Frasier to tell of suffering when he faces sister's killer in court

The star of TV's Frasier will come face to face with Freddie Glenn at a parole hearing in January.

Grammer will tell the parole board of the anguish he has suffered since his sister Karen was killed in 1975.

The 18-year-old student was abducted, raped and her throat was slashed.

Grammer, 20 at the time, had to identify the body.

The killing plunged Grammer, who plays quick-witted psychiatrist Dr Frasier Crane in the U.S. comedy series, into a spiral of drink and drug abuse.

The actor has only recently come to terms with the tragedy, which he has admitted changed his life.

Glenn has served 31 years of a life sentence in a Colorado jail but Grammer is determined he remain behind bars.

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"Recently, I got news that the man who did this to Karen is now eligible for parole," he said.

"There is a hearing sometime later this year that I will attend. I am angry about him. "I never had the opportunity to speak for my sister before. I will now."

Grammer, 52, has rarely spoken about his sister other than to admit the devastating impact her death had on his life.

He was an aspiring actor living in New York when he had to identify her body.

Karen, a college student, had been abducted after leaving a fish restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she had gone to see her boyfriend.

Glenn, Michael Corbett and Larry Dann raped her and then Glenn slashed her throat with an army bayonet and tossed her into the street. She crawled away looking for help but bled to death.

The prosecutor in the case and lead detective appealed against Glenn's parole last year when he first became eligible for release.

Grammer said the horror of his sister's death, and other family tragedies, led to his heavy alcohol and drug abuse.

Seven years before his sister's murder, his father Frank was shot dead in 1980 his two half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident. But he says his sister's death had the biggest impact.

"It was probably the catalyst that got me into a really big problem for at least the next 15 years," he told a U.S. magazine.

"It was very hard.

"I was disconsolate. I tried to understand why people I loved died.

"Why did they have to suffer? There is no uplifting answer.

"Those losses took a big bite out of any joy.

"But they helped me understand that we've only got a limited time, so you can't yield to anxieties or even to tragedies.

"Giving up was not an option."

Grammer said comedy helped mask his sadness but he says he became 'addicted to danger' even as he became well-known with the success of the bar-room comedy Cheers and then Frasier, which ran from 1993 to 2004.

"I'm an addictive personality," he said.

"I was addicted to danger and dangerous girls.

"I'm attracted to threshold experiences - to chaos, insanity, mayhem so I was drawn to women who were dramatic, emotional and unpredictable, with great sexual energy.

"While I was dealing with those desires, I was also trying to reconcile how I was actually living my life with how I thought my life should be lived - the traditional idea of a normal existence with a wife, a family."

Those 'dangerous women' included a stripper, an ice skater and model Tammi Baliszewski.

His first two marriages ended in divorce and, in 1988, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for drinkdriving and cocaine possession.

He was arrested again for cocaine possession in August 1990 and sentenced to probation and community service.

Grammer told the magazine Parade magazine he has been sober since 1996 and is happily married to third wife, former Playboy model Camille Donatacchi.

They have a two-year-old son Jude, and a daughter, Mason, five.

For his role in Frasier he was one of the highest-paid actors on TV. He has a comedy, Over to You, starting next month in the U.S.

He plays a newsreader who hates his co-presenter.