A private investigator believes he’s solved the mystery of why Casey Kasem’s widow shipped the radio icon’s body to Montreal last week.
Logan Clarke, a gumshoe previously hired by Kasem’s daughter Kerri Kasem, says Montreal is the hometown of a man who’s allegedly been living in Kasem’s Malibu condo for months.
Clarke said the 46-year-old man, identified as John Paul Gressy, is a Canadian businessman who tried to launch a denim clothing company called Dungarees USA in San Francisco in 2002.
Clarke told the Daily News he has evidence that Jean Kasem and Gressy are romantically involved.
“Neighbors have seen them holding hands and acting close,” Clarke said Thursday. “I welcome her to sue me if I’m wrong.”
As The News first reported, a mystery man was mentioned in the May 7 court filing that helped daughter Kerri Kasem win a conservatorship over her dying dad in his final weeks.
Kasem’s eldest daughter from his first marriage, Kerri has been fighting with Jean for the last year over visitation and allegations of elder abuse.
“Witnesses will testify that Mrs. Kasem has been lying to Mr. Kasem for at least two years, telling him that they are divorced,” a legal letter attached to Kerri’s May 7 petition for conservatorship said. “What possible motive could Mrs. Kasem have for such cruelty? Perhaps the younger gentleman that has been staying at the Malibu house and driving Mr. Kasem’s car could answer that question for us.”
Attempts to reach Gressy, Jean and Jean’s Los Angeles lawyer were not immediately successful Thursday.
Kasem, 82, died at St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor, Wash., early on June 15, two weeks after he was removed from Jean’s custody and admitted in critical condition with an infected bedsore.
Kerri organized the transfer to St. Anthony and later filed a police report against Jean in Santa Monica, Calif., claiming elder abuse hastened her father’s irreversible decline.
Jean, 60, threw raw meat at Kerri and quoted scripture as paramedics helped load Kasem into the ambulance.
Kerri, a radio personality in her own right, won a restraining order last week that said Jean couldn’t remove Kasem’s remains from a funeral home in Tacoma pending Kerri’s petition for a private autopsy.
She decided to withdraw the petition after learning her dad’s remains already had been sent to Montreal, her lawyer told The News.
“The removal of Mr. Kasem’s remains from the state of Washington moots the TRO that we obtained,” Kerri’s lawyer Scott Winship told The News. “(We) will not be pursuing that petition further.”
Kerri previously told The News her dad had no connection to Montreal during his life and expressed to a close friend his desire to be buried in southern California.
