Rain delays in Kentucky kept actor Kelsey Grammer from attending the parole hearing of the man who raped and murdered his sister, Karen Grammer, in 1975.
Kelsey Grammer had planned to attend the hearing of Freddie Glenn, 52, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder of the actor’s sister, but due to the weather conditions, the star was unable to attend the Colorado Springs hearing and he sent a letter in his stead.
The letter, sent to Robert Russel, the retired El Paso and Teller County Colorado District Attorney, who successfully prosecuted Glenn over the murder of the actor’s sister, was read at the hearing Monday morning, where the convicted killer was denied parole.
“I am saddened that I missed this opportunity to be at the hearing,” Grammer wrote in his letter. “You know the circumstances: rain delays at Kennedy that made it impossible for me to be in Colorado Springs in time to attend. It is no fault of the airlines; things just turned out against me in this regard and I only hope that it does not result in turning things against my sister or the families of the victims in this case.”
The star, in his letter, went on to describe his later sister as “smart and good and decent,” and he wrote of the tremendous loss the Grammer family feel without Karen around.
“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. I was supposed to save her,” he wrote. “I could not. It very nearly destroyed me. I knew it destroyed my Grandmother, who spoke very little after Karen’s death and died three years later. My Mother was broken by it. She continues to live her life with a grief that colored her remaining years.”
Grammer said he has forgiveness but remains haunted by his sister’s murder.
“Forgiveness allows me to live my life. It allows me to love my children and my wife and the days I have left with them. But I can never escape the horror of what happened to my sister,” he wrote. “I can never accept the notion that he can pay for that nightmare with anything less than his life. We all make choices. He made his. Surely a man who has killed so many must never take a single breath as a free man.”
Glenn was denied parole Monday, according to the Associated Press, and will not be eligible for parole again until 2014.