Palm Beach divorce suddenly fatal, millionaire kills wife
Patty
By Robert P. King, Bill Douthat and Connie Piloto,
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
RIVIERA BEACH -- The death that Rosemarie Keller had long foretold became reality in a
series of gunshots Monday morning -- the bitter aftermath of a Palm Beach divorce and a
fight over a $60 million commercial real estate fortune.
Keller, 34, died in an 8:40 a.m. shooting that also wounded her former husband, Fred
Keller, 69, and her brother, Wolfgang Keil, 31.
The attacks occurred in Fred Keller's business offices at 6758 N. Military Trail, where
the three were supposed to discuss the spliting of the couple's assets, Palm Beach County
sheriff's deputies said.
Fred Keller will be charged with first-degree and attempted first-degree murder and
possibly other charges, sheriff's spokeswoman Diane Carhart said.
But Rosemarie Keller had warned for years that her husband of 11 years was an abuser who
would wind up killing her.
"I know this man is dangerous and he will get rid of me," Rosemarie wrote in court papers
in August 2000, adding that he had threatened her life "on more than one occasion."
She asked Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Mary Lupo three years ago to issue a
restraining order against her then-husband, but Lupo denied the request, ruling that
Rosemarie Keller was not in imminent danger.
The judge also said she suspected the wife of using the accusations to "get a leg up" in
the upcoming divorce.
In court filings, Rosemarie Keller wrote that her husband had showed her a grave site at
their Rose Mountain Farm in Virginia, telling her it would be her final resting place.
She said he wanted to take out a $21 million insurance policy on her life.
She filed court documents accusing Fred Keller of emotionally abusing their 8-year-old
son, Fred L. Keller, by refusing to let him go to the bathroom at night for instance.
She said she was a victim of emotional abuse, as well.
"He says I'm trash because I put nail polish on my toes," Rosemarie Keller said.
Fred Keller, who has been married five times, has a history of taking extreme actions to
evade the consequences of divorce proceedings, tormenting the lives of those closest to
him.
In 1961, he kidnapped his two sons and a stepson during a custody dispute with a former
wife, changing his boys' names and telling them falsely that their mother had died.
"There is nothing calm about Mr. Keller," Rosemarie Keller's attorney, Martin Haines, said
Monday.
Husband makes accusation
Fred Keller made his own accusations of violence Sunday, when he sent Riviera Beach police
a fax saying he thought his ex-wife was going to kill him, according to a source close to
the case.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities won't immediately release
the fax because it is part of the investigation.
Keil and Fred Keller were taken to St. Mary's Medical Center with at least one gunshot
wound apiece.
Authorities called Fred Keller's injuries non-life-threatening, but court papers say he
suffers from advanced leukemia and has an estimated 2 1/2 years left to live.
Keil was in serious condition, deputies reported.
The couple married in 1992 when Rosemarie was 23 and Fred was 57.
After she filed for divorce in August 2000, he accused her of taking advantage of his ill
health to grab for an increasing share of his holdings.
Those assets include homes, businesses, farms and vacant land in Florida, Virginia and
Germany.
Among them are a home at 1480 N. Lake Way in Palm Beach, valued at $3.6 million, and a
condominium at 100 Worth Ave. that he bought for $1.1 million.
"After the effects of his advancing age began to become apparent and his health started to
fail due to his advancing leukemia, the wife decided to file for divorce and make a claim
for one-half of everything that he worked his entire life to acquire," his attorneys
wrote.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Kathleen Kroll rebuked Fred Keller's handling of the case
in issuing the divorce decree Oct. 30, accusing him of taking "fraudulent actions" that
dragged out the suit.
As part of the divorce, Keller was supposed to pay his ex-wife $8,659 per month in child
support starting Saturday.
Rosemarie Keller also won a 50-50 split of the marital assets, which were estimated to be
upward of $60 million.
That was despite a prenuptial agreement, which the German-born wife challenged on the
grounds that she didn't fully understand English.
Kroll found both Kellers in contempt of court for various actions during the divorce.
Fred Keller's chauffeur and personal assistant, Roy Bourgault, said Monday that the
husband spent $3 million to $4 million in legal bills during the divorce fight.
"They had been fighting over assets," Bourgault said.
He said Keller was upset "about giving her 50 percent when they had only been married 10
years."
But Bourgault said his boss did not mention the upcoming meeting with his wife Monday
morning, when the chauffeur drove him to work in his silver-gray Cadillac DeVille
Concours.
Keil and the Kellers met Monday at the Keller Trust Co.'s offices in Fairfax Center, a
plaza Fred Keller owns.
They entered his rear office and closed the door, Bourgault said.
Bourgault said he went to his office down the hall, and an unidentified man who was with
Rosemarie Keller went to a bathroom.
Then shots rang out.
Bourgault said he ran out a back door, found a business that was open and dialed 911.
Haines said Rosemarie Keller and her brother probably did not expect a confrontation when
they went to the office Monday.
He said Rosemarie Keller went there because the divorce judgment granted her
half-ownership in the business.
Estrangements and lies
Despite his wealth, Fred Keller's personal life has been riddled with estrangement.
Brian, the stepson he kidnapped 42 years ago, ended up retaking his original last name,
Bohlander, and for a time turned to drugs, he told The Palm Beach Post in 1999.
Paul Keller, another of the kidnapped boys, worked for a time for his father's development
company, but the two broke in a bitter split. He died in 2001.
The third kidnapped son, Eric, had no comment when reached Monday in Virginia.
After kidnapping those boys, Keller told them a series of outrageous falsehoods for nine
years: that their mother had died in a car crash, that he was a three-sports athlete in
college, that he won a Purple Heart in Korea, and that he had been born in Germany before
his parents fled the Nazis.
When ex-wife Blanch Bohlander finally found her sons nine years later, Keller told them
she was a neglectful mother who didn't love them.
Despite his deceptions, it took Fred Keller just two days to get custody of the boys in
exchange for two $5,000 payments. He never faced charges.
Rosemarie Keller cited that history in her court papers, saying she feared a similar fate
for their son.
"The husband has threatened to do the same thing again with the minor child of this
marriage," she wrote.
Even so, Haines said he never expected their dealings to turn violent.
"Maybe I'm naive, but it's hard for me to believe that much venom exists in a walking
human being," he said.
