In his latest memoir, Kelsey Grammer courageously shares the heartbreaking story of his sister’s murder back in 1975. His goal in opening up about this tragic event is to offer support and comfort to those who are also dealing with loss and grief.
Through his book, Karen: A Brother Remembers, the veteran actor delves into the deep impact that his sister’s death has had on his own life. This devastating incident added to the already heavy burden of grief that Grammer had been carrying since the fatal shooting of his father in 1968.
At the young age of 19, Karen fell victim to a brutal rape and stabbing at the hands of a man and his accomplices while she was in Colorado. The senseless killing was part of a rampage carried out by the perpetrators, leaving Grammer and his family to cope with an unimaginable loss.
Grammer, who has previously said he forgives his sister’s killer, admits that the pain of losing Karen sent him spiraling into years of cocaine and alcohol addiction.
Now, he’s confronting that darkness head-on in hopes his story can offer solace to others.
‘For a long time, the grief was so dominant that I couldn’t access happiness,’ he told People on Friday. ‘The book helped me get to a new place with that.’
Grammer opens the book by reflecting on his and Karen’s turbulent childhood, shaped by their parents’ 1957 divorce.
As young children, they moved with their mother from St. Thomas to New Jersey, while their father stayed behind.
A decade later, in 1968, their father was tragically shot and killed by a taxi driver during racial unrest — a killing later ruled the act of someone found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Karen’s tragic death came shortly after she relocated to Colorado Springs in 1975 to join her boyfriend following a semester in Georgia.
Her last conversation with Kelsey was on June 30th, when she told him she planned to come home after the Fourth of July.
When he didn’t hear from her again, Kelsey contacted the police.
Grammer would later learn that just hours after their final conversation, Karen had gone to the Red Lobster where she worked around 11 p.m. to wait for a friend finishing their shift.
That night, Freddie Glenn and two accomplices were plotting to rob the restaurant — but when they arrived behind the building, they noticed Karen outside.
Pointing a gun at her, they ordered her to come with them. ‘For what?’ Karen responded, according to Grammer’s account of the police report.
The men forced Karen into Glenn’s car, leaving her there while they entered the Red Lobster. Ultimately, they abandoned the robbery, returning to the car to find Karen tied up beside Glenn.
The nightmare didn’t end there. The group drove Karen to one of their apartments, where they brutally raped her.
Later, they took her to a secluded alley, where Glenn stabbed her 42 times, nearly severing her head.
With heartbreaking detail, Grammer shares in the book that Karen, in her final moments, tried to crawl for help — a scene he recounts in an excerpt shared with People.
‘In my imaginings, the man who found Karen at his doorstep was a ‘good Samaritan’ of sorts,’ he wrote.
‘I stand corrected and disappointed that that man did not attempt to help her but simply called the police after leaving her body as it lay…eyes vacant, staring at the sky, her legs still on the steps, her head on the ground and a clenched fist above her head with a single finger pointing — somewhere or nowhere — just pointing.’
He continued, ‘She had fallen backward from the trailer door after knocking for help. It was her last hope and disappointment after crawling 400 feet from the place where she had been stabbed.
‘Bloody fingerprints mark the trail of her final moments at exactly 3’6” along the office and walls of the trailer park. She had been on her knees, crawling her way. Seeking help with her last ounce of life.
‘The coroner noted that through a gaping wound in her neck, he could see all the way into Karen’s lung. I had been right in saying he almost decapitated her. Freddie Glenn punched holes in my sister’s body with unimaginable brutality. There were defensive wounds on her hands.
What I had hoped were a final, few moments of kindness from some stranger, were nothing of the sort.’
Glenn was found guilty of murdering Karen, along with several others in the area, and is now serving a life sentence behind bars. He’s been denied parole four times, with his next chance coming up in 2027.
‘His protestations these days are like, “Well, I don’t remember raping her,”‘ Grammer told People. ‘Bulls—.’
Although Grammer has expressed forgiveness toward Glenn in the past, he makes it clear that doesn’t erase accountability.
‘You don’t want to eat yourself to pieces because you can’t forgive somebody,’ he explained. ‘But it’s hard to forgive a person who consciously decided they wanted to murder somebody you love. This wasn’t just some temperance issue with him. It was deliberate. I can give you forgiveness, but you’re not going to get out of paying for it.’
After Karen’s murder, the tragedies continued for Grammer.
In 1980, his half-brothers Billy and Stephen were killed in what’s believed to have been a shark attack while scuba diving in the Virgin Islands.
Billy’s body was never recovered, while Stephen’s was found washed ashore.
In his memoir, Grammer talks about the legacy of loss in his family.
‘There’s a legacy of early death in my family, which is really interesting,’ he wrote, per People. ‘I pray to break that cycle and give my family longevity.’
Grammer shared the completed book with his wife, Kayte Walsh, who was supportive throughout the process.
‘She said, “I’ve missed you,”‘ he recalled to People. ‘I had to step away for a while — there were hours on end when I would just be staring off.
‘But she was patient and loving through it. Writing this brought back some of the joy I had lost.’
More than just revisiting the tragedy, Grammer’s memoir seeks to honor Karen’s memory beyond her violent death.
He describes his sister as a free spirit — joyful, loving, and full of life.
‘I wanted to breathe life into her and welcome her into the world,’ he explained. ‘We were Kelsey and Karen, brother and sister.’
Karen: A Brother Remembers will be released on May 6.
