Hey, Scott, did you ever listen to this guy?
Radio host is arrested on air in wife's death
Poisoning alleged in Waltham case
By Jonathan Saltzman and Adrienne P. Samuels, Globe Staff | November 8, 2005
In the spring of 2004, Julie Keown began suffering odd symptoms, including vomiting, nausea, slurred speech, and a rash on her leg. But doctors could not pinpoint the cause, and the following September, after her kidneys began failing, the 31-year-old registered nurse slipped into a coma at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and died.
Yesterday, after a 14-month investigation by Massachusetts detectives and the state Medical Examiner's Office, Keown's husband James was arrested at a Missouri radio station shortly after he had gone on the air with his political talk show. Police charged him with fatally poisoning his wife by pouring antifreeze in her Gatorade over several months.
Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said James Keown murdered his wife in Waltham in an attempt to collect on a $250,000 life insurance policy. Julie Keown was unaware that the couple were debt-ridden, Coakley said, and that her debilitating symptoms stemmed from anything but natural causes.
''She thought she had a gastric illness," Coakley said at a news conference. ''It was pretty clear she did not understand what was happening to her."
The couple, who had been married eight years and were childless, had moved from Kansas City, Mo., to Waltham in January 2004 in what Coakley described as an effort by James Keown to isolate his wife from her family. He was working as a web designer for a nonprofit Kansas City-based educational consulting agency and had persuaded his employer to let him telecommute because, he told the company and his wife, he had been admitted to Harvard Business School.
That, too, was a deception, Coakley said. Keown took a course, but it was at the Harvard Extension School, and he flunked, she said.
Julie Keown's parents became deeply concerned when she became ill. As she lay in a coma, they contacted Waltham police to say they suspected she had been poisoned, although they never blamed their son-in-law, said the district attorney. Julie Keown died the next day.
Her husband never collected the money from her insurance policy because the death was under investigation.
He was arrested yesterday morning, shortly after he had gone on the air to host his talk show, ''Party Line," on KLIK-AM in Jefferson City, according to Scott Boltz, marketing manager for Cumulus Broadcasting, which owns the station.
''I'm shocked," Boltz said of the allegations. ''It's pretty devastating. He has a lot of friends here."
Boltz said Keown -- who told people he had done stints at ESPN -- has worked at the station in his hometown for about a year and had become so popular that last week he began hosting two hours in the afternoon.
''The guy is personable beyond belief," Boltz said. ''He knew no strangers."
After his arrest, Keown, who was indicted by a Middlesex grand jury last Thursday, waived rendition at a Cole County Circuit Court in Missouri, according to Emily LaGrassa, a spokeswoman for Coakley. He is expected to be arraigned in a Middlesex County court later this week.
A Jefferson City woman who identified herself as his mother declined to comment when a reporter called her home last night.
Relatives of Julie Keown, whose maiden name was Oldag, did not return calls to their homes in Missouri.
Deborah Singleton, who lives next door to the house at 52 School St. in Waltham where the couple lived for about nine months, said she realized Keown was suspected of murdering his wife when detectives questioned her shortly after Julie Keown died.
Singleton told a reporter she had only seen the couple three times since they moved in, the last time when Julie Keown was taken by ambulance to the hospital, four days before she died.
''My bedroom is in the back of the house, maybe 12 feet from their house," she said. ''I never heard a noise."
As Coakley described it, James Keown moved to Massachusetts while working for the Learning Exchange. His wife persuaded her employer -- Cerner, a Kansas City-based health care information technology company -- to approve a telecommute arrangement similar to her husband's, Coakley said.
In May, Julie Keown began suffering symptoms that doctors initially thought might be gastritis. She was hospitalized at Newton-Wellesley for four days in late August, but began feeling better, Coakley said. But on Sept. 4, she went back to the hospital. The following day, after she had slipped into a coma, hospital workers detected ethylene glycol, the poisonous substance found in antifreeze, in her system and began giving her an antidote.
Two days later, Julie Keown's parents told the police they suspected she had been deliberately poisoned, Coakley said. The same day, hospital officials called Waltham police to report a suspected poisoning, and State Police and the district attorney opened an investigation.
On Sept. 8, Keown died. The state medical examiner's office conducted an autopsy, Coakley said, but the office did not rule on the manner and cause of death until recently, in part because officials needed the results of toxicological tests.
Coakley said James Keown chose Gatorade to lace because ethylene glycol is a syrupy substance that is sweet to the taste and is concealable in the sports drink. His wife drank lots of it because she wanted to replace minerals she was losing as a result of vomiting, Coakley said.
Alfred Aleguas, clinical manager with the Regional Center for Poison Control and Prevention serving Massachusetts and Rhode Island, said long-term consumption of ethylene glycol can cause organ failure.
''Ethylene glycol by itself is not poisonous, but it metabolizes to some very poisonous acids," Aleguas said. ''People that drink ethylene glycol initially appear intoxicated, and they can have slurred speech, difficulty walking, and glassy eyes."
Singleton, the Keowns's former neighbor, yesterday recalled James Keown's response last fall when she expressed sympathy after his wife's death.
Keown ''told me that they were testing, trying to test all her fluids," Singleton said. ''He said it'd take some time to determine her cause of death. He said it was very shocking and that he didn't know whether he was going to go back home or whether he was going to stay here. He was leaning toward going home."
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at
jsaltzman@globe.com.
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