nypost-050805

MOTHER DAZE AT JACKO’S
The New York Post
640957 All Editions
News
Published: 05/08/2005
Page: 012
Keywords: Analysis
Caption: JOY ROBSON Ignored bedroom locks.
MOTHER DAZE AT JACKO’S
Byline: By DIANE DIMOND

A MOTHER sits waiting for her 12-year-old son to acknowledge her on Mother’s Day. She waits all day, but he never shows. He’s exhausted from playing with his friend, and he sleeps the day away.
The mother begins to cry, and volunteers the idea that she thinks her son’s new friend has driven a wedge between her and her son.

The year is 1990, the location is Neverland Ranch, and the distraught mother is Joy Robson. Her young son Wade’s distracting playmate is Michael Jackson.

The story of Joy Robson’s miserable Mother’s Day was revealed in court Friday during her testimony in the Jackson child-molestation trial. Yet she still defended Jackson to the max. And so did Wade, now 22.
The Robsons were two of the lead-off witnesses for the defense, but in the end, many wondered if the prosecution hadn’t gotten more out of them than the Jackson team.

Joining the Robsons in defending the dethroned King of Pop was another mother-son duo: Marie Lisbeth Barnes and Brett Barnes.

Both these mothers allowed their youngsters to spend lots of time - lots of nights alone - with Jackson.
No one denies the two youths slept in the same bed as Jackson for nights on end over the course of several years. But these mothers insist there was nothing to worry about.

Brett Barnes’ mother repeatedly testified that she couldn’t remember any details of her young son’s sleepovers.

But Barnes’ older sister, Karlee, was more forthcoming.

She estimated her then-10-year-old brother crawled between the sheets with Jackson for a full year during concert tours, plus slept with him 80 or 90 additional nights at Neverland Ranch.

“Didn’t that ever seem odd to you?” Assistant DA Gordon Auchincloss asked.

“No, not in the least,” the overly animated older sister declared.

Joy Robson described how when they first arrived at Neverland in 1990, she was given a tour of the main house and, yes, she noticed the alarm pad outside Jackson’s master bedroom and the locks on the inside of the door.

“So you were aware of the fact that at the time that you allowed your children to sleep with Mr. Jackson . . . that those children were going to be in a location which you could not get to without somebody from the inside opening the door, correct?” asked DA Tom Sneddon.

Joy Robson laughed.

“Is there something funny about that?” Sneddon said.

“I think there’s a certain trust that we developed immediately,” Robson replied.

Happy Mother’s Day, ladies. Hope your sons remember to acknowledge you this year.