Actor Kelsey Grammer wasn't able to make it to Colorado yesterday after missing a connecting flight, so he sent an e-mail to Parole Board officials that described Freddy Glenn, the man who killed Grammer's sister during a crime spree in 1975, as a "butcher." Glenn, who was a teenager at the time of the crime, was denied parole yesterday for his part in the rape and murder of Karen Elisa Grammer, then an 18-year-old waitress at a Red Lobster, writes the Colorado Springs Gazette. "I apologize," Glenn, whose hair is now graying, told Parole Board members, before downplaying the incident, prompting member Debbie Allen to ask, "Mr. Glenn, are you stating that you didn't take a major role in all of these crimes?" Glenn said no, and admitted he was part of the murder.

Former District Attorney Bob Russel, who prosecuted Glenn at the time, called the crime "the worst of the worst" in his 20 years of service. Retired Colorado Springs detective and private investigator Lou Smit recounted the grisly details: Glenn and accomplices took Grammer to an apartment and repeatedly raped her while she pleaded for her life. They placed a black cloth over her head and stabbed her in the neck. In his note, Kelsey Grammer wrote, 
"I have never gotten over her. It very nearly destroyed me" (via 9News). Glenn will not be eligible for parole again until 2014 (via MSNBC).