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The millionaire, model, and gun

Fred Keller's wife was about to get half of his hard-earned estate with their divorce. Now he's accused of murder.

By TAMARA LUSH
Published February 9, 2005

[Family photo] Fred and Rose Keller had one child together, Fredchen. The first years of the Kellers' marriage were happy.
[Palm Beach Post: Lannis Waters] Fred Keller, 70, confers with his lawyers, Doug Duncan, left, and Thomas Gano, during his trial. Keller is charged with first-degree murder. Keller said he shot his gun in self-defense when he mistook Keil's cell phone for a gun.
	During testimony, Wolfgang Keil describes the shooting that killed his sister, Rose, and wounded him and Fred Keller. [Palm Beach Post: Lannis Waters]

PALM BEACH - Fred Keller was a nobody when he arrived here in 1957.

A poor, German immigrant, he worked construction and dreamed of money. He saw what he wanted from the edge of Lake Worth: oceanfront mansions, immaculate lawns, endless wealth.

"I vowed that one day, I would be living in Palm Beach," Keller, now 70, recalled.

Commercial real estate made his dream come true. The aging Keller wound up with a waterfront mansion and a $72-million net worth.

But there was one thing he didn't have: a companion. Four marriages had ended in divorce.

He wanted, he said, a woman with good "bloodlines." So he ran an ad in a German magazine. "Millionaire seeks slim, attractive playmate to share a lifestyle of the rich and famous," it read.

Rose Keil, a 23-year-old German model with flowing red locks, responded. They quickly married and had one son, a towheaded boy named Fredchen.

Keller did not flout his wealth. He drove a used car, avoided charity balls, wore the same pair of shoes for years. No country club scene for him.

Nobody thought twice about his twentysomething wife. "I thought it was just an older man who married a younger woman," said Julie Kemble, a family acquaintance. "It's a pretty typical scenario around here."

But when Rose demanded a piece of her husband's business empire, Keller balked. After eight years of marriage, she filed for divorce.

She won half of Keller's estate. The couple agreed to settle some details at his office on the morning of Nov. 10, 2003.

The meeting ended with gun shots and Rose bleeding to death on the floor. Keller was charged with first-degree murder.

For the past three weeks, Keller has sat in a courtroom fighting for his freedom. Out the window of the courthouse high above Palm Beach, he could glimpse all he had once dreamed off: the mansions, the glittering ocean, the wealth.

It would be up to a jury to decide if Keller plotted to kill his wife or if, as he claimed, it was a horrible accident.

The jurors didn't hear much about Keller's rise to wealth or the bizarre twists and turns of his life.

Nothing about the three-year divorce case that ate up more than $2-million in legal fees. Or the psychological report that Keller had "sociopathic tendencies" and a "narcissistic personality."

They did not see his unfinished autobiography, which portrayed an eccentric man bent on gaining the wealth he never had as a child.

Born in America in 1932 to German immigrants, Keller moved back to Germany with his family at the start of World War II. His father joined the SS, but near the war's end he defected to the Allies. The family traded a comfortable life in Germany for Long Island.

Keller was unimpressed with his new home. His father was a poor woodworker. The family home lacked plumbing or a refrigerator.

Keller was class conscious, even then.

"Mary Jo Kennedy and Carleen Ericson lived on my bus route," he wrote in his autobiography. "Mary Jo was Catholic and Carleen was of Swedish background. ... Mary Jo was prettier but genetically inferior to my standards."

Keller graduated from high school, joined the Army and fought in Korea. After the war, he bounced around construction jobs, dropped out of college and married a woman named Blanche, who had a 3-year-old son by a previous relationship. Blanche, he wrote, was "good breeding stock for a future family." He adopted her son, and they had one son together.

When the marriage deteriorated, Keller took the children and headed to San Francisco. He told the boys and anyone who asked that their mother had died in a car crash.

Eventually, the couple reunited and had another son. When Blanche filed for divorce two years later, Keller took the boys to Europe. Keller eventually bought a home with his parents in Washington, D.C.

The adopted son would later testify that Keller beat him severely during his entire childhood. Blanche accused him of abuse, too.

None of that stopped Keller from his goal of becoming rich, buying and selling commercial real estate in the Washington area. He stayed in the business after moving to Palm Beach in 1984.

And he didn't care who he crossed. He sued an ex-girlfriend for not repaying a $2,000 loan and was sued by his son over a real estate deal. In the Palm Beach County courthouse, Keller filed dozens and dozens of lawsuits, mostly evictions and small claims cases.

"In looking back on my life there are, of course, things I would do differently," Keller wrote.

Shortly after Rose arrived from Germany in 1992, Keller was diagnosed with leukemia. Thinking he didn't have long to live, Keller had a vasectomy reversed so he could try to have a son. Keller's leukemia went into remission, and the first years of his marriage with Rose were lovely.

Together, they bought a 10,000-square-foot home on the north end of Palm Beach and expanded his commercial and industrial real estate holdings.

They brought Rose's brother, Wolfgang Keil, to the United States, put him through college and gave him a job.

Keller drove a 1986 Cadillac; Rose tooled around in a used minivan.

Yet the willowy redheaded girl who spoke no English soon grew into a self-assured American woman.

Rose wanted to be co-owner of her husband's 35 commercial properties. Eight years of marriage soon crumbled. Rose filed for divorce in 2000, telling a judge her husband was controlling and abusive.

"I know this man is dangerous and he will get rid of me," she wrote.

Keller moved out of the family home and into a million-dollar condo he bought on Worth Avenue, just steps from the Fendi boutique and the Atlantic Ocean.

On Oct. 30, 2003, a judge declared the couple's prenuptial agreement invalid and awarded Rose half of Keller's estate.

All that was left was to settle some details. Ten days after the judge's ruling, the couple met around a conference table at Keller's office.

Keller sat on one side of the table, Wolfgang Keil on the other. Rose sat at the head.

In a flash, shooting broke out.

The trial began Jan. 20 and drew a shifting cast of curious spectators. A gaggle of old men from a Palm Beach country club showed up. Judges from other courtrooms popped in to listen to Keller's testimony. An ex-girlfriend of Keller's sat in a back row and noted that Keller was wearing the same tan leather Naturalizer shoes he wore 15 years ago.

Keller was pale and thin, his balding scalp marked with age spots, his silver beard scraggly. He wore a simple blue blazer, dark pants and open oxford shirts.

The prosecutors suggested this was a slam-dunk case: Keller had a motive, and there was no doubt whose gun killed Rose. They said Keller started carrying a .38-special in his briefcase just days after the divorce decree.

But jurors heard two different versions of what happened in Keller's office that day.

Wolfgang Keil testified that he was reviewing paperwork when Keller shot him in the chest and then shot Rose in the neck. The two wrestled for the gun, Keil said. Keller shot Keil again before Keil finally took the gun away and shot Keller, Keil said.

Keller was grazed in the cheek.

Rose was bleeding to death. "I went down and tried to hold the blood back," Keil said.

The defense presented a very different story. Keller, his lawyer said, was carrying the gun because he was afraid of Rose, who had threatened to shoot his employees. He had no motive to kill her because he was still rich even after the divorce, his lawyers said.

Keller said he shot Keil in self-defense after Keil pulled out a black object he mistook for a gun; it turned out to be Keil's cell phone. Keller said Keil then grabbed for Keller's gun and that he and Rose were shot during the struggle.

"I never intended to shoot anyone," Keller said.

The jury got the case Feb. 2 and everyone waited. And waited.

Monday afternoon, the jurors announced they were deadlocked. The judge declared a mistrial.

Keller smiled. Wolfgang Keil shook his head.

Some jurors told reporters that they believed Keller when he said that it was all an accident. Prosecutors said they will retry Keller within 90 days.

Keller returned to jail, where he has spent the past year. Both of his adult biological sons have died of cancer. His business is in the hands of an employee. His youngest son is staying with Rose's sister. Keller said he has written several letters to Fredchen.

He has gotten no reply.

"He hoped it would be an acquittal and he would be going home today," defense attorney Doug Duncan said in a hallway outside the courtroom.

Behind him, a row of windows looked out on Palm Beach island. A sailboat glided past a mansion and the ocean sparkled.

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Tamara Lush can be reached at (727) 893-8612.

[Last modified February 9, 2005, 00:45:08]