‘Hollow Faith’: How Kelsey Grammer Found ‘Reawakening’ After Sister’s Murder

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Actor Kelsey Grammer told Fox News Digital in May that it was filing “Jesus Revolution” that helped him into “reawakening” the faith he always held inside.

“When the deaths occurred, starting with my grandfather, and then my dad — and I didn’t really know my dad — and then when Karen was killed, hanging on to what I’d always seen as a kind of gift of faith, became … hollow faith,” Grammer said of the brutal murder of his sister at the hands of serial killer Freddie Glenn, Karen, almost 50 years ago. “It wasn’t working. I thought, ‘Why did I lose this? What happened?’ I felt betrayed by it. And, so, I sort of cursed God at one point and said, ‘You know, hey, I’d rather you didn’t bother to help at this point because, honestly, this was colossal. I’m not interested.’”

Warning: GRAPHIC

Grammer’s sister was kidnapped by Glenn from the restaurants she worked at in Colorado Springs. He sexually assaulted her before stabbing her to death. He was convicted in 1976 of the murder, along with two others he’d committed. Grammer has twice opposed Glenn’s release after Colorado Supreme Court ruled he could seek parole after 30 years for the triple homicide. He writes about these events in his new memoir, “Karen: A Brother Remembers.”

“He just thinks it’s been long enough and, so, when do I get out of prison? So, when am I done with mine then? Because I’m still stuck,” Grammer shared in the book. “And although this book has helped release a great deal of that feeling, there is a kind of … well, ‘We’re in this together, Freddie, you and me.’ And … if I don’t get free, you’re not either.” (MORE NEWS: More Than 7,700 Baptized In Largest Single-Day Baptism In America. Ever.)

“She was my best friend and the best person I knew,” Grammer wrote in a letter to Glenn’s parole board in 2009. “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. … It very nearly destroyed me.”

Tragedy & Turning To God

Grammer’s father was shot and killed during a home invasion when the actor was just 13-years-old. After Karen’s murder, Grammer’s two half-brothers died while scuba diving in the Virgin Islands. In these darkest moments, Grammer said he turned away from God. He is now urging people not to make the same choice he did.

“I would advise people to step away from that. If I could, I would say, rather than turn away from God, turn toward Him in these situations,” he said. “Because it doesn’t [mean] God’s out to get you. But it feels like that sometimes. And that was very hard,” he said. (MORE NEWS: Faith Leaders Call On Trump To Protect Christian Refugees)

“I’ve had hiccups,” Grammer said in a USA Today interview some years ago. “I’ve had some tragic times. I have wrestled with those and worked my way through them: sometimes rejecting faith, sometimes rejecting God even, in a period of being pretty angry about it, like, “Where were you?” That kind of thing. But I have come to terms with it and have found great peace in my faith and in Jesus. It’s not cavalier — Jesus made a difference in my life. That’s not anything I’ll apologize for.”

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