JOE JACKSON thinks that his son Michael was murdered, and at least one person is convinced that he's right:

La Toya.

And she wants revenge.

"We don't think just one person was involved in the murder," La Toya told London's News of the World. "It was a conspiracy to get Michael's money.

"I know who did it, and I won't rest until I nail them!"

In an exclusive interview with News of the World, La Toya, who claims to be the closest person to Michael, reveals that she and the family are convinced her brother's apparent drug overdose has "foul play" written all over it.

"Michael was worth well over a billion in music-publishing assets, and somebody killed him for that," she says. "He was worth more dead than alive."

Making Michael sound too much like Britney Spears, La Toya says that he was given addictive drugs to keep him submissive; that the people who manipulated him kept him away from his family; that they worked him to exhaustion; and that they stole $2 million in cash and jewels as he lay dying.

As for the coroner's report, La Toya says: "I think everyone will be surprised when the results come out.

"I can't discuss that any further because of the ongoing police investigation. But I can say newspaper reports that there was methadone in his body are inaccurate.

"He had many needle marks on his neck and on his arms, and more about those will emerge in the next few weeks. But nothing has changed my mind that this was murder, and I won't give up until I find out what killed my brother.

"A couple of years ago Michael told me he was worried that people were out to get him. He said, 'They're gonna kill me for my publishing. They want my catalogues and they're gonna kill me for these.'

"I knew something terrible was going to happen."

As for who actually killed Michael, La Toya says she knows . . . but she can't say.

"I don't want to jeopardize the police investigation," she says. "But not everybody had Michael's best interests at heart. A month ago I felt Michael was going to die before he did his London concerts.

"I was at my home, just three minutes from Michael's," she tells News of the World, "and was talking to a friend about the fact that Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon . . . had just died.

"I said, 'There's going to be another one because they always go in threes.' About an hour and a half later my father called to say Michael had been rushed to hospital.

"I jumped into my car and kept calling my mother's assistant asking, 'How is he?' But he wouldn't say.

"Finally, I heard mother in the background yelling, 'Why don't you just tell her?'

"Then she grabbed the phone off him and screamed: 'HE'S DEAD!' I nearly crashed my car. My legs went weak."

More La Toya:

* "Michael always had cash in his homes, usually around $2 million which he used to pay out on things. People said he wasn't wealthy, but Michael always had money with him.

"When I went to the house later that day there was no cash or jewelery. . . . Someone went in there and did a good job."

* In the room where Michael died, La Toya says: "The police had already taken an oxygen tank which was beside the bed. On top of the sheets there was still an oxygen mask. Standing beside the bed was a stand for an intravenous drip. I was told the cops had taken the bag of liquid from it.

"Behind I saw three oxygen tanks in the corner of the room.

"There was an empty pill box on a cabinet. We also found loads of empty oxygen tanks in the garage of the house."

* La Toya says that Michael had recently told her that he was in his sixth month of detox, but News of the World reports that he was taking twice-a-day injections of Demerol, plus Dilaudid, Vistaril, Xanax, Prozac and Zoloft.

* La Toya says that Michael "really wanted to be a movie director. . . . He had an idea to do a horror film called 'Thriller.' He designed the poster for it already."

Guess that's in case the music thing didn't work out.

* La Toya says that Michael's daughter, Paris, still writes letters to him and put one half of her favorite split-heart necklace on his arm in the coffin. La Toya says that Michael was buried in his favorite pearl-studded jacket and gold belt.

"He looked like the regular Michael - he looked fabulous," she says.

* As for Debbie Rowe, La Toya says, "The children don't even know who she is. They have met her but Michael never introduced her as their mother. He was their mother, their father, their whole world."

So how much of this is true? Keeping in mind that it's La Toya AND News of the World, Tattle would put the over/under at about 30 percent.

Tattbits

* "Survivor" winner Richard Hatch, who's serving home confinement for tax evasion, wants a leave to star in the show's 10th anniversary edition in Samoa.

Then he can win more money and not pay taxes on it.

It's the circle of life.

* The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said Friday that "Bruno" reinforces negative stereotypes and "decreases the public's comfort with gay people."

Universal Pictures maintains that "Bruno" is a satire that "uses provocative comedy to powerfully shed light on the absurdity of many kinds of intolerance and ignorance, including homophobia."

The problem with comedy shedding light on ignorance is that the ignorant people rarely get it.

* It's been 45 years since the Beatles made their American debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show," but Paul McCartney returns to the Ed Sullivan Theater Wednesday to appear on David Letterman's "Late Show."

* Want to feel old? Jim Carrey is going to be a grandfather.

Jane Carrey, 21, is expecting her first child.

What's next for grandpa? "Ace Ventura: Poop Detective"? *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

Send e-mail to gensleh@phillynews.com.