Kelsey Grammar has had a legendarily disaster-ridden life. Some tragedies were brought on by himself: DUIs, car crashes, jail time, conniving spouses. But others are seriously life-rocking tragedies that the universe rained down on him, no fault of his own.
There is, of course, the familiar story of the abduction, rape, and murder of Grammer’s sister, Karen, in 1975, by Freddie Glenn and two accomplices. Due to Grammer’s advocacy for Karen’s memory and his efforts at preventing Glenn from being released in 2009, that story is well-known.
Also, on July 24, 2020, Grammar’s daughter Spencer was slashed by a knife-wielding man in a restaurant in New York, as she and a companion tried to pull the suspect off another person.
One of Kelsey Grammer’s tragedies, though, hasn’t been publicized in as much detail. On April 24, 1968, Kelsey Grammer’s father, Frank Allen Grammer Jr., was murdered. Contemporary news reports said that Grammer’s father was murdered by a “virulently anti-white” man, Arthur Bevan Niles, as part of a nearly month-long frenzy of racially motivated violence.
Frank Grammer Moves to U.S. Virgin Islands
The Grammers have always imprinted a big mark on this world. Kelsey’s grandfather Frank A. Grammer Sr. (1906-1976) and grandmother Edna Grammer (d. 1948), for many years were active, well-liked residents of the the Ocean Grove, New Jersey community, residing in a spacious house just three blocks from the beach, at 63 Cookman Avenue. Then, in 1948, Edna Grammer died on the operating table at age 39, leaving behind her husband and one son, Frank A. Grammer, Jr., age nineteen. Frank Grammer Sr. would become Dean of Admissions at Newark College of Engineering and would marry one of the secretaries at the school, Wilma Horster.
Six years later, in 1954, his son, Frank Grammer Jr. moved from Hopatcong, New Jersey to St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands.
Frank Grammer, now 25 years old, carved out a big life for himself: setting up a music store, publishing a local newspaper called “Virgin Islands View,” and otherwise becoming a prominent, sometimes controversial, figure in Charlotte Amalie, by “publishing strong attacks on what he termed were ‘local insanities,'” according to an April 26, 1968 newspaper account.
For 12 years, Frank Grammer lived and prospered in St. Thomas. Then an event happened nearly 2,000 miles away that would eventually mean the death of Frank Grammer. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.
Niles’ Long River of Crime
On April 9, the date of King’s funeral, U.S. Virgin Islands resident Arthur Bevan Niles (b. 1939), a taxi driver and a “virulently anti-white islander,” painted his taxi with racist slogans. According to a newspaper report dated April 26, 1968, Niles’ “cab was ordered off the streets [by police] because it was covered with such statements as ‘Kill the white pigs.'”
Niles also tried to burn down a house and two rental cars at the Cyril E. King Airport (then named the Harry S. Truman Airport). In addition, Niles placed a bomb in the St. Thomas offices of the International Telephone and Telegraph, Co. The bomb did not explode.
Niles ended up at Frank Grammer’s house in the middle of the night, April 24, 1968. Niles set fire to Grammer’s car in order to lure him outside. When Grammer stepped outside to see why his car was on fire, Niles shot Grammer, killing him. Arthur Bevan Niles was captured. On February 10, 1969, the USVI district court decided that Niles was not insane and thus was able to stand to trial. But because Niles was “suffering from paranoia,” Niles should not be allowed to represent himself in court and counsel should be appointed to him.
Niles Threatens to Kill Judge
At an unknown date, possibly 1994, Arthur Niles was released from prison and ended up in Randallstown, Maryland, in the Washington, DC area. Niles’ son, Navaldo “Rico” Niles, lived in that area. Rico was born on April 9, 1968, about two weeks before Arthur Niles began his rampage.
In 2002, District Judge Richard A. Cooper issued a restraining order to prevent Niles from having contact with the 34 year-old Rico. In response, Niles wrote a threatening letter dated November 13, 2002 to Judge Cooper saying, in part, “Then, I would have to come back to Maryland to kill you, your honor.”
At a November 22 bail hearing, Niles said:
Just keep me in a jail where I can be safe and you can be safe. Or put me in the gas chamber. I do not deserve to live because I have killed people and I am not sorry for what I did. I would be content and happy to be in jail, if you could find a cell for me to be alone.
A few days earlier, Niles had been arrested at the Lowe’s Home Improvement in Waldorf, Maryland, in the company of Rico for violating the restraining order. In court, Niles claimed that the restraining order characterized him as a child abuser.
In his defense, Niles said, “I’m a killer, not a child abuser.”
Arthur Bevan Niles Today
Arthur Bevan Niles is still alive. Niles’ wife, Jean Niles, of Newton, North Carolina, died on November 30, 2013, and the obituary states that Mrs. Niles was survived by her husband of 52 years, Arthur Niles of St. Thomas, VI.
Arthur Niles’ son, Rico, posted in 2015 that his father is “highspirited and healing” after an unspecified medical procedure. Some healing between Rico and his father may have occurred, because Rico posted on his Facebook that he loved his father and wished him the best after recovering from that operation.
Navaldo “Rico” Niles battled heart disease and died on August 3, 2016.
