Kelsey Grammer Speaks Out About Sister’s Brutal Murder & Final Moments

Kelsey Grammer is sharing new details about the 1975 murder of his sister Karen in an interview with Diane Sawyer for “Good Morning America.”

Karen, 18, was working at a Red Lobster restaurant when men on a killing spree kidnapped her as she was leaving. They took her to an apartment where she was raped and stabbed.

Grammer spoke with Sawyer about the night of the murder and about his book “Karen: A Brother Remembers,” which has him revisiting that painful time.

Kelsey, who recently reviewed the police reports, explained, “Karen was put in the back [of the car], blindfolded and kept saying, ‘Please don’t let them kill me.’” Once they got to the apartment, he said, “They put her in a bedroom. They went in and took turns with her.” 

The “Cheers” actor said afterward, the killers “drove her to a trailer park,” and she was found with “42 stab wounds.”

Diane noted how she had crawled toward help, and Grammer confirmed, “She still crawled… the blood along some of the trailers that she walked along were at three feet high, so she was basically on her knees trying to make her way to some help.”

Getting emotional, Grammer shared, “The fight that she had, she had some real stuff.”

All these years later, Kelsey visited the crime scene and read from his book, “And I cried out loud like a child whose hope had died.”

He also touched on how his deep pain led him to cocaine and alcohol use during his “Cheers” years, and said, “It’s remarkable I survived some of that.”

Now, he hopes the book will be part of a healing journey. “I spent a long time on her death, and not enough time on her life.”

“The mission is to heal, but the mission is also to help heal other people, and by introducing them to Karen, it is my hope they will reintroduce themselves to the loved ones they lost in the same way.”