Jackson Jury May Be Deciding Who's Weirder
June 04, 2005

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - The jury deliberating the fate of Michael Jackson may have to decide who's weirder: Jackson or the mother of his accuser. Much of Jackson's defense came down to trying to prove the mother was the winner of the strange contest - even though Jackson's eccentricities long ago earned him the tabloid tag "Wacko Jacko." His 2003 admission that he shared his bed with children - non-sexually, he explained - didn't do much to mitigate that notion.

His lawyers tried to make their client look sympathetic by portraying the mother of his accuser as more out of touch with social norms than he is.

Was his hobby of spending weeks with children creepier than her habit of sucking up to celebrities? Was his insistence that there was nothing wrong with letting children in his bed odder than her habit of saying near-strangers were like family?

Trial analyst Ann Bremner, a former prosecutor, was at a loss when asked if Jackson or the mother came off looking stranger to jurors.

"Boy," she said. "That's a contest."

The 46-year-old singer is charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy in February or March 2003. . .

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