Radio talk show host found guilty of murdering his wife

WOBURN - A Middlesex Superior Court jury found a former Missouri radio talk show host guilty yesterday of first-degree murder for slowly poisoning his wife by lacing Gatorade and food with antifreeze.

Shortly after the verdict, Judge Sandra Hamlin handed James Keown, 33, of Waltham, a life sentence without parole.

Before the sentence, Julie Oldag Keown's family and friends told Hamlin that after four years, they were still struggling with a death at the hands of, as one family member described, an "evil monster."

"My thoughts of the suffering Julie went through during the last weeks and especially the last days of her life, while he stood by and watched and waited, are just too much for me to bear," the victim's mother, Nancy Oldag, told the judge.

Later she added: "In my mind, James is no longer a person. He is just a mass of flesh and bones taking up space on this earth. A real person would never have done such an evil thing."

Prosecutors said Keown, who had lost his job and was in severe debt, killed his 31-year-old wife because she had a $250,000 life insurance policy.

Keown's wife, a registered nurse, started getting ill in May 2004 with symptoms that included vomiting, nausea, and slurred speech.

She was originally diagnosed with gastritis. Four months later, her kidneys showed signs of deterioration.

She was admitted to Newton-Wellesley Hospital on Sept. 4 and slipped into a coma. During that hospital stay, doctors discovered ethylene glycol, the poisonous substance found in antifreeze, in her system, and police began an investigation. The hospital gave her an antidote, but it was too late to save her life. She died Sept. 8.

"With one cruel heartless act, James has taken away so much from our family," said Holly Oldag, whose husband Chad was the victim's brother, in a victim impact statement before the judge. "My husband has lost his only sibling. I have lost a sister-in-law and a friend. My children lost their aunt who adored them."

Keown's defense team had argued that his wife poisoned herself to death. That line of defense followed that of another trial that concluded at Middlesex Superior Court last week, that of Rachel Entwistle, whose husband Neil argued that she shot their baby to death and then turned the gun on herself.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. said at a press conference that it was shameful that Keown would compound the family's misery by arguing his wife had committed suicide. He described Keown as lying and deceitful and said he was a fraud.

The jury took a day and a half to consider two-weeks of testimony before reaching a verdict.

Keown's mother, Elizabeth Keown, who sat in the courtroom while her former daughter-in-law's family read their victim impact statements, declined comment as she left the courtroom with tears in her eyes and a Bible in her hand.