The affidavit for the arrest of missing Colorado mother Kelsey Berreth’s fiancé on murder charges has been released and it reveals grisly new details of her death and the conspiracy to cover up the crime.
In a preliminary hearing in court on Tuesday, prosecutors alleged that on November 22, Patrick Frazee entered the Colorado home of Berreth — his 29-year-old fiancee and mother of his one-year-old daughter, Kaylee — blindfolded her, asked her to guess the scent of different candles, and then beat her to death with a baseball bat while she was distracted. He then enlisted his ex-girlfriend, Krystal Lee Kenney, to drive from her home in Idaho and take care of the bloody crime scene, telling her she had a “mess to clean up.”
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Frazee then embarked on what the affidavit refers to as a “scheme” to use his and Berreth’s cell phones to “distract law enforcement, distort the actual date of [Berreth’s] disappearance, and separate himself as a suspect in a murder investigation.”
Kenney agreed to testify against Frazee as part of a plea deal she reached in exchange for admitting to a charge of tampering with evidence. According to the affidavit, she told investigators that Frazee had asked her to help him murder Berreth on three separate occasions. In September of 2018, he allegedly wanted to poison Berreth’s coffee; in October he asked Kenney to strike his fiancee with a metal pipe.
Kenney described the “horrific” scene she encountered at Berreth’s apartment when she arrived on November 24. She told police that there was blood on, “the curtains, pillows, books, baby toys, stuffed animals, oven mitts, Berreth’s purse, and other items.” She wore a full body suit, gloves, booties, and a hair net to clean the apartment with bleach and Windex. Kenney said that while Frazee had removed Berreth’s body from the apartment before she arrived, she located a tooth belonging to the dead mother that had been knocked out in the vicious attack.
Kenney further testified that Frazee told her that Berreth’s one-year-old daughter had been present during the murder in a “playpen in a back bedroom of the residence.”
Despite an extensive search, investigators have not yet found Berreth’s body. They believe Frazee set her remains on fire and discarded of them in either a river or a dump.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Berreth’s mother, Cheryl, reported her daughter missing on December 2. Frazee was arrested on December 21 on first degree murder and solicitation of first degree murder charges and was formally charged on December 31. Shortly after, the judge in Frazee’s case ordered that the affidavit for his arrest would remain sealed pending his preliminary hearing. On February 19, the judge ruled there was enough evidence against Frazee to move ahead with a murder trial and the affidavit was released.
Berreth’s parents have filed a wrongful death against Frazee, saying that his motive for murder was the desire for full custody of the one-year-old child they are currently raising.
Frazee is scheduled to be arraigned on April 8.