It was a scene that Bob Russel, former Colorado Springs district attorney, says he will never forget.
Three men had taken Karen Elisa Grammer to an alley, slashed her throat and stabbed her in the back. A blood trail led 800 feet from the alley to a trailer. The sister of actor Kelsey Grammer left her bloody fingerprint inches below the doorbell before she died.
Grammer is expected to testify today in a parole hearing against the man who kidnapped, raped and slashed his 18-year-old sister in Colorado Springs in 1975.
Freddie Glenn, 52, who was once on death row for killing Karen Grammer before the death penalty was overturned, is seeking his release from prison at a parole hearing at Limon Correctional Facility.
Russel, now 79, and former homicide detective Lou Smit, will drive Kelsey Grammer to the hearing at one of the state’s most secure prisons.
“It was his kid sister,” Russel said. “He has gone through hell over this. He felt guilty about it because he didn’t protect her. He wants to do what he can to argue against parole.”
Kelsey Grammer, 54, was only 20 when Glenn, who was high on LSD, and two accomplices, kidnapped the then-aspiring actor’s sister, a waitress at a Red Lobster restaurant, on July 1, 1975, after a botched robbery.
They blindfolded her, took her around while they robbed a convenience store and then drove her to an apartment where they sexually assaulted her over several hours.
Karen Grammer pleaded for her life and was led to believe she would be released, Russel said.
Her murder was the second major tragedy of Kelsey Grammer’s life. His father had been murdered years earlier, Russel said. Grammer flew from Florida to Colorado Springs to identify his sister’s body.
Glenn, who was an 18-year-old civilian employee at Fort Carson, also is serving a life sentence in the deaths of two men. Two weeks before the Grammer killing, on June 19, 1975, he shot motel cook Daniel Van Lone, 28, in the right temple in a robbery that netted 50 cents. On June 27, 1975, he and 20-year-old Fort Carson soldier Michael Corbett killed Army soldier Winfred Proffitt, 19, during a drug deal.
Russel said that for Karen Grammer’s murder alone, Glenn should never be released.
“I think it was one of the most horrific murders,” he said.
