Victim: Karen Elisa Grammer
Death: July 1, 1975, Colorado Springs
Details
From the letter written by Kelsey Grammar about his sister’s murder:
“She was so smart and good and decent. She wrote poetry and loved being alive; we could laugh for hours together, she had the greatest smile. She was my best friend and the best person I knew. She had
so much to live for. I loved my sister, Karen. I miss her. I miss her in my
bones. I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her — I could not. I have never gotten over it. I was supposed to save her. I could not. It very nearly destroyed me. I knew it destroyed my Grandmother, who spoke very little after Karen’s death and died three years later. My Mother was broken by it. She continued to live her life with a grief that colored her remaining years…
“Forgiveness allows me to live my life. It allows me to love my
children and my wife and the days I have left with them. But I can never escape the horror of what happened to my sister. I can never accept the notion that he can pay for that nightmare with anything less than his life. We all make choices. He made his. Surely a man who has killed so many must never take a single breath as a free man…
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In 1975, Kelsey Grammer’s younger sister, Karen, was raped, beaten and stabbed to death by a man named Freddie Glenn, 18, after a botched robbery in Colorado. Glenn is currently serving his sentence at the Bent County Correctional Facility in Las Animas, Colorado and is eligible for parole this year.According to published reports, in 1975, Glenn and several other men attempted to rob a Red Lobster restaurant in Colorado Springs. They left without any money, but on the way out they grabbed Karen Grammer, 18, who worked at the restaurant, because they feared she could identify them. After robbing a convenience store, the men took Grammer to Glenn’s apartment, where they raped her repeatedly. She pleaded for her life and offered to do anything they wanted so she could live. After promising to take her home, the men sat her in the car, put a cloth over her head and eventually let her out in a mobile home park. But before they let her go, Glenn, who according to court testimony had taken LSD, stabbed her in the throat, back and hand. Grammer bled to death from her wounds.Police didn’t know her name for a week until her brother, Kelsey, reported her missing.Glenn was up for parole and Kelsey Grammer tried to attend the hearing but was delayed due to weather. Freddie Glenn who was given a life sentence for first degree murder, was denied parole.
Other news coverage: http://www.contactmusic.com/news/kelsey-grammer-haunted-by-sisters-murder_1251169 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/27/kelsey-grammers-sisters-k_n_245742.html http://www.gazette.com/articles/sister-59173-grammer-kelsey.html |
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Sources: http://www.dailystab.com
Kelsey Grammer sister Karen
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Killer of Kelsey Grammer’s sister denied parole
By P. SOLOMON BANDA (AP) – DENVER — A man convicted of killing the sister of Kelsey Grammer and two other people more than three decades ago was denied parole Monday after the prison board heard a written statement from Grammer calling the man a butcher and a monster.The Colorado Parole Board also heard from other relatives of the victims and from detectives before deciding not to release the now 52-year-old Freddie Glenn.”This is a butcher. This is a monster,” said the statement from the star of TV’s “Frasier.” “I can never accept the notion that he can pay for the nightmare with anything less than his life.”Grammer had planned to attend the hearing at a state prison in Limon, about 90 miles southeast of Denver, but a rain delay at Kennedy International Airport in New York caused him to miss a connecting flight.Glenn is serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of Karen Grammer in 1975 when she was 18. She was abducted outside a Colorado Springs restaurant, raped and stabbed on July 1.In addition to that slaying, Glenn was convicted of the June 19, 1975 slaying of 28-year-old motel cook Daniel Van Lone during a botched robbery, and the June 27, 1975, slaying of 19-year-old Army soldier Winfred Proffitt during a drug deal.Glenn had been given the death penalty but that sentence was commuted in 1978 to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Colorado law no longer allows parole in life sentences for first-degree murder, but Glenn was convicted before that law was changed.During the hearing, Glenn downplayed his role in the slayings and told the board, “I apologize for my participation in something so terrible. I am sincerely and truly remorseful,” the Denver Post reported.In his statement, Grammer said his sister had graduated from high school a year early and decided to take a year off after attending a semester of college. Grammer said she may have moved to Colorado Springs because of a boy she liked.”She was so smart and good and decent. She wrote poetry … We could laugh for hours together,” Grammer wrote. “I was supposed to protect her — I could not. It very nearly destroyed me… When we heard this man might be paroled, the suffering began anew.”Glenn will be eligible for parole again in 2014. As Grammer told PARADE, his sister’s death was the catalyst that fueled his drug and alcohol addictions. |
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