Kelsey Grammer speaks out about his sister’s brutal murder

Frasier star Kelsey Grammer is ready to speak openly about his sister’s horrific death and the ongoing grief that has shaped his life.

Kelsey Grammer is continuing to cope with the grief of his sister’s horrific death.

After the actor’s sister Karen was brutally murdered nearly 50 years ago, the Frasier star opened up about finding “closure”.

The Frasier star penned a memoir with harrowing details about Karen’s death.

“It was a deeply troubling act by three young men,” Grammer explained on US daytime show Mornings.

When asked why he decided to share his story through the book, Karen: A Memoir, he replied, “closure, grief … continuing closure for me”.

“And to pass on the idea that other people who have been through the same kind of grief, the same kind of just wrenching, forever grief, can turn to some things if they have the grace and the understanding that love is forever,” Grammer remarked.

Kelsey Grammer is honouring his sister’s memory with a new book. Picture: Getty Images

Karen was brutally murdered in 1975.

“That love you had is real and forever. It doesn’t disappear, and that helped me a lot.”

The Cheers star shared that it took him “a long time to come to a place” where he felt comfortable writing a book about what happened to his younger sister.

Grammer also said that he spoke with his late sister through a medium to help grieve her death.

In 1975, Grammer’s 18-year-old sister, Karen, was kidnapped outside a restaurant by serial killer Freddie Glenn. Glenn reportedly raped the teenager before brutally attacking her and leaving her to die. Grammer identified his sister’s body a week later. He was just 20 years old at the time.

Glenn was convicted in 1976 for the killings of Karen Grammer and two other victims from the previous year. The Supreme Court ruled Glenn could seek parole after 30 years, but the sitcom star has twice helped to block attempts for Glenn to receive parole as justice for his sister and the other victims’ families.

Almost 50 years on, Grammer is speaking out about a senseless act that shaped his life.

At a parole hearing in 2009, Kelsey wrote a letter to the court that said, “She was my best friend and the best person I knew. She had so much to live for. I loved my sister, Karen. I miss her. I miss her in my bones.

“I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her — I could not. I have never gotten over it. … It very nearly destroyed me.”

Before his sister’s death, the 69-year-old star first experienced loss at the age of 13 when his father was shot and killed during a home invasion. And following the death of his sister Karen, Grammer’s two half-brothers, Stephen and Billy, died in a scuba diving accident in the Virgin Islands.

This story originally appeared on Fox News and is republished here with permission.

Originally published as Kelsey Grammer speaks out about his sister’s brutal murder