Man who murdered Kelsey Grammer's sister denied parole

LIMON - A man serving three life sentences for a 1975 crime spree lost his bid for freedom today after actor Kelsey Grammer urged a parole board not to free the “butcher” who killed his sister.

A two-member Colorado Parole Board panel denied Freddy Glenn’s request and ruled him ineligible for parole for another five years when he will be 58.

Glenn was a teenager when he was arrested in the killing of three people in Colorado Springs within six weeks including the kidnap, rape and murder of Karen Elisa Grammer, an 18-year-old waitress at a Red Lobster restaurant.

Her older brother Kelsey Grammer – of “Cheers” and “Frasier” fame - did not attend Glenn’s parole hearing held in the chapel of the Limon Correctional Facility. He told prosecutors that he missed his flight from New York to Colorado and was unable to attend.

However, 4th Judicial District Chief Deputy District Attorney Diana May read a statement the actor e-mailed to be read to the board.

“This is a butcher. This is a monster,” he wrote. “Is it possible for him to live on the outside without returning to his old ways?”

Grammer remembered his sister as a “great kid” who wrote poetry, had finished high school a year early and decided to come out to Colorado where a boyfriend lived.

On July 1, 1975, she was looking forward to returning home to visit her family, said her brother, who remembered talking to her that morning.

“Instead she was abducted by a group of animals,” he wrote, “raped by them, savaged by them and then finally butchered by them.”

Her death occurred five years after their father had been murdered.

“She was my best friend and the best person I knew….I loved my sister Karen. I miss her. I miss her in my bones,” he wrote. “I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her - I could not. I was supposed to save her. I’ve never gotten over it. It very nearly destroyed me.”

Glenn sat in a plastic chair in front of the board, in his olive drab jumpsuit his hands folded in front of him, his hair starting to grey.

“I’m very sorry for a crime spree in which three people lost their lives. I apologize,” he said. However, in describing the spree, he began to downplay his role in some of the murders.

That prompted Parole Board member Debbie Allen to ask, “Mr. Glenn, are you stating that you didn’t take a major role in all of these crimes?”

“No,” he replied. “I participated in all of them.”

That exchange angered former District Attorney Bob Russel, who also attended the hearing. Russel, who prosecuted Glenn at the time, calling it one of the most vicious crimes in his 20 years as district attorney.

Russel, described Glenn's crimes as "the worst of the worst." and called the inmate a liar after the hearing.

Lou Smit, a retired Colorado Springs detective and one of the people who investigated Grammer’s killing, also asked that Glenn be denied parole.

Smit recalled how Glenn and his accomplices grabbed Grammer that night, took her to an apartment and repeatedly raped her while she pleaded for her life.

He said Glenn put a black cloth over hear head and stabbed her in the neck through the cloth.

“They killed her without mercy,” Smit said.

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