'Wack Pack' Kallenbach

To the fans of Howard Stern's radio show, Kenneth Keith Kallenbach was among the wackiest of the so-called "Wack Pack", perhaps most memorable for attempting to blow smoke out of his eyes - only to throw up.

The 39-year-old Delaware County native also was a musician and an actor with a short resume of beer and chewing gum commercials and a bit part in a Tom Cruise movie - though his scene never made the big screen.

To his mom, Fay, Kallenbach was "a nice kid, my only kid," she said yesterday from their Boothwyn home, where she wrestled with grief over her son's death from apparent pneumonia and her anger over what she contends was his poor medical treatment while incarcerated.

Kallenbach died shortly after 7 Thursday morning in Riddle Memorial Hospital. But it was the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornbury Township that Fay Kallenbach blamed yesterday for his loss.

Her son had been in the prison awaiting trial on charges he tried to lure a young girl into his car.

Kallenbach's mother said the staff at the privately run Delaware County prison - which in 2005 was the subject of at least two inquiries into the deaths of five inmates in as many months - failed to properly treat Kallenbach's cystic fibrosis, a congenital disease that affects the lungs and other vital organs and can lead to chronic infections and premature death.

"If he had been home and gotten all of his medications, all these things he needed, he would be alive today," the retired telephone operator for Verizon said in a phone interview.

She said her son had called her from the prison about a week ago "and he told me, 'Mom, you've got to get me out of here or I don't think I'm going to make it.' "

Pablo Paez, a spokesman for The GEO Group Inc., the Boca Raton-based company that runs the prison, would only provide information on when Kallenbach was first incarcerated on March 27 and when he was transferred to Riddle.

Told of Fay Kallenbach's accusations that the prison had not properly addressed her son's medical needs, Paez said: "I can't discuss his specific medical file or treatment."

Last year, the family of a 38-year-old mentally ill Aston woman filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia alleging her death resulted in part from the prison's failure to give her medication for a thyroid condition. Cassandra "Sandy" Morgan died in Riddle Memorial Hospital on March 29, 2006, four days after lapsing into a coma at the prison, where she had been held for six weeks on shoplifting charges. Her death resulted from complications caused by hypothyroidism.

When Fay Kallenbach saw her son late Wednesday afternoon at Riddle, she said he was hooked up to a ventilator and a feeding tube and virtually unresponsive. "He just barely got his strength up to reach under the covers and take my hand," she said, her voice breaking.

She got the call the following morning from the prison doctor saying her son had died, Kallenbach said.

Kallenbach had been charged with trying to lure a child into a vehicle, harassment and attempt to kidnap or inflict injury or terror in connection with an alleged incident on March 17 in Upper Chichester. According to court records, he reached out his window and grabbed the jacket of a young girl who had been ignoring his calls, "I know your mother, she told me to pick you up." The girl then screamed, pulled away and ran for help.

Kallenbach has at least one prior conviction for driving under the influence.

Yesterday, Fay Kallenbach, a widow, tried to downplay the criminal charges that were pending against her son.

"Anybody that knows him knows that he was a good guy and that there was no way, shape or form he could be a predator," she said.

A viewing for Kallenbach will be held Tuesday from 10 to 11 a.m. at Pagano Funeral Home in Boothwyn, followed by services at the funeral home, his mother said. His body will be cremated.