FAMILY WAR OVER KASEM’S CORPSE!
DJ's body exhumed in new murder probe as Casey’s widow and kids accuse each other
BELOVED DJ Casey Kasem’s corpse is being dug up from his final resting place in a remote Norwegian cemetery as part of an explosive new murder probe triggered by a vicious feud between his widow and children!
More than four years after the American Top 40 icon’s bizarre death, Casey’s widow, Jean, and the star’s adult children from his first marriage are still at each other’s throats — with each side accusing the other of killing the radio legend to get their hands on his $80 million fortune! Now, police in Gig Harbor, Wash., are going to settle the issue once and for all — with a new murder investigation!
Now, Casey’s oldest daughter, Kerri — conceived during
his first marriage to Linda Myers — is determined to unearth her dad’s body after Jean had the showbiz great buried 4,500 miles away from the American hospital where he died. Casey’s children say Jean buried their father overseas in retaliation for their efforts to take custody of the frail star during his tragic final days.
“Jean murdered our father! What she did to my dad was elder abuse!” Kerri still insists.
But Jean, 64, charges Kerri and her siblings Julie and Michael “killed my husband! They killed their father!”
She says the greedy children wanted his life insurance policy.
As GLOBE readers know, a bitter family war has raged ever since Jean was accused of practically kidnapping Casey from his Santa Monica, Calif., nursing home bed in May 2014. The dementia-ravaged star — who voiced goofball Shaggy Rogers on the ’70s cartoon series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! — passed away at a Gig Harbor hospital on June 15, 2014. He died from a staph infection blamed on a gruesome bedsore on his back!
For months after his passing, Kasem’s corpse lay rotting in a Montreal, Canada, funeral home until Jean had the remains whisked away to Oslo, Norway — where he’d never been. She had his body put in an unmarked grave in a remote cemetery.
An actress who played kooky Loretta Tortelli on Cheers, Jean blames Casey’s children for his death in a wrongful death suit.
She claims they conspired in 2007 to trick Casey into signing over power of attorney, then withheld proper medical care.
They deny the charges, but Jean claims taking Casey off his feeding and hydration tubes killed him.
Gig Harbor cops opened an investigation into 82-year-old Casey’s death after a private eye hired by Jean concluded he was murdered.
But Kerri insists her father was already dying — due to Jean’s neglect — and says his kids don’t need money.
“We’re all financially independent and have been since our 20s. We always said to Jean, ‘Take the money! Let us see our dad.’
“Jean belongs in jail!”
In 2015, Kasem’s children and brother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jean in Los Angeles. They accused her of elder abuse and inflicting emotional distress on them.
Now, Kerri tells GLOBE, “If my father’s body was exhumed, it would show what we have known all along — that Jean did not have my father embalmed! And we believe that this was done for a reason.
“If his body had been preserved, it would no doubt show exactly what we have known all along — that he was murdered, killed after being taken on a wild three-state ride!
“I still plan to bury my father at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles, where he wanted to be buried all along, and I’m still doing everything in my power to make that happen. I have not given up!”