Kelsey Grammer Details Sister’s Final Crawl for Help After Being Raped and Then Brutally Murdered — 'Eyes Vacant, Staring at the Sky'
Kelsey Grammer dives into his sister Karen's horrific final moments in his new memoir.
May 6 2025, Published 3:54 p.m. ET
Kelsey Grammer has torn open old wounds while reliving his sister's savage murder.
In his new memoir, RadarOnline.com can reveal the Frasier star lays bare the gut-wrenching truth about his sister's death – exposing every harrowing detail of her blood-soaked final moments in a tragedy that's haunted him for nearly 50 years.
The Frasier star's sister was raped and brutally murdered at just 18 years old in 1975.
In July 1975, Kelsey's "free-spirited" sister Karen, who was only 18 at the time, was brutally raped and murdered in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Karen had been kidnapped on July 1, 1976, by a gang of men who initially planned to rob the Red Lobster where she worked.
Instead, they abducted her, raped her, stabbed her 42 times, nearly decapitated her, and left her to bleed out in a brutal, agonizing death.
Grammer revealed his sister was still alive when she made her final plea for help, which was ignored.
Detectives showed up at the Grammer family home in Pompano Beach, Florida, with the devastating news – saying they had a Jane Doe they believed might be Karen, who had moved to Colorado just months earlier after graduating high school.
The next day, Kelsey rushed to Colorado Springs to identify his sister's mangled body. She was his only sibling, and the two had shared an unbreakable bond.
The actor gushed over his 'free-spirited' sister and said her death 'killed a corner of his heart.'
Freddie Lee Glenn, now 68, along with his accomplice, the late Michael Corbett, were behind Karen’s murder and four other killings in Colorado Springs in 1975.
Glenn, currently serving a life sentence, has been up for parole multiple times.
In his new memoir, Karen: A Brother Remembers, Kelsey opens up about how his sister’s murder has tormented him for 50 years – leaving a dark cloud over his life and pushing him to drown his pain in cocaine and alcohol.
Gushing over his sister, the actor called her the "love of his life" and added: "She was a poem, a light, fun, innocent, and wise."
Kelsey's book dives into the coroner's examination and his sister's blood-soaked final moments.
And while he has talked about the murder before, the book finally unleashed the horrific details of Karen's final moments.
Kelsey said he returned to Colorado Springs in 2022 with his fourth wife, Kayte Walsh, to visit the Red Lobster where his sister was abducted.
He further explained how Karen was repeatedly raped in one of the men's apartments before driving to a dark alley, where Glenn brutally stabbed her 42 times and nearly decapitated her.
He wrote: "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."
Karen was still alive when they abandoned her, and in a desperate crawl, she made her way to a nearby trailer home – hoping to find help.
Kelsey admitted he always held onto hope that the man who found her did everything he could to save her, writing: "In my imaginings, the man who found Karen at his doorstep was a 'good Samaritan' of sorts."
But things didn't exactly happen that way.
He revealed: "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."
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Kelsey went to Colorado Springs in 2022 to visit some of the places where Karen spent her final places.
Kelsey 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... What I had hoped were a final, few moments of kindness from some stranger, were nothing of the sort."
Two years older than Karen, the actor always viewed himself as her protector and admitted he has struggled deeply to accept the fact that he couldn’t save her.
However, his memoir ends on a poignant note, with Kelsey reflecting that his journey into the past was his way of honoring his sister's life.
