Report: Casey Kasem's Remains In Montreal

Casey, Kerri Kasem

The head of a Washington state funeral home that had initial responsibility for radio personality Casey Kasem says he personally made sure his remains were put on a flight to Montreal last Monday, according to a report at therecord.com. 

Corey Gaffney, the president of Gaffney Funeral Home of Tacoma, says he confirmed the remains arrived in Montreal and media reports suggesting they have disappeared are not true.

Some U.S. media outlets quoted Kasem's daughter Kerri as saying her father's remains were missing.

In the months before his death June 15, Kasem's daughter has been embroiled in a battle with his wife of the past 34 years, Jean Kasem, over the welfare of the legendary radio star.

A death certificate filed in a Washington State court July 15 listed Montreal funeral home Urgel Bourgie as the place of disposition, and July 14 as the date of disposition.

The Montreal funeral home told The Canadian Press on Saturday it had no record of Kasem's remains as being at the facility or that they were supposed to arrive.

"What we did was made sure that Casey got to the airport, we released custody of Casey to the airline," Gaffney said in an interview Saturday night.

"The airline signed for that and acknowledged that and than at that point we returned to our office, tracked his flight to Montreal, confirmed that he had arrived, reported that to Mrs Kasem."

"When he landed in Montreal, I ceased being the funeral director in charge."

A judge granted Kerri Kasem a temporary restraining order preventing her father's wife from cremating his remains, but her lawyer told The Associated Press that when he approached the Tacoma funeral home with a copy of the restraining order, he was told it no longer had the remains.