The mother of Michael Jackson' s two older children was contemplating a legal battle for custody, while funeral details were still not announced for the pop superstar who unexpectedly died on Thursday at his Los Angeles home.
Debbie Rowe, who delivered two of Jackson's children, was reportedly considering whether to contest a court ruling giving temporary custody of the kids to the late singer's 79-year-old mother.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Monday granted Katherine Jackson temporary custody of Jackson's three children. The youngest was born to an unidentified surrogate mother.
According to legal papers filed in the court, Jackson's three children are the sole beneficiaries of his estate, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, although the pop icon was reported to owe some 400 million dollars when he died at the age of 50.
The judge on Monday also appointed Jackson's mother special administrator of her son's estate to protect its assets, including his own music catalog and the Beatles catalog that he bought in 1985.
A hearing was scheduled for July 6 to consider permanent arrangements regarding both the singer's estate and children.
According to Rowe's lawyer, the ex-wife of Jackson is considering whether to seek custody or continued visitation rights. The lawyer said Rowe will decide within the next several days how to respond to Katherine Jackson's petition for temporary custody.
Anticipating a legal fight, the Jackson family has argued in court filings that Rowe has had no relationship with her children, and that giving her custody would cause them harm.
Court papers filed in the case indicate that the Jackson family is anticipating a tussle not only over the children but also over the estate, with their lawyers asserting that they do not know of a will but that it was possible that someone will emerge claiming to have one.
Meanwhile, funeral and memorial services were still pending on Tuesday as the family was still waiting for the exact cause of the singer's death.
The family commissioned a private autopsy on Saturday in hopes of getting results faster, after an official one by the Los Angeles County coroner, which is expected to take four to six weeks to announce final results pending further toxicology tests.
Michael Jackson was pronounced dead on Thursday afternoon at UCLA Medical Center, soon after he was rushed there in a deep coma by emergency paramedics from his rented estate in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb, where he was preparing a comeback series of 50 concerts in London.
(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2009)
