Kelsey Grammer After His Sister's Murder, Finding Forgiveness

IN 1975 THE STAR'S SISTER KAREN WAS BRUTALLY RAPED AND KILLED. IN A NEW BOOK HE REVEALS HOW HER DEATH-AND OTHER FAMILY TRAGEDIES-SHADOWED HIS LIFE AND HOW HE FOUND JOY AGAIN

- By BRIANNE TRACY

On July 8, 1975, Kelsey Grammer’s life changed forever. The actor, then 20, was at home that day with his family in Pompano Beach, Fla., when detectives knocked on the door. The detectives told him that they'd found the body of a Jane Doe in Colorado Springs—whom they believed to be his 18-year-old sister Karen.

The next day Grammer flew to Colorado and confirmed the detectives’ suspicions. He learned that Karen had been brutally raped and stabbed to death on July 1, two weeks before her 19th birthday, by a man who had been on a killing spree with accomplices in the area. In his new book Karen: A Brother Remembers, out May 6, Grammer delves into the horrific details of his sister’s murder, as well as the deep and lasting toll it took on his life, which has been touched by multiple tragedies. “For a long time the grief was so dominant that I couldn’t access happiness,” says Grammer, now 70. “The book helped me get to a new place with that.”

But Grammer doesn’t want his sister to be remembered solely for the worst thing that happened to her. He paints a picture of Karen as a free-spirited and loving woman who made the most of every moment, whose life was so much more than the way it ended. “I wanted to breathe life into her and welcome her into the world,” he says. “We were Kelsey and Karen, brother and sister.”

As children, Grammer and his sister weathered much together, beginning with their parents’ divorce in 1957 when Kelsey was a toddler and Karen only a few months old. After the split the siblings moved with their mom, Sally, a dancer, from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to her parents’ home in New Jersey, while their dad, Allen, a music-shop owner and publisher, stayed behind. Grammer and his sister didn’t see their dad again until 1967.