Frozen Legacy: The Battle Over Kasem’s Corpse

He was the voice of America’s Top 40 – but after Casey Kasem died, a bizarre battle broke out over his body. From courtrooms to Norway to Howard Stern’s radio show, the story gets stranger at every turn. This week on The Internet Says It’s True, we tell the story, then chat with Comedy Writer Jimmy Mak!

There are some voices you never forget. Walter Cronkite had one. So did Paul Harvey. But if you were a kid of the ’70s, ’80s, or even the early 2000s, one of the voices you likely grew up with wasn’t giving the news. He wasn’t playing a character in a movie or selling you a product. He was telling you what the number one song in the country was. Every weekend. Like clockwork.

That voice belonged to Casey Kasem.

Whether you were listening to American Top 40 on a lazy Sunday morning or watching Scooby-Doo reruns after school, Kasem was part of the background noise of American life. He was the warm, reassuring narrator of our shared pop culture soundtrack.

But what most people remember about Casey Kasem is how he sounded. What they may not know is how things ended for him—how a man who dedicated his life to connecting people with music became the center of a heartbreaking and surreal family feud. A battle that played out not just in courtrooms and newspapers, but in funeral homes, airports, and, bizarrely, on Howard Stern’s radio show.

It’s a story that touches on guardianship law, celebrity privacy, family conflict, elder abuse allegations, and the logistics of international corpse transport. And it all happened to a man who just wanted to play your favorite song.

Kemal Amin Kasem was born April 27, 1932, in Detroit, Michigan. His parents were Lebanese Druze immigrants who ran a grocery store, and from an early age, he was obsessed with radio. He would mimic announcers in the mirror and grew up listening to shows like The Lone Ranger, which was produced just a few blocks from his childhood home.

His big break came during the Korean War. Stationed with the Army, he worked as a DJ for Armed Forces Radio, developing that easygoing, upbeat tone that would become his signature. When he came home, he bounced around the country in a series of radio gigs—Flint, Cleveland, Buffalo, Oakland—finally landing in Los Angeles.

By 1970, he’d created a new kind of music program. American Top 40 wasn’t just about playing the week’s biggest hits. It was about stories. Casey researched facts about the artists, read trivia, and most famously, delivered listener-submitted “Long Distance Dedications.” These were often tearjerking letters—someone reconnecting with a high school sweetheart, a soldier missing his family, a fan remembering a lost friend.

And Casey read each one like it was the most important message in the world. His voice had this sincere, slightly dramatic cadence. He wasn’t faking it. He cared.

That sincerity made him easy to parody—everyone from Saturday Night Live to Family Guy took a crack at him—but it also made him beloved. He continued hosting American Top 40 until 1988, then launched Casey’s Top 40 on Westwood One, returning to AT40 in 1998 and finally retiring in 2009.

But that was just one side of his career.

If you grew up watching cartoons, you knew Casey Kasem as the voice of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo, a role he started in 1969. He also voiced Robin in Super Friends, as well as roles in Transformers, Josie and the Pussycats, and Battle of the Planets. His cartoon voice acting overlapped with his radio career for decades. He had one of the most recognizable voices in the industry—yet he remained intensely private off the air.

Casey was also a man of deep personal convictions. He was a devout vegan. He practiced transcendental meditation. And he was politically active—outspoken about Arab-American representation and human rights. He once walked away from Scooby-Doo in protest after producers made Shaggy eat meat in a Burger King commercial. He didn’t think it was right. The man lived his values.

But in his later years, things became complicated.

In 1980, he married actress Jean Thompson—better known to Cheers fans as Loretta Tortelli, the ditzy wife of Carla’s ex-husband Nick. She was his second wife. Kasem had three children from his first marriage: Kerri, Julie, and Mike Kasem.

As Casey aged and his health declined—first from Parkinson’s Disease and later from Lewy body dementia—the relationship between Jean and his children deteriorated. According to court filings and interviews, the kids accused Jean of isolating their father, preventing visits, and moving him frequently between care facilities.

In 2013, things came to a head. The children claimed they hadn’t been allowed to see him in months. Protesters actually gathered outside Casey’s Los Angeles home demanding visitation rights. Kerri Kasem, herself a radio personality, took the lead. She filed for legal conservatorship. Jean fired back, calling it a media stunt.

By May 2014, the situation was dire. Jean removed Casey from a Santa Monica care facility and moved him—secretly—to Washington state. For weeks, his children didn’t know where he was. A private investigator hired by Kerri finally found him—bedbound, with open pressure sores and a urinary tract infection.

Doctors determined he was in rapid decline. Kerri was granted conservatorship just days before his death. Casey Kasem passed away on Father’s Day—June 15, 2014—at the age of 82.

But the family fight was just beginning.

After Kasem’s death, the plan was simple: a burial in Los Angeles. His children wanted to hold a service and bury him at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, where so many other stars are laid to rest.

But Jean still held legal next-of-kin authority—and instead of allowing a funeral, she arranged for his body to be moved. First to Montreal, then ultimately to Norway.

Jean Kasem claimed it was what Casey would’ve wanted. That he had expressed a desire to be buried in Oslo because of his “Norwegian heritage.” The problem? He had no Norwegian heritage. He was Lebanese-American, born and raised in Detroit, and had never expressed any public interest in Norway.

His children called it a lie. They suspected it was a delay tactic—an attempt to avoid an autopsy that might prove negligence or abuse. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing Jean of elder abuse, claiming she refused medical care, removed his feeding tubes prematurely, and isolated him from loved ones.

Jean claimed the opposite. That Kerri had forced unneeded medical treatment on him and wanted him to die in a hospital. In 2015, Jean filed a $250 million countersuit, alleging the children had engaged in what she called a “homicidal guardianship scam.”

Meanwhile, Casey’s body was literally on ice. For months, it was stored in a refrigerated vault in Oslo’s Vestre Gravlund cemetery—unburied and unmarked—while courts hashed out the lawsuits. No headstone. No ceremony.

That’s when Howard Stern, long a vocal critic of Casey Kasem’s polished persona, began devoting segments of his show to the Kasem saga. Stern had lampooned Casey in the past—most famously airing a leaked studio outtake where Casey furiously berated producers for segueing from a sad dog dedication into an uptempo record. (“This is ponderous, man. Ponderous.”)

But now, even Stern was outraged. “This guy gave his life to broadcasting,” he said, “and now his body is being stored like a side of beef.” Stern called Jean’s behavior “insane” and “cruel,” publicly accusing her of preventing closure for Casey’s kids.

Other media piled on. CNN, The Hollywood Reporter, and TMZ all ran stories. A judge in Norway finally approved burial in December 2014—six months after Casey’s death. He was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery where, again, he had no known connection. His children were not invited.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get messier—it did.

In 2018, a private investigator named Logan Clarke—who had previously worked on behalf of the Kasem children—went public with more disturbing claims. He alleged that Jean had denied Casey pain medication in his final days. That she’d let him develop sepsis from untreated bedsores. That she moved him not for love, but to keep him away from prying eyes.

No criminal charges were ever filed. In 2019, the court dismissed the wrongful death case, ruling there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed.

But public sentiment had shifted. Kerri Kasem used the attention to launch the Kasem Cares Foundation, which advocates for elder abuse prevention and legal reforms around adult conservatorship. In 2016, California passed “Kasem’s Law,” giving adult children the right to petition courts for visitation when they’re being blocked by a legal guardian.

Casey’s story helped catalyze a legal movement—a call to reexamine how we handle guardianship, inheritance, and the rights of dying adults.

It’s a legacy he never intended, but one that’s very much in line with who he was.

Because for all the strange twists and public feuds, Casey Kasem’s life was about communication. Bringing people together. Finding the thread that connected one person in Tulsa with another in San Diego—and making them feel seen.

He signed off every show the same way:
“Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”

The end of his story was tragic, surreal, and full of conflict. But what he gave us in life—that sense of voice, sincerity, and storytelling—remains.

And the internet says it’s true.

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