Former detective Ruby Wolff, who raided Neverland in the wake of child abuse allegations, returns to the singer’s ranch with Associate Editor Tom Bryant as she opens up in a fascinating interview about her time working on the case
Standing in front of the Neverland gates again after 23 years, former detective Ruby Wolff starts to quietly cry as she spots a child’s drawing etched on a wall. The retired police officer was last here in 2003 when she raided Michael Jackson‘s property after 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo accused the singer of molesting him.
Returning to the King of Pop’s ranch, which is nestled in rolling hills an hour’s drive north of Santa Barbara, in California, has already been an unsettling experience. But it’s not until Ruby sees a cartoonish tribute to the shamed singer among the hundreds scrawled on the wall that it all becomes too much.
“It’s stopped me right here in my tracks,” she says, wiping away tears. “The innocence of a child is the most valuable thing and that wasn’t even regarded not just on [Jackson’s] end but on the jury’s end too. An innocent child drawing this….without knowing the backstory.”
Ruby knows the backstory all too well. She is still haunted by the failure to convict Jackson following the four-month trial in which she testified, and he was subsequently found not guilty. And she agreed to return with the Mirror back to the late singer’s home ahead of the release next month of a new Hollywood film which glorifies his life.
Ruby vividly remembers the disturbing scenes she was greeted with as she entered the gates standing in front of us today. “Music started to play….it was Peter Pan music,” she says. “I was kind of going, ‘Where is that music coming from?’ Then you start seeing the statues of the children in the green grass area. It was creepy.” Walking through the house, Ruby was shocked by just how ostentatious it was. She said: “I’ve never seen a house that was like that. You’re looking at these chandeliers…everything was very over-consumption. Every space on the wall seemed to be filled with a picture of him and a celebrity, or a president, or a queen, or a king.”
Ruby was tasked with locating Jackson’s bedroom in the hope that she would uncover evidence crucial to the case. She remembers being alarmed by the fact that all guests who wanted to enter Jackson’s bedroom were forced to ring a doorbell. Ruby said: “The law enforcement mind is: ‘What are you hiding? Why would you need to be notified or alarmed before someone could even come into your room?’”
When they got inside, she says it was “next level uncomfortable because there were children’s statues inside this little hallway that led to a larger room.” Once inside she remembers the chaotic scenes including rotting food, overflowing drawers and his famous stage costumes scattered all over the floor.
She said: “Everything in that room was very messy. As we started to search, I came across a package of sausage in a little plastic bag…I don’t know how long it had been there, but it was already bad. In the bedroom bathroom, the drawers were not in order and all out. There was a nice watch from Sophia Loren, with this nice little letter card, and it was just thrown in there. There was no regard for things…it was just thrown in like a junk drawer. We found his glove; it was just thrown on the floor. It didn’t matter that Michael Jackson had all this money…in reality he’s a human, just like everybody else.”
Bizarrely, there was a small door in the bathroom leading to an area in which Ruby believes Jacko used to go in and out of. “We thought that was kind of interesting…like, ‘What’s he doing in there?’, she says. Equally baffling was the fact that Jackson slept in a tiny loft space under a heavy rhinestone duvet. She says: “Who could sleep under this…it was so heavy.”
Ruby was tasked with finding evidence to corroborate Gavin’s story, and after a few hours she had a huge breakthrough. She said: “I came across the briefcase that had pornographic materials in it that was consistent with what the victim stated he had been groomed with….It was a piece of the puzzle that had been found.”
Ruby remembers the subsequent court case as “absolute chaos” as Jackson’s fans descended upon the city of Santa Maria. At one point Jackson got out of his SUV and started dancing on the roof, leaving her appalled. She says: “You’re being charged with a very serious crime…why would you think it was okay to perform.”
Ruby ended up testifying in the case and recalls the moment she came face to face with Jackson. She said: “He just looked at me, and there was just this stone-cold look like a statue. I didn’t see that he was concerned about it. He looked me straight in the eye, and I looked at him straight back.” The defence cast Gavin’s family, in particular his mother Janet, as motivated by money and fame, and Jackson was later acquitted of all charges after 14 weeks.
Ruby says: “It was a tough one. Even now, it draws some emotion. When the verdict came back, it was such a blow that we just went, ‘Well, where’s the justice?’ How many fans did we have in the jury? That would have been a nice question to ask.” Ruby, who after the case continued working on cases involving crimes against children, says she is very uncomfortable by the prospect of the new Jackson biopic, Michael.
Starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson as the singer, as well as Hollywood heavyweights Miles Teller and Colman Domingo, it is said to glorify the star, who died in 2009 aged 50. The newly-released trailer makes no mention of the child abuse allegations. Asked if she had a message for producers, Ruby says: “I would say, ‘Whose pockets are you trying to fill?” What are you doing to make an impact and to protect innocent children? It is them we should be remembering.”
Returning to Neverland is available to watch now on the Mirror’s You Tube channel
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
