Kelsey Berreth was a devoted mum and a successful pilot, but her life was cut short when her fiance Patrick Frazee brutally murdered her in her own home, faking a ‘fun’ game to lure her in
with Frazee before he brutally took her life(Image: Teller County Sheriff’s Office)
Kelsey Berreth was a true country girl, raised on a farm where she drove tractors and assisted with the harvest. She later earned her pilot’s licence and embarked on a career as a flight instructor.
In 2016, Kelsey found an immediate bond with Colorado rancher Patrick Frazee after meeting him online. Frazee resided on a sprawling 35-acre ranch, home to horses, donkeys and cattle dogs. Despite living over 1,000 miles apart in Washington state, Kelsey soon relocated to Colorado, settling in a place roughly 20 miles from Frazee.
By October 2017, the couple welcomed a baby girl into their lives and got engaged. Kelsey balanced her role as a mother with her flying teaching duties. However, on Thanksgiving Day, 22 November 2018, her family couldn’t reach her, prompting her mother Cheryl Berreth to report her missing.
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Frazee, then aged 33, informed the police that Kelsey had intended to break off their relationship. He claimed she’d left their baby with him on Thanksgiving Day and they’d agreed to share custody equally going forward. Frazee hinted at Kelsey suffering from depression, but her family vehemently denied this, with Cheryl asserting that her daughter hadn’t mentioned any split during their last conversation on Thanksgiving morning.
An inquiry was launched and officers discovered that Kelsey had been out purchasing dinner ingredients. She’d messaged Frazee saying, “I bought some sweet potatoes in case you wanted sweet potato casserole.” Why would she be buying components for a family dinner if they had broken up?
Frazee claimed he hadn’t seen Kelsey since 22 November, when he’d taken their daughter to his property without Kelsey, but mobile records revealed that her phone had travelled to Frazee’s residence. Records also showed the couple exchanged messages over the following days. In one text, Kelsey informed Frazee she was going for a jog. In another, she was about to “jump in the shower”.
Then, three days after Thanksgiving, Kelsey’s mobile began moving away from Colorado. It was last tracked 800 miles distant in Idaho. So had Kelsey simply vanished from her life?
Another woman
At Kelsey’s residence, officers found certain items were absent, including a bathroom mat. Kitchen equipment appeared to have been cleaned down and Kelsey’s blood was discovered in the toilet. It was now a murder scene.
Investigators then uncovered that Frazee had been having an affair – with a woman in Idaho. Recently separated mother-of-two Krystal Lee Kenney, then 32, was a nurse and an avid equestrian. The duo met at secondary school and had been romantically involved intermittently.
They’d rekindled their relationship and had been secretly meeting for eight months. Initially, Kenney denied any knowledge of Kelsey – but in a shocking twist during a plea deal, she confessed: Frazee had murdered Kelsey, and she had assisted him in concealing the crime.
After Frazee impersonated Kelsey by sending texts from her phone, Kenney discarded her keys and phone into an Idaho canyon. But Kenney’s involvement didn’t stop there. She revealed that Frazee had attempted to enlist her help to murder Kelsey on three separate occasions, alleging that he had painted Kelsey as depressed, addicted and a danger to her daughter, hence his desire for sole custody.
Kenney admitted she complied out of fear and manipulation. She disclosed that Frazee had proposed poisoning a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks, Kelsey’s preferred drink. Leveraging her nursing expertise, Kenney suggested a deadly cocktail of Ambien and Valium. She then embarked on a 12-hour drive from Idaho, procured the coffee and arrived at Kelsey’s residence. Posing as a new neighbour, she handed over the beverage, but she hadn’t laced it with poison as she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
A frustrated Frazee then devised another method: he would place a metal pipe near his home for Kenney to bludgeon Kelsey with. Kenney retrieved the pipe, but a barking dog thwarted her at the last moment.
The third scheme involved lying in wait outside Kelsey’s home armed with a baseball bat, but the sight of a police car sent Kenney fleeing. Having failed yet again, Frazee took matters into his own hands.
The clean-up
Phone records revealed he texted Kenney at 4.30pm on Thanksgiving Day, writing: “You need to get here now. You’ve got a mess to clean up.” Kenney packed her vehicle with cleaning supplies and, two days afterwards, travelled 800 miles to collect keys from Frazee to access Kelsey’s property.
She described the horrific scene that greeted her, with blood splattered throughout the house. Kenney confessed to spending four hours scrubbing the premises, bagging up anything too saturated with blood – including curtains and children’s toys – to take away in bin liners. She revealed Frazee warned her there might be a tooth somewhere in the house, which she searched for and discovered.
During their meeting, Frazee confessed to murdering Kelsey, detailing how he lured his fiancée into a “guessing game” where she was blindfolded with a sweater to identify candle fragrances. He then bludgeoned her to death with a baseball bat whilst their infant was in an adjoining room, before placing her corpse in a black holdall and loading it onto his lorry to conceal in a hay shed.
Kenney revealed that following the clean-up operation, she accompanied Frazee to the ranch where he placed the bag and other bloodstained evidence into a large container. He doused everything with petrol and ignited it, ensuring no trace remained for investigators to discover.
On 31 December, Frazee was detained and charged with murder, whilst Kenney secured a plea bargain to give evidence against him in exchange for a lighter sentence. During the 2019 trial, defence lawyers argued that Frazee couldn’t be linked to the crime, yet Kenney’s evidence was devastating.
A harrowing video played in court showed Kenney at the murder scene, describing how she cleaned up and indicating where blood had been and where she discovered Kelsey’s tooth. Kenney disclosed that Frazee had recounted Kelsey’s final plea, “Please stop.” He also described the beating as horrific and confessed, “I wouldn’t do it like that again. It was inhumane.”
The jury convicted Frazee. At his sentencing, the judge condemned him, stating, “Your actions were vicious, senseless, without reason nor explanation… After you beat her, you burned her body like a piece of trash. Your crimes deserve the absolute punishment available.”
Frazee received a life sentence plus 156 years, while Kenney got three years, later reduced to 18 months. Kelsey’s family begrudgingly accepted the lenient sentence for Kenney, acknowledging her crucial testimony. The district attorney conceded making a “deal with the devil”. Kenney walked free from prison in 2021.
Kelsey’s child is now with her grandparents, but the saga continues as Frazee has pledged to appeal. This February, he returned to court seeking to overturn his conviction. His appeal hinged on the fact that a caseworker didn’t read him his rights during an interview. However, the court determined that she wasn’t functioning as a law enforcement officer, thus this didn’t apply.
His conviction was consequently upheld. The murder of Kelsey still sends shockwaves seven years later. Unbeknownst to her, in the final weeks of her life, she was in grave peril and tragically, on the fourth attempt, she would lose her life.