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This article details sexual assault and violence.
Kelsey Grammer broke down in tears as he opened up about his sister Karen’s tragic death during a recent appearance on Pod Meets World, with the 70-year-old actor recently releasing a book in loving memory of Karen called Karen: A Brother Remembers.  View this photo on Instagram
If you didn’t know, Karen was just 18 years old when she was kidnapped, raped, and murdered on July 1, 1975. She was a recent graduate who moved to Colorado Springs from Georgia shortly before the horrific events. Kelsey was 20 years old at the time, and he and Karen were incredibly close, with the star saying he was “closer to her than any other human being in [his] entire life.”  Mathew Tsang / Getty Images
For reference, their father had been murdered seven years earlier, when Kelsey was 13, after he was shot by a stranger outside of his home. The killer was later found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Kelsey last spoke to Karen on the phone on June 30, when they had discussed her plans to return home to Florida after the Fourth of July. When he didn’t hear from his sister the following day, he called the police. He later learned that just hours after their conversation, Karen had gone to the Red Lobster where she worked to wait for a friend to finish her shift. While she was there, three men entered the restaurant with the intention of robbing it, but when they saw her, they held her at gunpoint and forced her to go with them. Chuck Bennett / Getty Images
The men then drove Karen to one of their apartments, where they repeatedly raped her before driving her to an alley where one of them, Freddie Glenn, stabbed her 42 times, killing her. Glenn was convicted of Karen’s murder in 1976, with his accomplices Michael Corbett and another man also tried and convicted. All three men were initially given the death penalty, but their sentence was changed to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 1978. P_wei / Getty Images
Corbett and the other man died in prison in 2019, and Glenn has been denied parole four times — with Kelsey speaking out against his release on every occasion. He wrote to the parole board in 2009: “I miss her in my bones. I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her — I could not… It very nearly destroyed me.“ Jean Baptiste Lacroix / Getty Images
Then in 2014, Kelsey addressed Karen’s killer directly via video link, where he told him: “I accept that you actually live with remorse every day of your life, but I live with tragedy every day of mine… I accept your apology. I forgive you. However, I cannot give your release my endorsement. To give that a blessing would be a betrayal of my sister\“s life.“
Kelsey also spoke out against Freddie being released on parole in 2017 and 2022, and Glenn remains behind bars to this day, with the next hearing due to take place in 2027.
In 2015, Kelsey told Vanity Fair that he blamed himself for Karen’s death, sharing at the time: “It\“s hard to explain. It\“s not rational. But it happens anyway. I know a lot of people who\“ve lost their siblings and blame themselves.“
And the Frasier actor opened up some more during Monday’s episode of Pod Meets World, where he broke down in tears multiple times. The star was asked how he felt when Karen’s killers’ sentence changed from the death penalty to life with the possibility of parole, and he recalled: “I was sort of on the periphery of that decision, but I thought to myself: ‘Well, that’s weird.’” Mediapunch / Getty Images
He then explained that it only happened because the Supreme Court of Colorado did a “blanket commutation of all death sentences,” and that life without the possibility of parole did not exist as a possible sentence at the time.
Kelsey also reflected on how the letters from the parole board about releasing Glenn every few years impact him, with Kelsey saying of his grief: “There’s still that pain, the pang is just renewed. It’s just as vibrant as the first time it happened.”
Recalling the first time that the parole board reached out to him, he added: “I just wept for days. It was like they’d just sent a knife through me. They just said: ‘Oh, this is happening, you need to do this, you need to talk about…’ and suddenly my whole 40 years that had passed before were gone, and I was back as that 20-year-old young man looking at his dead sister, and it was a horrible, horrible thing.” Vera Anderson / Getty Images
“I don\“t know how to get around it, because yeah, people deserve justice and yes, criminals who have done horrible things have a right to try to make amends and move on in life and stuff like that… There are some instances, I think that it\“s just not going to happen,” Kelsey went on. “But I believe in the process of it.”
“One of the parole people said to me at one point, I said: ‘You know, this is really cruel stuff that you guys have to do to people, and all these innocent people who suffered have to suffer again, why is that OK?’ and they said: ‘Well, it\“s not called the victim’s justice system, it\“s called the criminal justice system,\“” he shared. Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images
Elsewhere in the interview, Kelsey opened up about how hard it was to read the police report about Karen’s death in full for the first time ahead of writing his book.
“The most devastating thing about it was the lack of identity for Karen,” he emotionally began. “That she was just a thing, just a girl, a Jane Doe, a corpse, and the language reflected that.” Randy Shropshire / Getty Images
“First couple hundred pages, they had no idea what had happened, who she was, and to read that just felt so dehumanizing about my sister, you know?” Kelsey said as he started to cry. “It’s just… That’s Karen, surely you know that, right? But they didn’t. It’s OK, they were just doing their job, and it got done.” Paras Griffin / Getty Images
“They had a stroke of luck when one of the guys was arrested in New Orleans, and he said: ‘I know about the girl in Colorado,’” Kelsey then recalled. “That’s how it came up, and then a couple days later they called me.”
At the end of the interview, Kelsey was asked if he had any advice for people facing the grief of losing a loved one, and he poignantly shared: “You have to accept you’re not gonna get over it. It’s always going to be there. Let it be impossible, let it be awful for a while.” Rich Polk / Getty Images
Sobbing, Kelsey added: “You can’t have it go away. You just need to let it breathe, and breathe in you, and miss that person. And slowly try and climb out and remember what was good between you, and hope that there is justice in the world. There really isn’t, a lot of the time.” Jim Spellman / Getty Images
“You have a right to embrace the memory of that person and remember them in the sumpture of their lives, and in the joy that they brought you,” he continued. “You have a right to actually be upset about it, and you have a right to expect justice. I don’t think you can actually go meet it out yourself, although for a long time I thought: ‘Well, I’d go kill those guys if I could.’” Dave Benett / Getty Images
Kelsey then concluded: “Don\“t let their memory be soiled by the way they died.”
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE （4673）, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-800-950-6264 （NAMI） and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.
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发表于 2025-10-29 08:39:23