BUENA VISTA — Actor Kelsey Grammer on Tuesday offered his forgiveness to the man who raped and killed his sister in 1975, but he said he wants to see him remain behind bars.
Grammer, speaking from Denver via video conference, testified at the parole board hearing for inmate Freddie Glenn. Glenn was convicted of killing two men and Grammer’s sister, Karen Elisa Grammer, and is serving a life term at the Buena Vista Correctional Facility. The board did not immediately make a decision.
Kelsey Grammer on Tuesday had a full beard and was wearing a white shirt and tie. Glenn, at times tearful as he apologized, was in a green prison jumpsuit and sat in front of a video monitor that displayed Grammer’s image.
Grammer said he wanted to know why Glenn had never tried to contact him. Glenn interrupted him midsentence and assured him that he and his family had tried.
AUDIO: Kelsey Grammer’s testimony to the Colorado parole board
“I want to believe you have actually changed your life,” Grammer said. “Things you say, I accept a lot of it.”
Grammer described his sister, who was killed July 1, 1975, after Glenn and two accomplices kidnapped her from a Red Lobster restaurant in Colorado Springs where she worked. In separate trials, Glenn also was convicted of the June 19, 1975, murder of motel cook Daniel Van Lone, 28, in a robbery that netted 50 cents and the June 27, 1975, murder of Army soldier Winford Proffitt, 19, during a drug deal.
Glenn, who was 18 at the time of the murders, initially was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to a life term when Colorado’s death penalty was overturned.
He claimed he got mixed in with the wrong crowd at the time of a three-month string of crimes and was worried he might be targeted if he stopped going along.
“I thought I would die. I thought I would be killed,” Glenn said. “I think I deserve a second chance.”
Glenn said he has a fiancée, he has two sisters in Florida who are willing to take him in to their homes and he has a $200,000 trust fund.
Grammer told the board his sister went to the same high school he did until her junior year, when she transferred to another school “because I was a pretty big deal when I was in high school,” he said.
“I accept that you live with remorse,” Grammer told Glenn. “But I live with tragedy every day.”
Grammer said he had one last question: “If someone did to your sister what you did to mine, what would you think should be done to him?”
Glenn replied: “I would be hurt, and I would be angry. … I would like to think one day I would forgive.”
When Glenn noted that it has been nearly 40 years since the killings, Grammer responded: “I understand it’s been a long time. I was 20 years old. I took different choices.”
Glenn interrupted him again and apologized, saying he was young and made mistakes.
“Thank you,” Grammer said. “I accept your apology. I forgive you. However, I cannot give your release my endorsement. To give that a blessing would be a betrayal of my sister’s life.”
Proffitt’s widow, Kathy Proffitt-DeMarco, also testified at Tuesday’s hearing. She said after Glenn and his accomplices stabbed her husband to death, Glenn danced around a kitchen, waving the bloody knife, proclaiming that he just wanted to know what it was like to “stick” someone with a knife.
“You left me 39 years without my partner,” Proffitt-DeMarco said. “I mourn his death every day. My life has never been the same since you went on your little thrill ride.”
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, denverpost.com/coldcases or twitter.com/kmitchelldp
