Kelsey Grammer visited the site of his sister’s brutal murder for the first time while doing research for his book.
Kelsey Grammer visited the site of his sister’s murder for the first time
The 70-year-old actor’s younger sister Karen was abducted, raped and murdered in 1975 and he healed his grief by writing a new memoir about her called ‘Karen: A Brother Remembers’ – and he’s now revealed he went to the site of her abduction in Colorado and to the place where she was killed.
He told The Times newspaper: “[I went there] to be with her. And maybe I didn’t fully know that at the time.
“But I discovered in the writing and in the journey of this book the idea that I had to be there and do what I wasn’t able to do before, which was to hold her as she died.”
Kelsey previously admitted writing the book has finally helped him to come to terms with his grief and his feelings of guilt after not being able to protect his sister.
He told Us Weekly: “It’s been amazing. I don’t carry the self-loathing part anymore. I don’t blame myself anymore. I just miss her.
“The whole idea was to bring Karen here to remember her. People have said, ‘Wow, I really feel like I got to know her,’ and that’s what I wanted to do. And also release myself from some of the guilt I’ve lived with for a long time.
“[The book] is definitely joyful. For a long time, the grief was in the ascendancy and stayed there. And finally, the joy kind of crept back. They live evenly now – maybe even a little weighted more toward the joy. If there’s one thing I hope I can pass on to people who’ve suffered similar grief, it’s to look back on the life [the person] lived rather than the life they lost.”
However, going back over the details of Karen’s death was traumatic. Kelsey said: “It was really hard. I would sometimes disappear down a sadness I couldn’t shake. After I read the police report, I couldn’t do a thing for about three weeks. I had to take a break.
“I was able to discover things about her that were equally remarkable in the moment. Things I kind of knew anyway, but the fact that she crawled as far as she did, and staggered as much as she did in those last moments of her life, was really heartbreaking. [It was] very difficult to go through, but it felt like I had to be there. I had to walk those steps with her.”
