Celebrity: “Do You Know Who I Am?”

As part of Howard Stern’s on-air circus, Boothwyn’s Kenneth Keith Kallenbach achieved the cheap notoriety that now passes for fame. But with it came tabloid-type run-ins with the law — including the one that led to his sordid, mysterious death at age 39

I reached out to the Delaware County Prison to ask about Fay Kallenbach’s allegations, as well as general conditions at the facility, which has drawn scrutiny since five inmates died there in a five-month span in 2005. Families of at least two other inmates have sued the private company that runs the prison — the GEO Group of Florida, which was also recently embroiled in the Texas youth prison sexual-assault scandal. One of those families alleged that the prison’s medical unit provided a deadly overdose of blood pressure medication to a prisoner. Both the GEO Group and the county declined to comment and referred me to prison official John Riley, who told me that “ethically” he could not discuss anything related to the prison due to potential litigation. When I reminded him that everyone else affiliated with the prison had also declined comment, he grew irate and accused me of being a puppet of Fay Kallenbach and her attorney. (For the record, I have never met or spoken to Fay’s attorney.)

AND SO WHAT precisely happened at that intersection in Boothwyn that March afternoon? What precisely were the allegations that led to Kenneth Keith Kallenbach’s demise?

Some insight could be gleaned from inside a courtroom in Media on April 15th, just over a week before Kenneth Keith Kallenbach’s death, when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania held a preliminary hearing to present its case against him and request that an additional charge of attempted kidnapping be lodged. Fay says her son shuffled into the courtroom in shackles, a shadow of his former self; she says he appeared catatonic, and did not acknowledge her when she reached for his arm and spoke to him as he passed by. Michelle Stranen, an intern from the Delaware County D.A.’s office, represented the state, and spent a total of four minutes questioning her only witness, Kallenbach’s accuser. As it turned out, it wasn’t the girl’s first time in a courtroom; in the past few years, starting at age 12, she’d been convicted of disorderly conduct, harassment and repeated curfew violations. On the stand, the girl — who claims on her MySpace page to be 18; the page carries the headline “BABY IM BAD NEWS,” along with the Playboy insignia — wore a black faux-fur-rimmed jacket. She appeared nervous.

The girl repeated her earlier claim that Kallenbach first honked at her, then turned around, then got out of his car. But this time she said nothing about Kallenbach invoking her mother as his friend. And she said outright that he’d never actually grabbed her jacket, just had reached for her; he “never got to touch me,” she said. Stranen nevertheless wondered, “Uh, while this individual was driving past you and got out of his car, um, how were you emotionally?”

Kallenbach’s attorney objected: “How was she emotionally? First of all, I don’t understand the question, and second, I don’t know how it’s relevant.”

Stranen reworded: “Um, were you at any time, um, in fear of your life?”

Girl: “Yeah.”

Stranen: “And when was that?”

Girl: “When he got out of the car.”

Stranen: “No further questions.”    

During cross-examination, Kallenbach’s lawyer asked her to elaborate on what happened.

Girl: “[H]e just got out of the car, and said, ‘Come on, come on, you need a ride?’ And I was like, ‘No, get out of here ta — he, and I was, his car, I was walking, he was here like, leaning over the trunk of like, the r — hood of the car. … He didn’t get out and walk all the way around, like he was standing on the side of his car where he could reach over and grab me.”

After less than 15 minutes of testimony from one witness, the judge upheld all the charges, including attempted kidnapping.

And that was that.

Escorted by sheriff’s officers, Kenneth Keith Kallenbach — the Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, Come on now, you know who he is!, the average Joe from Boothwyn who’d made it big on Howard Stern, who could eat his own hair, drop dynamite down his pants, blow smoke from his eye socket, for God’s sake! — shuffled back to his prison cell, and into infamy.