What Happened To Kelsey Grammer’s Sister Karen? A Look Back At The 1975 Murder

Before the world knew Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Frasier Crane, the aspiring actor endured a horrific family tragedy. His younger sister, Karen, was abducted and murdered in Colorado Springs in 1975 when she was just 19 years old.

For a long time – almost 50 years – the actor admitted that he never knew exactly what happened to Karen. Grammer told The Times that the detective who took him to identify her body spared him the worst details of the murder. Later, when the prosecutors brought her killers to trial, they suggested he not attend in order to avoid reliving the brutal events.

As a result, Grammer was “stuck in the vein of having to imagine what happened,” he told the site. He added that living with limited information about her death “was almost worse than actually knowing.”

While he knew certain details about the tragic incident, like how she nearly escaped her captors, he discovered the full truth while writing his book, Karen: A Brother Remembers, out on May 6, 2026. He spoke with old friends, people who knew Karen, and the prosecutor in her case, Jim Bentley. Eventually, he requested to see the police report.

Read on to learn what happened to Kelsey Grammar’s sister, Karen – including the details about her murder, where her killers are today, and what Grammar reveals in his new book.

Who Is Karen Grammer?

Karen Grammer was born on July 15, 1956, in New Jersey. Their parents separated and their father, Allen, moved to the Virgin Islands, where he was largely missing from their childhood. (Allen was also murdered in 1968, and Kelsey he lost his paternal half-brothers in a suspected shark attack in the Virgin Islands, according to People.)

Kelsey and Karen were raised by their mother and maternal grandparents. The family later moved to Florida, which Kelsey said he and Karen were “ecstatic” about. He told The Times they spent much of their time on a boat, traveling between the barrier islands and the mainland.

When Karen graduated from high school, Kelsey was living in New York and attending Juilliard. She enrolled in college in Georgia but dropped out after one term. (Kelsey told The Times he doesn’t know why.) In early 1975, she moved to Colorado Springs to be with her boyfriend at the time.

What Happened To Karen Grammer?

Grammer told The Times that he last spoke with Karen on July 1, when she informed him of her plans to return to Florida for the Fourth of July and stay for her birthday on the 15th.

When he was unable to reach her, he called the authorities in Colorado Springs, who were still trying to identify the body of a girl found in a trailer park. He later learned that while Karen was waiting for her boyfriend to finish his shift at a Red Lobster, Larry Dunn, Freddie Glenn, and two other men pulled into the parking lot with plans to rob the restaurant.

After the men saw Karen, they kidnapped her at gunpoint. According to the police report Grammer later read, his sister was tied up in the back of a car and taken to one of their apartments, where the men took turns raping her.

Then, they drove Karen to an alley, where Glenn stabbed her to death 42 times. Grammer told The Times that a couple who lived nearby heard a scream but ignored it and went to sleep.

The report also allegedly includes a chilling moment when Glenn said to Karen, “I just killed a girl,” as he wiped the blood on a curtain. Karen crawled to a trailer, hoping to find help, and died at the door. The actor had believed that a stranger had tried to help his sister in her final moments, but she was alone.

Who Killed Karen Grammer?

Freddie Glenn and two accomplices were convicted of murdering Karen Grammer. Although Glenn was initially given the death penalty, his sentence was changed in 1978 to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Colorado law no longer allows parole in life sentences for first-degree murder, but Glenn was convicted before that law was changed, per CBS News. He has been denied parole numerous times.

Glenn was also convicted in separate trials for two other murders: the June 19, 1975, killing of 28-year-old motel cook Daniel Van Lone during a botched robbery, and the June 27, 1975, murder of 19-year-old Army soldier Winfred Proffitt during a drug deal, according to The Denver Post.

How Was Kelsey Grammer Affected By His Sister’s Death?

In his memoir, Grammer revealed that he after his sister’s death, he struggled with alcohol and substance abuse. He eventually sought help by entering rehab at the Betty Ford Center.

“I always had something in the back of my head saying, ‘Okay. That’s enough now. Cut it out. You know why you’re doing this,’” he explained to People of his addiction. “But there was the other part of me that wanted to surrender to it and go, ‘Let it mess you up a little bit. Let it hurt.’”

Even at the height of his career, the actor said he had to force himself to “get back up in the morning and go to work,” playing Dr. Frasier Crane, first on the NBC sitcom Cheers from 1984 to 1993, and then on the spinoff Frasier from 1993 to 2004.

The actor was inspired to write about Karen’s tragedy as a way to move forward from his grief and instead focus on celebrating her free-spirited life.

“I spent a long time on her death and very little on her life. And that’s what I hope people will take – spend time on the life you lost. Spend time on the life you shared rather than the day you lost it,” he told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer.

Karen: A Brother Remembers concludes with Grammer retracing Karen’s last steps to Colorado Springs.

“I had to complete my farewell to her. I had to be there and hold her in the end,” he said to People. “It became important to get the closure. I hate clichéd words like closure, but I got the opportunity to say all the things I never said.”