Thanksgiving is the day that Americans get together to show thanks for all they have, and the people they love. Families work together to create a wonderful feast, and gather around the table to eat and celebrate. For most, the last thing you want to do on Thanksgiving, is go to the grocery store to pick up some last-minute items. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Kelsey Berreth was doing the last time she was seen.
29 year old Kelsey Berreth was born on September 15, 1989 in Washington. Growing up, she wanted to be a crop duster, which may have been the inspiration behind her studying aviation in college. After she graduated, she got a job as a flight instructor in Washington, and her parents moved to northern Idaho, leaving her to start life on her own. “She always wanted to fly as a child,” said her mother, Cheryl.
Kelsey met Patrick Frazee online, and after meeting him in person, made the move to Colorado in May 2016, where he lived. He lived in Florissant, and she got her own condo in Woodland Park. She worked several different jobs, but finally ended up at Doss Aviation in Pueblo in late July 2017.
Kelsey was described as a kind woman, always smiling. “That’s how we knew her,” said Ira Cline, a co-worker at Doss Aviation. “She was a joy for all of us to be around.”
The chief pilot for initial training at Doss Aviation, Mark Maryak, described Kelsey as being “sharp as a tack.” He added that she was able to complete their training program during her short time with the company, an achievement that even instructors with 20 years of experience in the U.S. Air Force have called “grueling.”
Kelsey and Frazee got engaged, and on October 5, 2017, she had what was probably the happiest of her life. That was the day she gave birth to their daughter, Kaylee. Having been born three weeks early, Kaylee spent the next several days in the NICU.
The couple was still living apart, and between having a new baby, and commuting to Pueblo for work, Kelsey was exhausted. But Frazee wasn’t ready to move in together. Patrick wasn’t exactly happy with his relationship. He started talking to a former girlfriend, Krystal Lee Kenney, who had been on-again, off-again since 2006.
“The next thing I remember,” Lee later said, “he was calling me and I was nervous and he was calling me, and we ended up talking on the phone for over two hours about horses and dogs.” Lee, who was living in Idaho, took a trip to Colorado the following June. That’s when she discovered that Frazee had a daughter.
“My jaw hit the table,” Lee said, adding that Frazee had never mentioned the child or Berreth.
When she made another trip to Colorado in August, Lee made a stop in Utah and bought a onesie for little Kaylee that said, “long live cowgirls.” Even after that, Frazee still didn’t talk about his daughter, until the following month that is. “He really didn’t talk to me about having a daughter,” Lee said. “He asked me what my opinion was about protecting people that are innocent.”
Frazee told her, as well as everyone he knew, that Kelsey was a bad mom, an alcoholic, and abusive to Kaylee. He told them that she had abandoned the baby and left her with him. For the record, these claims have never been substantiated.
He asked people to keep their eyes on her, claiming she was dangerous. He turned to Lee for help “taking care of this” or “an innocent is going to be harmed.” During their conversations, and knowing she was a nurse, he asked her what combinations of drugs could theoretically kill a person.
Frazee convinced Lee to befriend Kelsey. Then it wouldn’t be unusual for her to bring her a coffee from Starbucks, which she was supposed to put “something” in to make her “go away.” But Lee couldn’t go through with it. She took Kelsey a caramel macchiato, with nothing in it.
Frazee was upset, but told her that she’d have another chance because “people go missing all the time.”
When October came, Frazee had another plan. He instructed Lee to hit Kelsey on the back of the head with a pipe, put her body in a garbage can, and drag it down the road. Upon arriving at Kelsey’s house with the pipe, Lee was frightened by the dogs barking, and drove away.
The third attempt had Frazee asking Lee to bring a baseball bat from home, and allegedly told her to “go to swinging,” and then put Kelsey’s body in a dumpster, or just get rid of it.
Once again, Lee drove to Kelsey’s home, but couldn’t go through with it. She was afraid for baby Kaylee, but was also afraid of what Frazee would do if she didn’t do what she asked. What would happen to her family?
As she expected, Frazee wasn’t happy with her lack of action.
The Disappearance
On November 22, 2018, Thanksgiving day, Kelsey was spotted at the local Safeway with her daughter. That was the last time anyone, other than her killer, ever saw her.
On November 25, Kelsey’s employer, Doss Aviation, received texts from her cell phone, saying she would not be at work for the next week.
On December 2, after not hearing from her daughter for several days, Kelsey’s mother, Cheryl-Lee Berreth, reached out to Frazee. He told her he hadn’t heard from her since she last texted him, which he claimed was the 25th. She filed a missing person’s report.
Officers with the Woodland Park Police Department went to Kelsey’s home and conducted a search. She was not there, however her cars, her clothes, and her toothbrush all appeared to have gone untouched since Thanksgiving, authorities said.
The next day, Woodland Park police reached out to the public, with the hope that someone would have information regarding Kelsey’s whereabouts.
The Facebook page, “Missing Mother – Kelsey Berreth” was created to help spread awareness about her disappearance. There, her family noted it would be out of character for her to not let anyone know if she planned on flying cross-country, regardless of her experience in the air.
“She does not own a plane nor do we know of any local friends that she would borrow one from,” they wrote on Facebook. “I don’t believe she has ever made a flight without filing a flight plan. We do realize that it is possible to rent a plane, but I believe someone would be missing it by now.”
To prove this point, all the planes at Doss Aviation were checked and accounted for. There was no indication that Kelsey had flown anywhere.
By December 10, the Woodland Park police department announced that they were working with numerous law enforcement authorities, including the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the FBI and officials in Gooding, Idaho.
Police Chief Miles De Young reported that Frazee was cooperating with police, but he declined to attend that day’s press conference. In regards to his decision to not attend, De Young said, “That’s a question you would have to ask him.”
“I’d just like to talk to you a little bit about Kelsey,” her mother said. “She’s not the kind that runs off. This is completely out of character. Kelsey loves her god, she loves her family and friends, and she loves her job,” she continued. “She’s reliable, considerate and honest. … She doesn’t run off, and someone knows where she’s at.”
The next day, the Woodland Park police released the last-known footage of Kelsey before she disappeared. In the video, she can be seen entering a Safeway grocery store. She was carrying her daughter in what appeared to be a car seat that she then placed into a shopping cart before walking further into the store.
On the 13th, Cheryl-Lee Berreth spoke to NBC news. “I can’t think of anywhere she’s gone where she hasn’t told me,” she said. “It’s just not in her character to do something, to just take off and be gone.”
She said she had spoken with Kelsey twice on Thanksgiving, including once when her daughter needed the details of a recipe. “Her voice was fine,” she said. “It was a normal day for her.”
Patrick Frazee hired attorney Jeremy Loew. Loew told NBC news that Frazee was cooperating with police. He added that he voluntarily released his phone to be searched by investigators and has provided cheek swabs for DNA samples.
Regarding not attending the earlier press conference, he said it was because he only learned of it an hour before, noting he would have gone had he been given more notice. Loew said he also advised Frazee against speaking publicly to avoid tainting the investigation.
On the 14th, officers executed a search warrant at Frazee’s home. They cut the lock on his gate in Florissant before beginning their search of his home, KRDO-TV reported. More than 75 law enforcement officials participated in the search.
Frazee was not at the property, and was not under arrest. “We encourage law enforcement to take whatever steps it deems necessary to find Kelsey Berreth and to be able to exclude Patrick Frazee as a possible suspect in this missing person investigation,” Loew said in a statement. “Mr. Frazee will continue not to participate in any interviews with the media and instead focus on parenting the child he shares with Ms. Berreth.”
By the 18th, investigators still hadn’t found her, and Frazee still hadn’t been ruled out as a suspect. Sonja Oliver, who said she had known him for five years, told Inside Edition, “I’ve always considered him to be a gentle soul. Soft-spoken and just really down to Earth and practical.”
Oliver said she “couldn’t imagine him doing anything that would harm anyone.” When asked if she believed he had anything to do with Kelsey’s disappearance, she said, “I just can’t imagine Patrick doing anything like that.”
His attorney told Inside Edition his client and Kelsey’s relationship was largely positive. “Like most relationships it has ups and downs, but for the most part, it’s a good relationship,” he said.
On December 21, Frazee was taken into custody about 7am, and was charged with murder and solicitation to commit murder. 1-year-old baby Kaylee was placed in protective custody before being reunited with her mother’s family.
“Sadly, we do not believe Kelsey is still alive,” Woodland Park Police Chief Miles De Young told reporters.
So, what happened to Kelsey?
The Murder
On Thanksgiving, after Lee had failed so many times, Frazee took matters into his own hands.
He went to her home and covered Kelsey’s eyes with a sweater, and asked her to smell different candles. With her blindfolded, he took the baseball bat and struck her in the head. “He just said he swung away, and that it was really hard,” Lee said. He put her remains in a black tote bag, and loaded her into the back of his truck.
He called Lee, who was home in Idaho, and told her that she had a mess to clean up. He told her to go to Kelsey’s condo. Two days later, on November 24, she walked into what she described as a “horrible scene.”
During Frazee’s trial, Lead Prosecutor Jennifer Viehman said, “There’s blood everywhere. There’s blood on the walls. There’s blood on the fireplace. There’s blood on the couch. There’s blood on items in the kitchen. Hobby Lobby bags. Children’s toys.”
It took Lee four hours to clean the home, and the items she couldn’t clean, she stuffed into garbage bags. She filled a total of six garbage bags. Lee would later confess in court that she intentionally left some evidence behind. “I knew when I walked into that house it was trouble. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. … I left little spots so that somebody would see it and it would raise suspicion about what had happened,” she said.
Frazee and Lee went back to his ranch, where he proceeded to put Kelsey’s body in a rusted old horse trough. He pulled out gas and motor oil, pouring it in the trough and set it on fire. He also burned the garbage bags. Later, Lee took investigators to the exact location, which had been covered in dirt. They uncovered it and found scorch marks and a possible human tooth fragment.
On November 25, Frazee gave Lee Kelsey’s phone, and told her to take it home to Idaho. She took Kelsey’s cell phone, purse, and gun and drove back to Idaho. When Frazee asked her to send him photos of him and Kaylee that had been stored on Kelsey’s phone. This required her to set up a Walgreens account, and Lee said it made her pause.
“I saw some of those pictures on her phone, and I knew that there were people that cared about her, and people were going to look for her,” she said. She had a strike of conscience, and decided to let Kelsey’s phone “ping” in Grand Junction, hoping that it would help law enforcement find her.
Once home, she burned Kelsey’s phone and purse, disposing of the ashes in the trash at her work. She gave the gun to a family friend.
In the days that followed, Frazee called her multiple times, instructing her to “stick to the story” and “play cool.” He told her “Don’t run your mouth. Don’t say too much.”
On December 14, Lee was in Las Vegas when she received a call from the FBI. “I was scared,” she said. “I was scared of the whole situation, I was so scared that if I didn’t cooperate with Patrick something would happen to me or something would happen to my little girl. I was scared about the whole process, and I knew that it was coming, but I didn’t feel comfortable, I didn’t know how to handle the situation.”
The next day, the FBI went to her house, where they did a search and took DNA samples. She said she’d cooperate, but would need to hire a lawyer first.
On December 20, she gave an interview with investigators, and the next day, Frazee was arrested.
Lee took investigators to the scenes where the crime had occurred.
On December 31, 2018, Patrick Frazee was formally charged with three charges of solicitation to commit murder, as well as two charges of first-degree murder. Each murder charge represented a different theory of how Kelsey was killed. One mentioned an accusation of robbery, indicating she was killed during the commission of a separate crime.
The other murder charge alleged Frazee himself deliberately caused the death of Kelsey with intent to do so. “Obviously, there’s only one murder in this case,” Fourth Judicial District Attorney Dan May told KMGH-TV. “Under Colorado law, we file separate counts under different theories of first-degree murder. We filed under two theories: One is deliberation for murder. And the other is felony murder.”
By January 3, Krystal Lee Kenney’s name had been released to the public.
February 8, Lee was charged with one count of felony evidence tampering and pleaded guilty after agreeing to testify against Frazee, KOAA-TV reported.
“I learned that Patrick Frazee had committed a homicide on approximately Nov. 22 in Teller County,” Lee said in a statement read by May at a press conference following her court appearance Friday, KOAA-TV reported. “I knew that law enforcement would be investigating that crime. I moved the victim’s cell phone with the intent to impair the phone’s availability in the investigation.
“I had no right or authority to move the victim’s cell phone that occurred between Nov. 24 and Nov. 25, 2018 in Teller County.”
Patrick Frazeewas convicted on two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of solicitation to commit murder, and one count of tampering with a deceased human body on November 18, 2019. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 156 years in addition to five years with parole for solicitation.
He has maintained that he was not guilty of Kelsey’s murder. As per prison records, he is currently incarcerated at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Ordway, Colorado.
Krystal Lee Kenney was sentenced to three years in prison on January 28, 2020, however that sentence was vacated by the Court of Appeals. She was re-sentenced on March 23, 2021 to 18 months in prison, followed by a year of mandatory parole. The sentence was retroactive to the original sentencing date. She is currently free on parole.
Baby Kaylee is in the custody of her grandmother, Cheryl-Lee Barreth.
Kelsey Berreth’s body has never been found.
For many, this case reminded them of the murder Shanann Watts.