In the lowest moment of Michael Jackson’s life — his 2005 criminal trial — his mother, Katherine, was his greatest supporter. In breaks between testimony of witnesses accusing the pop star of molesting young boys, she and her son would go to a private room in the courthouse with his legal team and she would murmur comforting words to him.

“She would tell him that the truth would prevail, that God would help him. She just kept him strong,” defence lawyer Thomas A Mesereau Jr recalled. “She never missed a single day of testimony, and it was a five-month trial.” At the quiet center in an often fractious family of outsized personalities, Katherine Jackson, 79, held a deep and affectionate bond with the pop star all his life — even through its most isolated chapters.

A steadfast and religious woman, she not only doted on Michael but also fiercely protected him, according to people who have had close dealings with the family.

When the LA courthouse opened Monday, she stepped into the media squall to take control of her son’s estate and custody of his three children, amid the growing cacophony of claims over the singer’s vast assets and debts.

A Superior Court judge appointed her special administrator of her son’s estate, with limited powers to secure his personal property. The judge also granted her temporary custody of the children, Prince Michael Jr., 12; Paris Michael Katherine, 11; and Prince Michael II, 7. “They have a long-established relationship with paternal grandmother and are in her care,” an attorney, Diane Goodman, wrote about the children in court papers.

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