Supporting claims long made by Casey Kasem’s three oldest children, a former security guard for the late radio icon says in court papers filed today that Kasem told him before he died that he wanted to be buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.
Rick Hernandez says in a sworn statement that over the years he and Kasem became “good friends” who could “talk about anything and everything.”
He says his job was to protect both the Kasem family and their home.
“One day I asked him if he believed in God or the afterlife and I recall him saying he believed in reincarnation,” Hernandez says. “So I asked him if he was planning on cremation or burial when his time was up and he said he was going to be buried at Forest Lawn.”
Hernandez’s declaration is attached to court papers filed by attorneys for Kerri, Julie and Michael Kasem, who want a Los Angeles judge to give them permission to bring their father’s body home from Oslo, Norway. Kasem’s widow, Jean Kasem, had the body transported first to Montreal, then later to Norway after Kasem’s June 15 death.
The same court papers include a copy of an email in which Stein Olay Hoble, acting manager of the headquarter cemetery administration in Norway, tells the Kasem children’s attorney that there is a “running process whether Casey Kasem shall be buried in Oslo or not, but the final decision has not been taken due to different circumstances.”
Hoble said Kasem’s body has not yet been embalmed.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Murphy named Kerri Kasem as her father’s temporary guardian in May. The former “American Top 40” host, who suffered from dementia and Lewy body disease, which has symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, was the subject of a vitriolic legal battle between his wife and her stepdaughter until his death at age 82.
