Casey Kasem, a staple of tens of millions of childhoods thanks to his long career counting down the radio’s Top 40 hits and voicing Scooby-Doo’s Shaggy, is missing. On Monday, Los Angeles Judge Daniel S. Murphy ordered an investigation into the whereabouts of the 82-year-old former DJ, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease and can no longer speak. Kasem’s children by his first wife, Linda Myers Naylor, have long accused his second wife, Jean, of limiting their access to him. Troy Martin, a lawyer who represents Kasem’s daughter, Kerri, told the court that his client now believes that her stepmother has moved her father to an Indian reservation in Washington state.
“Jean was talking to her niece in Washington on the phone, saying, ‘I need an Indian reservation with a private airstrip and I want to bring Casey there,’” Kasem’s daughter Julie told The Hollywood Reporter. Jean Kasem did not appear in court on Monday, but her lawyer, Craig Marcus, said that he believes that Casey is “no longer in the United States.” “I have no idea where he is,” Marcus added.
Judge Murphy then appointed Kerri her father’s temporary caretaker, though she has not seen him since visiting him at a Santa Monica hospital on May 6. “We had a wonderful visit with him Tuesday at Berkley East Convalescent Hospital — he was thriving there — and [Jean] yanked him out of there after hours,” Kerri said of the meeting. Julie Kasem accused her stepmother of “dumping” her father into a car with an “IV plus a stomach feeding tube” because “his children dared to come and visit him.”
In an earlier court filing, Jean Kasem’s attorney wrote that Casey’s kids “falsely claim that their stepmother is wicked and is keeping her husband prisoner. … For reasons they know all too well, their presence at this stage would be toxic and extremely distressing for Casey, Jean and their daughter, Liberty, who have had enough of their cruelty.” On Monday, Marcus argued that his client “had every right to move her husband as she saw fit,” but the judge no longer seems to agree.
