the lawyer is the one that mentioned stacks. I never mentioned stacks.

Q. But you never saw any nude photograph of a child?

A. No.                                                                                         

The photo of Emmanuel Lewis with Michael Jackson in 1988. Lewis is 17 years old here (he was born in 1971)

BY MR. FINALDI:

Q. Did you ever wonder why Mr. Jackson had pictures of children up in his closet?

A. I never questioned it. They were friends of his.             

Q. Didn’t seem weird to you?                                                                                                     

A. No.                                                                                                                                              

Q. Let’s go back to your deposition. …Page 67, line 5:

“And they’re in frames stacked up or frames hanging up?

“Answer: They are sitting on a shelf.

“Question: So are they flat or propped up?                                         

“Answer: They are propped up.

Do you remember him having frames with children in them propped up inside of his closet?

A. Like I said, there were all kinds of pictures in there. There were adults. There were kids. There – I don’t recall other — who exactly was in there, but there were a lot of pictures on the shelves. And then there was another big shelf across the top where those clothes were hung up that had things on them.

Q. Page 67, line 24, at the bottom, and it says:

“Okay. And how many pictures? Estimate?

“Answer: I don’t know. 25, 30.”

Do you remember that there was about that many pictures in there?

A. Probably.

Q. The next page says:

“There is just pictures of movie stars in there also. It’s not just children.

“Question: Okay. How many of the pictures are pictures of adults rather than children?

“Answer: I would say half.”

Is that your understanding about half of them were pictures of kids?

A. Yes.

The above is a classic case of a glass half-full or half-empty. For Gayle Goforth half of the pictures were those of adults, and for Finaldi half of them were kids.

Okay, but how many framed photos of children were there on the closet shelves?  

Finaldi read in Gayle Goforth’s earlier deposition that her estimate of the whole number was 25-30, so half of that would be 12-15. Incredible, but only a minute ago he claimed that the number of kids’ pictures was 40!  

Finaldi also spoke of “stacks “of photos and the media added to it that the kids were also “naked”. Nothing could be further from the truth though – the kids were in their best outfits, their photos were in frames and probably even with signatures on them.

So when someone tells you in sheer horror that “the police found a photo of young Macauley Culkin in his closet!” remember that it was this kind of a photo that was propped up on one of the shelves there:

Finaldi hoped that at least the videotapes stored in Michael’s closet would give some grounds for suspicion – what if MJ recorded something incriminating there? Hence all those questions to Gayle Goforth if they were commercial or non-commercial, and their titles were typed or handwritten.

Q. Okay. Page 68, line 10:

“Are there videotapes anywhere in his bedroom?

“Answer: They are in the other closet.”

Do you remember giving that testimony?

A. I don’t remember giving any of this testimony but I do recall there being videos in that closet, now that I think of it.

Q. It says:

“Question: How are they stored?

“Answer: On shelves and there is some in boxes .

“Question: Okay. Are these commercial videotapes, like ‘Dancing with Wolves’ or popular movies, or are they just videotapes where someone has taped something?”

What kind of videotapes do you remember seeing in the bedroom?

A. I don’t remember any titles of anything. I remember them being black.

Q. Like blank videos?

A. I don’t think they were blank, no. I think they had titles on them, but I didn’t sit down and look at them and say “Oh, this is such and such and this is such and such.”

Q. Page 69, line No. 5, and it says:

“That just says ‘VHS Sony.’ And then if you go and spend and you buy a movie, then it says ‘Dancing with Wolves’?

“Answer : Yes. They are marked.

“Question: They are marked?

“Answer: Yes.

“Question: And so when you say they are marked, what do you mean by that? Marked in handwritten notations?

“Answer: No. Most of them are typed, I believe.”

Do you recall what kind of videos they were? Were they the kind you buy in a store?

A. I thought they were betas. I’m not sure.

Q. Okay.

A. I remember later on, we put in, off of the upstairs bedroom, there was another room off of that that we made into a library, and the tapes were all moved to there at that time. And then later on, they changed the gym into the video library, then everything was moved there.

Oh, this is something Finaldi didn’t expect. At first, Gayle Goforth’s description of the tapes was somewhat vague and left room for interpretation, but when she added that they moved all of them into a special video library she definitely nailed it down – the videotapes were certainly commercially produced and there was certainly nothing inappropriate about them.

They were there in the open and anyone could go to the library and pick anything to their liking.

Moreover, her answer suggests that she was also involved in the move as she says that “we put it in”, “we made it into a library”, so most probably she was the one who personally handled those videotapes and took care of their move.

Finaldi makes another try and asks a point-blank question:

Q. Okay. Did you ever see any pornography at Neverland?

A. No.

Q. Never saw any videos, magazines, anything of that nature?

A. No, I don’t recall seeing anything like that.

Q. When the police executed the search warrant [ ] they found some pornography, some videos, magazines, things of that nature. Do you have any idea where those were kept on the property?

THE WITNESS: I have no idea. I never witnessed any myself.

Finaldi is certainly asking about “child porn” but in case you don’t know all the police found in Michael’s house were commercially produced magazines like Playboy and some adult videos involving women (plus two art books with boys on the beach that were in possession of the police since 1993).

Q. How about any books that contained nude images that might not have been pornography? Like art books, stuff like that, photographs and stuff?

A. He had all kinds of art books.

Q. Where were those located?

A. All over the house, in the libraries.

Q. Did you ever see any art books with pictures of naked kids?

A. Naked kids, no. They were all like statues. He had several statues in the home.

Q. Of kids and things.

A. Kids, but not naked. Like cherub-type things.

Q. Bronze statutes of kids all over the property, right?

A. Yes. But they had clothes on and there was like cherub kids.

Finaldi’s last hope was Michael’s tiny secret room – the one “when you go inside of the closet on the right, you can kind of push a door and there is an inner like room”.

This small walk-in closet was built by the previous owner of the house to keep his wife’s furs and jewelry there, but when it comes to Michael Jackson the media regularly implies that this hiding place was specially created by him for “molesting children” there.

Well, Gayle Goforth was in that room on two occasions and says that it contained books, a lot of books, a safe and a file cabinet and her description makes it clear that this wardrobe-like structure was so crowded that even one person could hardly move there.

The first time she saw that closet was quite by chance when plumbers came in to fix the shower adjacent to it.

Q. How did you find out about it?

A. I was when I was taking care of his room, the maintenance were coming in to do some shower work in one of the bathrooms and they went in through there.

Q. And what was in there?

A. Books, a lot of books. A safe. I believe a file cabinet. ….There was a file cabinet, so I didn’t look in the file cabinets. He sent me in there one time to retrieve a watch that was in the safe.

Q. What else was in the safe?

A. I don’t know. I was looking for the watch. []

Q. Okay. — how did he know that you knew where it was?

A. He told me.

Q. What did he say?

A. He told me that in his closet behind the clothes, that there was a door.

Q. And it was behind his jackets with the sequins and stuff, right?

A. Yes.

Oh, so the file cabinet mentioned by Gayle Goforth was in that tiny room?

Michael Jackson wanted his own children to be as happy as these kids

The file cabinet in the closet seems to be the file cabinet in which the police found those two art books with “naked” boys on the beach mentioned above.

One of them was presented to Michael Jackson with love and kisses by a certain “Rhonda” (if we are to believe the inscription) and the other was inscribed by Michael himself who wrote that he hoped for a similar happy childhood for his own children and then signed it as if intending to give it back.

But the two books landed in the file cabinet and remained locked there until 1993.

Incidentally, when the police raided Neverland Michael Jackson was on the Dangerous tour and was reported to be surprised when he heard of some books found in his file cabinet.

In Michael’s absence neither Adrian McManus, nor Gayle Goforth had a key to it, so the police summoned the only person who could open it and that was Blanca Francia, the maid who had long left Neverland but kept the key to it for two years as if waiting for a chance to open it one day.

We always wondered how come the police knew whom to approach to open the file cabinet and why Blanca Francia kept the key for so long, but it never occurred to us to ask why she had that key at all. 

Now that we know that the file cabinet was in the inner closet, next to the safe there, and even Gayle Goforth, Michael’s personal maid of six years, went there on two occasions only, how come Blanca Francia visited the closet on her own and had a key to the locked file cabinet where Michael apparently kept his most important documents?

Imagine the absurdity of you supplying the cleaning woman who comes to your apartment with a key to your safe where you keep your money, documents, and other valuables – so how is it different from Blanca Francia’s case?

Blanca Francia with Victor Gutierrez. Screenshot from his book

Think what you like about this strange occurrence while I will just remind you that Blanca Francia was friends with Victor Gutierrez, a NAMBLA person who was so grateful to her for I don’t know what that he even placed a picture of them together in his fiction book about MJ.

Another person Blanca Francia cooperated with was Tom Sneddon, the Santa Barbara District Attorney who provided her with a free lawyer from his own staff to initiate litigation with Michael Jackson and help Blanca Francia to obtain a $2 million settlement from him for the alleged “tickling” of her son, apparently in exchange for her and her son’s testimony against MJ (see this post for details).

All those dark secrets of the ugly 1993 case will be disclosed one day, but now let’s have one other look at Gayle Goforth’s deposition.

THE JACKET

The memorabilia subject raised by Finaldi led him to more amazing discoveries about Gayle Goforth. At some point, she said that like many others at Neverland she was given gifts for Christmas and other occasions and this is how we learn that those gifts were quite comparable with those given to Jordan Chandler or Wade Robson, for example.

The gifts to her included a video camera, a DVD player, a basket with candies and movies, lots of other memorabilia and also ….. a “Bad” jacket.

Michael Jackson gave a replica of his “Bad” jacket to Gayle Goforth, his maid

Q. All right. Were you ever given any kind of memorabilia, or items, or autographs, or pictures by Michael Jackson?

A. Yes. Not specifically by Michael Jackson, but he gave me gifts every year for Christmas and that.

Q. What kinds of gifts?

A. He gave me a video camera. He gave me a DVD player. He gave me a whole basket that had a bunch of movies, pardon me, and candy and stuff like that. It was just a movie basket.

Q. And did he ever give you anything autographed, or any jackets or the hats he wore?

A. I got a — shoot, what is it called? Was it a “Bad” jacket.

Q. You still have it?

A. Yes, I do.

Q. All right. Have you ever sold any of the gifts or autographs?

A. No, no. I have never sold anything.

Or Michael’s present could be this jacket from “Bad”

In contrast to all the drama created by Dan Reed and the media over a similar “Thriller” jacket presented to Wade Robson, Gayle Goforth didn’t see anything special about the jacket given to her.

My guess is that Michael Jackson presented her with a replica of “Bad” jacket with the idea to give it to one of her three sons, probably the one who was molested by his baseball coach, in a gesture of support for the poor kid and in order to lift the boy’s spirits that way.

It was actually customary for Michael Jackson to give the most cherished gifts to his friends as well as sick or distressed children who were sometimes hardly known to him.

In 1984, for example, he presented the red jacket he wore in “Beat it” to David Smithee, the terminally ill 14-year old boy whose dying wish was to see Jackson.

The original “Beat it” jacket was Michael Jackson’s gift to a terminally ill boy

It was the dying wish of the 14-year old David Smithee to meet Michael Jackson. MJ presented him with the original “Beat it” jacket and a rhinestone glove he wore for the American Music Awards in 1984.

Michael Jackson’s other present to him was a black rhinestone-embedded glove worn by him to the 1984 American Music Awards where he won a record eight awards.

Michael met him only once, but when the boy died 6 weeks later he left a dedication to him on the cover of the Jacksons’ Victory album.

You wonder why the media didn’t tell you any of it during their hoopla over the Wade Robson “Thriller” jacket and made it out as if it was something unique? And Robson also tried to convince us that he burned a present that costs tremendous money these days, lol? 

Well, ask them about all their clownery.

Let me end part 2 at this point because long as it is, Gayle Goforth’s story is still far from finished and will certainly require another post.