Kelsey Grammer's Sister Was Murdered 50 Years Ago at Just 18 Years Old

Content warning: This article contains mentions of sexual abuse and murder.

Years before he was making a name for himself as Frasier Crane on Cheers, Kelsey Grammer's family was in the news for reasons that were far less positive. Kelsey's sister, Karen, was murdered in 1975, and many want to know more about who committed the murder and what happened to her.

Although Kelsey has had plenty of professional success in the years since his sister's death, it's clear that the event is still something he thinks about often. Here's what we know about what happened to Karen

Kelsey's sister was murdered at just 18 years old by Freddie Glenn who, along with his accomplice Michael Corbett, killed between three and five women in and around Colorado Springs in 1975. Karen was the most well-known of these murder victims and was also the final one. Karen was working at a Red Lobster in the area when Glenn and Corbett decided to rob the store along with two other men. They were worried that Karen would be able to identify them, and so they kidnapped her.

After they robbed a convenience store, they took Karen to the apartment they shared and raped her repeatedly. They then promised to take her home but instead took her to a mobile home park where Glenn, who had taken LSD, stabbed her in the neck, back, and hand and left her to die. She tried to reach a nearby home, but the residents were not at home, and she died outside their house.

Her body went unidentified for a week until her roommate called to report her missing. Glenn was convicted for killing Grammer and two other girls and sentenced to three life sentences. He became eligible for parole in 2006. Corbett was in prison until his death in 2019.

All these years later, Kelsey says that his sister's death still has an impact on him.

In Karen: A Brother Remembers, Kelsey is reflecting on his sister's death 50 years later. "The grief was so enormous. I don't blame anybody for grieving to that extent, I get it," he told Newsweek. "There is a personal, human cost struggle that is forever. From the moment that happens, it's forever. So I think that one of the goals of the book would be to actually extend the hand of love to everybody that's felt the same way, who will spend the rest of their lives remarking on it."

Kelsey also said that while the grief he feels will never go away, writing the book helped him "let the grief roll back just enough to be able to remember her story is my story, and that our love that we had is forever, and that's been great."

Karen's death likely had a profound impact on Kelsey's entire life in ways that he understands and some that he may not. It was undoubtedly a tragedy, and this memoir will hopefully help him reckon with it.