Kelsey Berreth

Case background and investigation

On November 22, 2018, Thanksgiving Day, twenty-nine-year-old Kelsey Berreth, a pilot and flight instructor, was last seen on surveillance video entering a Woodland Park, Colorado Safeway store with her one-year-old daughter Kaylee. She was never seen again.

Kelsey's fiancé Patrick Frazee reported her missing on December 2 after her employer raised concerns. Text messages had been sent from Kelsey's phone for several days after her disappearance, leading investigators to initially believe she was alive. However, the texts had been sent by Frazee's girlfriend, Krystal Lee Kenney, at his direction.

Kenney became a key cooperating witness. She testified that Frazee had bludgeoned Kelsey to death with a baseball bat at her townhome and then enlisted Kenney to clean the crime scene and help dispose of the body, which was burned on Frazee's ranch. Kelsey's remains were never recovered.

Frazee was convicted of first-degree murder, solicitation of murder, and tampering with a body in November 2019. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 156 years. Kenney pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and was sentenced to three years.