Kelsey Grammer cries recalling his sister’s murder on ‘The View’

Frasier and Cheers actor Kelsey Grammer became visibly emotional on The View while recalling the moment he identified the body of his sister, Karen, who was murdered in 1975.

The 70-year-old performer appeared Thursday on the talk show to discuss his book celebrating his sister’s life, Karen: A Brother Remembers, during which he cried over a memory of the moment he identified her body.

After cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin discussed Grammer’s decision to revisit the police report from the evening Karen was raped and murdered by spree killer Freddie Glenn, Grammer reflected on why he wanted to amplify Karen’s life in the project.

“To tell her story, it was important to know the details. I felt like I was kind of a sleuth, searching for Karen. The police report was a sticking point,” Grammer replied. “The real purpose of reading the police report was to find out if there was somebody who might know something that nobody else knew, that I didn’t know.”

Grammer said that, through the process, he discovered several of Karen’s former friends that he was able to speak to for the first time, which gave him some peace in resurfacing her memory.

“The barbarity and cruelty of that night, part of my mission or my hope is that someone might who’s been grieving in their lives over something similar would find a way through my own course with this and find a way to have their grief, which is forever, and square up a little bit more with the joy,” Grammer explained. “That’s what I didn’t have.”

He continued, noting that he spent his “whole life putting Karen in that horrible night, in that place where I…” before trailing off as tears welled in his eyes.

After a few moments, he finished his thought: “Where I saw her and identified her body, and I couldn’t let that image go. The book helped me do that. Now, she lives again, and she’s vibrant and alive and that’s what I want to give to other people. They can bring those people back to their lives. They’re with you, and they’re alive. She was just wonderful. She was the greatest girl.”

In the book, which recounts Karen’s life leading up to her murder at age 18 in Colorado Springs, Colo., Grammer reveals he initially coped with her death with “too much drinking and drug abuse” in the aftermath.

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“To resolve grief does not end it,” Grammer continues in the book. “Resolving it is a balancing act. Living with grief while not undermining Life. To abide with it. Not surrender to it. It did almost kill me.”

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC. Grammer’s book Karen: A Brother Remembers is available now.