Kelsey Grammer fights parole for sister’s killer

A man convicted 34 years ago of the rape and murder of the younger sister of Kelsey Grammer was denied an early release from jail yesterday after the Frasier actor made an emotional appeal to a parole board in Colorado, saying: "He must never take a single breath as a free man."

Karen Grammer was 18 when she was kidnapped, raped and murdered by Freddie Glenn and two accomplices as she left a restaurant where she worked as a waitress.

Kelsey Grammer, who was 20 when his sister died, was due to fly to Denver for the hearing at the Limon Correctional Facility but his plane was delayed in New York. His submission was read out instead. "I loved my sister Karen," he wrote. "I miss her. I miss her in my bones. I was her big brother. I was supposed to protect her -  I could not. It very nearly destroyed me."

With the success of the long-running comedy Cheers and the spin-off show Frasier, Grammer has become one of the richest men in American TV. But his personal life has seen a series of tragedies.

He was 13 when his father was murdered at his home in the US Virgin Islands in 1968. Five years after his sister's murder, he lost his half-brothers from his father's second marriage, when the twins were killed in a shark attack.

As a result he has admitted turning to drink and drugs and his first two marriages ended in divorce. But he has been on the wagon since 1996 and has two children with his third wife, the former Playboy model Camille Donatacchi (above, with Grammer). ·