Kelsey Grammer's Father Was Murdered After He Confronted 'Insane' Killer Who Set Car on Fire Years Before Actor's Sister Was Stabbed to Death — 'A Big Dose of Tragic Loss'
Kelsey Grammer's family has been buried in tragedy for years.
May 6 2025, Published 1:45 p.m. ET
Kelsey Grammer's family has been plagued with nothing but tragedy, including the brutal murders of his father and younger sister.
Years before the Cheers alum's sister, Karen, was murdered, his dad, Frank, met a heartbreaking demise in front of his own home, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The actor's family has seen plenty of heartbreak and devastation.
In 1968, when Kelsey was just 13 years old, his dad's car was set on fire in the family's driveway. When Frank, 39 years old at the time, went out to investigate and confront the person behind the fire, he was shot twice by an “anti-white” man named Arthur Bevan Niles, as part of an almost month-long frenzy of racially motivated violence.
Less than 10 hours following the brazen crime, police arrested Niles, 29, a taxi driver, and charged him with the murder. He was also charged with arson.
However, Niles was found not guilty due to insanity and spent years at a mandated psychiatric care.
Years before his sister Karen's murder, Kelsey's father was shot and killed in front of their home.
That was not the end of the family's horror, as seven years after Frank's death, Kelsey's 18-year-old sister was also murdered.
In 1975 – hours after Kelsey had spoken to Karen – she went to her job at Red Lobster and waited for a friend to finish their shift. That's when Freddie Glenn and two others arrived to rob the restaurant. The trio held Karen at gunpoint and kidnapped her, eventually driving her to one of the men's apartments where they took turns sexually assaulting her.
They then drove the teen to an alley and stabbed her 42 times, leaving her to die.
Kelsey’s half-brothers Stephen and Billy also died in a freak scuba diving accident in 1980.
“Every one of us is going to experience some terrible loss,” the Frasier actor said of all the devastation in his family. “I just got a big dose.”
During a recent interview with ABC News and Diana Sawyer, Kelsey discussed his sister's death while promoting his new book Karen: A Brother Remembers. He also looked over the police report for the first time, where he learned Karen crawled following the stabbing.
Karen was just 18 years old when she was raped and murdered.
"She still crawled. That's amazing. I'd never read that before that her, you know, the blood along some of the trailers that she walked along were at three feet high," an emotional Kelsey said.
"So, she was basically on her knees trying to make her way to some help somewhere..."
He added: "The fight that she had, she had some real stuff. She was the good stuff."
In 1976, Glenn and the other two men were convicted of Karen's murder. While Glenn was originally sentenced to death, it was overturned by the Supreme Court to life behind bars. He has been denied parole four times, with his next hearing scheduled for 2027.
The TV star previously admitted he forgives the men behind his sister's death, but will never forget what they did.
"You don’t want to eat yourself to pieces because you can’t forgive somebody,” Kelsey told People.
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Kelsey's new book dives into his late sister's life and death.
He continued: "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.”
