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Where is The Body? (Casey Kasem's Missing Corpse) · Jon's WTF Music Moments

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome to John's WTF Music Moments, the show where music
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: history gets weird enough that you start asking, wait, are
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we sure this actually happened? And today, for our very
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: first episode, we begin with a man whose voice was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: once one of the most comforting sounds in America. No,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: not mine. I am referring to Casey Kasem. The man
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: who spent decades calmly telling the nation, keep your feet
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. Which
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: is beautiful. Inspirational even. Unless your body later goes on
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: an international road trip, nobody can explain. Now let's give
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: you a little background into Casey Kasem. In case you're
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a millennial or Gen Z-er who wisely and luckily stumbled
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: onto this podcast. Long before this story became insane, and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: just wait, it becomes really insane, Casey Kasem was basically
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the soundtrack of American Weekends. He hosted American Top 40
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: for years. What was American Top 40? I'll tell you.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: It was a weekly syndicated radio show that counted down
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the top 40 songs in the country. If you grew
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: up in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, you probably heard
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Casey's voice before you heard your own father say, turn
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that damn stereo off. And if you're under 40, well,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it's hard to explain just how famous Casey Kasem was.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: This wasn't just some niche radio guy. This was a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: man whose voice was heard by millions of Americans every
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: single weekend. Casey wasn't just reporting the charts. For a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: lot of people, Casey was the charts. If a song
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: hit number one, Casey told you. If a song fell
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: out of the top 40, Casey told you. If your
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: girlfriend dumped you and you spent the weekend listening to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: sad music, while staring dramatically out of a rain-covered window, well,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: there was a chance Casey was involved somehow. In many ways,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Casey Kasem was America's musical tour guide, which makes what
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: happens next even stranger. We'll get to that. Just wait.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Casey Kasem did more than just count down the songs
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: every week. Oh, yes. He added pathos and romance even
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to the festivities, especially when he'd read those on-air, long-distance
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: dedications that were sappy, oftentimes silly, and, well, occasionally creepy.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: This week's long-distance dedication comes from Suzanne in Akron. Suzanne writes, Casey,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: last summer I met a guy named Roland at Woolworths.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: We hit it off instantly in the checkout line one
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: balmy Thursday night. And well, I gave him hand release
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: outside in the parking lot while sitting in the passenger
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: seat of his Buick. Sadly, Roland never called me after
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that as he promised he would. But eight months later,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I'm still holding out hope that he will. Casey, can
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you please play I Miss You by Climax and Dedicated
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to Roland? Well, of course I can, Suzanne. This goes
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: out to you and to Roland. And if I'm ever
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: in Akron, I'll be sure to look you up. Okay,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: so that might have been a bit extreme. In my
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Casey Kasem impression, it's a bit Teemu grade. But you
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: get the idea. Casey was smooth, warm, professional. The human
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: equivalent of a soft leather car interior. In a 1989
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Buick Regal, even. Oh, and did I mention that Casey
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Kasem was also the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo? Yeah,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: that's right. Nothing about this man suggested missing corpse, legal battle, Scandinavia.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And yet, this is where the story goes. So, how
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: did it get there? And how did he go missing? Well,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: by 2014, Casey had been retired for several years out
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of the spotlight, and he was ill, very ill. His
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: children and his second wife, Jean, or John, I don't know,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: had already been in a long, ugly battle over who
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: could see him, who controlled his care, and who was
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: making decisions. And at one point, His own children reportedly
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: couldn't even find him while he was still alive and kicking.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: They didn't know where dad went. Think about that for
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a second. Some families lose the remote control. Kids lose
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: their iPhone. These kids couldn't find their father. And the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: family conflict had already become tabloid news by this point.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: There were court hearings, public accusations, television interviews, statements from lawyers,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: at times it felt less like a family dispute and
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: more like a season of bad reality television on Bravo
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: that nobody wanted renewed. Everyone seemed angry, everyone was suspicious,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and nobody appeared interested in making things less complicated, which
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: unfortunately is exactly the sort of environment where a story
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: can go from tragic to completely absurd. And it did.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Casey Kasem died in June 2014 after a long illness.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: You would think that this is where the story simply ends.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: But somehow, the story just gets weirder from here. After
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Casey died, his body was placed in a funeral home
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: in Tacoma, Washington, not too far from where he was living.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: At that point, his daughter, Carrie, wanted an autopsy. A
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: judge then issued a temporary order saying the body could
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: not be cremated or moved until the matter was sorted
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: out and the autopsy was performed. Fair enough. Seems straightforward, right?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Dead body, funeral home, court order, nobody touch anything. Simple. Except... Well,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: when Carrie's attorney showed up at the funeral home the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: next day with the paperwork, the funeral home basically said, Mr.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Kasem is gone. Yes, we know. Thank you. Our family
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: is coming to terms with the loss, but we know
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: we mean gone. Imagine being the lawyer in that moment.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: You walk in with legal documents. And the receptionist is
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: essentially like, hi, yeah, listen, about the corpse. So this
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: is weird. So now everyone starts asking the least comforting
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: sentence imaginable. Where is Casey Kasem? Not, where is Casey spiritually? Not,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: where does his legacy live? Not, where can I find
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that September 1978 episode where exiles kiss you all over
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: reach number one? No, literally. Where is the body? That's
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: what everybody's asking. At first, there were reports that Casey's
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: remains might have been sent to Canada. Perhaps an odd choice,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: as Casey was born and raised in the U.S. and
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: achieved his fame and notoriety in the States, though I
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: suspect that some folks in Montreal or Toronto and various
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: other Southern Canadian cities and provinces and towns could pick
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: up American Top 40 on the FM dial. But those
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: reports were iffy at best. Then there was confusion over
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: whether the remains had arrived to Canada at all. And
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: then the theories started getting even stranger. Maybe the corpse
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: was in Europe. Maybe some were unexpected. Maybe a quiet
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: seaside burial occurred. Maybe a tropical island somewhere where nobody
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: asks questions. Maybe Rome. People could understand that. Paris, sure.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: It's romantic, right? Some beautiful Caribbean island, St. Barts, maybe. Okay,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: at least there's a vibe to that. But none of
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it actually made sense because none of those places truly
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: felt like Casey Kasem. So for a while, One of
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: America's most famous voices had become a posthumous game of internationalism. hide-and-seek.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And the reason the story feels so surreal is the contrast.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Casey Kasem spent his life, his career, doing one thing,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: putting things in order. Number 40, number 39, This week
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: at number 38. Everything neat. Everything organized. Everything in an
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: easy-to-follow sequence. And then his own ending becomes funeral home,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: legal battle, body missing, possibly Canada, eventually Norway. Wait, what? Norway?
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: That is the least Casey Kasem ending imaginable. Yes, folks,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: several months later, the mystery ended when it was discovered
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that Casey had been buried in Oslo, Norway. Norway. Which
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: is weird because most Americans hearing this reacted the same way.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Why Norway? And look, if you told me my remains
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: ended up somewhere unexpected, I could at least follow the logic.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: But Norway? Norway? Nobody hears American radio legend and immediately thinks,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: ah yes, Oslo. Even his daughter publicly said, my father
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with Norway. Which is fair. To
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: my recollection, there were no Norwegian death metal groups who
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: ever quite cracked the U.S. Billboard Top 40. And nobody
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in the history of broadcasting built a career counting down
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: American pop hits and then spiritually ends up in Scandinavia.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Even the Norwegians were likely confused. Imagine being the cemetery
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: employee handling the paperwork. Casey Kasem? The Casey Kasem? Why
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: is he here? Honestly, Sven, we're trying to figure that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: out too. And maybe that's the strangest part of all.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Casey Kasem spent decades counting down everybody else's stories, but
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: his own final chapter turned into the most baffling countdown
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: of them all. And somehow, this is only the abbreviated version.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And somehow, the man who told America, keep your feet
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: on the ground, ended up traveling farther after death than
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: most people do alive. That is dark. That is bizarre.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: And that is exactly why this belongs on John's WTF
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Music Moments. Now, how about some suggested listening? Do you
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: want to hear more about Casey Kasem? Well, you can
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: actually listen to reruns of American Top 40 easily enough.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: SiriusXM's 70s on 7 channel plays episodes on weekends. And
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio actually has an entire channel called, you guessed it,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: classic American Top 40 devoted to it. It plays reruns
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of Casey Kasem's show 24-7. That's a bit aggressive, but whatever.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I'm John, and I'll be back soon enough with another
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: WTF Music Moment. Thank you.