LOS ANGELES, June 11 (UPI)–Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel S. Murphy ruled Wednesday Casey Kasem’s daughter, Kerri Kasem, can make medical decisions for her 82-year-old father, who is currently in a Washington hospice care facility.
Murphy’s decision reinstates Kerri’s previous conservatorship and reverses another ruling ordering doctors to continue to medicate and artificially feed the ailing former DJ.
“It would be acutely harmful for Mr. Kasem to have nutrition and hydration restored at this time,” the judge said. “This was at the advisement of doctors at St. Anthony’s.”
Kerri and two of her siblings, Julie and Mike, said they wanted to end their father’s pain. He is suffering from Lewy body dementia.
They said in a statement that Kasem would have wanted them to pull life support.
“The court’s decision today upheld our father’s explicit wishes as expressed by him in his health directive: ‘If the extension of my life would result in a mere biological existence, devoid of cognitive function, with no reasonable hope for normal functioning, then I do not desire any form of life sustaining procedures, including nutrition and hydration.'”
Murphy’s ruling marks the end of a long-running family dispute between three of Kasem’s children, their stepmother, Jean, and sibling Liberty.
Jean Casem decried the decision.
“You have blood on your hands,” she said in court.
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