husband poisoned wife, had double life
 

By Thomas Caywood, Brian Ballou and Jennifer Roy/ Boston Herald and Daily News Tribune
Tuesday, November 8, 2005

A Waltham woman’s murder has exposed a former Bay State man’s apparent shocking double life – one in the public eye as a popular radio talk-show host and the other as a cruel recluse accused of slowly poisoning his wife for her insurance money.
 

    Massachusetts authorities say James Keown, 31, coldly murdered his 34-year-old wife, Julie, for a six-figure life insurance payout by poisoning her Gatorade with antifreeze for months while the couple lived in Waltham last year.

    But in central Missouri, the popular young radio personality boasted a taste for fine dining and hobnobbing with politicos. In breezy entries in an online journal, Keown chronicles his on-the-go life in Jefferson City, even dining with the mayor and a host of other big names last Thursday night.
 

    In Waltham, Keown is alleged to have blown the couple’s savings, then lied about attending Harvard Business School so he could get his wife away from family in Missouri. Prosecutors said he watched as his spouse of eight years slowly sickened and died from May to September last year.
 

    “They were the strangest neighbors,” recalled Debbie Singleton of Waltham. “I never saw those people leave the house in the whole time they lived here. I thought that was very strange.”
 

    The couple’s aloofness stood out on the friendly street, she said.
 

    In Jefferson City, Keown’s friends and co-workers described him as a smooth talker who floated comfortably among important people.
 

     “He knew all kinds of people and was just outstanding at making friends,” said David Nievens, who recently started a technology segment on Keown’s twice-daily talk-radio show “Party Line.”
 

    Keown was arrested yesterday morning during a commercial break and charged with first-degree murder. He is expected in Middlesex Superior Court Thursday.
 

    Julie Keown, a nurse, had a $250,000 life-insurance policy that her husband was blocked from pocketing because her death in September 2004 was deemed suspicious, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said.
 

    An autopsy revealed she had ingested a lethal dose of ethylene glycol, a toxic chemical commonly found in antifreeze.
 

     Coakley said Julie Keown’s parents, who live in Missouri, went to Waltham police the day before their daughter’s death because they suspected she had been poisoned. It took over a year to arrest Keown, Coakley added, because the case was largely circumstantial and required precise scientific work by the state Medical Examiner’s Office.
 

    Keown told his wife and his employer he was taking classes at Harvard Business School, but actually enrolled in a computer course at Harvard Extension School that he flunked.
 

    Both Keowns worked from home while they lived in Massachusetts. Sources told the Herald he was hired last year by Boston talk station WRKO (680-AM) as a Web consultant, but never showed up for work.
 

    He had depleted the couple’s bank account in the months prior to his wife’s death, Coakley said.
 

    Nievens said he spotted Keown two weeks ago at a college football game. “He was just sitting there watching the game with his girlfriend from St. Louis. They looked to be happy.”