Kelsey Berreth

Kelsey Berreth was murdered by her fiancé, Patrick Frazee, after he unsuccessfully tried convincing his lover to do it for him three times. She would ultimately be the one to help authorities, providing a critical account of what happened to Kelsey. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Kelsey Berreth. Her fiancé provided what appeared to be a solid alibi, but the police slowly chipped away at it. What they uncovered was a quasi-love triangle and a murder plot straight out of a fiction writer's imagination. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  Hello everyone and welcome to episode 496 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm good, man. I'm hopping and bopping and flopping like this demon frog, not dog, frog that you laid on my desk over here.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  All right, the first two I was okay with. The flopping, not so much. That I can, I can do without.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Maybe it's hopping and what else do frogs do?

• 1:02Speaker 00

  I don't know, but there should be no flopping in the studio. That's all I know. Let's go ahead and do our Patreon shout outs. We had Sarah Jane Morrison.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  What's going on, Sarah Jane?

• 1:12Speaker 00

  LB Online.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Well, if you're gonna be something, be online.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  Jessica Baca.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  What's going on, Jessica?

• 1:17Speaker 00

  Kelly Labedz.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Labaz.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Laurel H.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Hey Laurel.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  And last but not least, Katie Bro.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  D. Katie.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  And then if we go back into the vault.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  This week, we selected Brittany Montalvon.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Montalvon.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Which is just very fun to say.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  It is fun.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  So we appreciate all the support that we get.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  We have an episode out right now on True Crime All Time Unsolved where we're talking about Danielle Imbo and Richard Petron. The two left a bar together in Philadelphia and they just disappeared. But there's a lot to this case. It's been over 20 years, but there's a lot about their movement.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  And what might have happened to them and Richard's truck. So it's definitely a good episode. And then on our TCAT episode for Thursday, we're talking about Kamia Mobley, who was abducted from the hospital just hours after she was born. And then 18 years later, she was found alive and well, having been raised by the woman who kidnapped her.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  A lot of emotions in that one.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  There is, and it's such a strange story. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  I am.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  We're talking about Kelsey Berreth. Kelsey Berreth was murdered by her fiance, Patrick Frazee, after he unsuccessfully tried convincing his lover to do it for him three times.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Three times, not once, not twice, but three.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  And she would ultimately be the one to help authorities kind of put together this narrative as to what happened to Kelsey. And I'm sure we'll talk about it at some point in the episode, but you know, I just, I never can understand how you go to someone and say, would you murder someone for me? Or would you help me murder someone? I just don't even understand how that conversation starts, goes down, any of it.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you'd have to be one, pretty confident and comfortable with that person that you're talking about it with. And I think you really need to have like a backup real quick, like, oh, no, I was joking. Did you think I was serious? No, I was joking. I would never do something like that.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  It really sounds like maybe you've done that before. Cause you came up with that real quick. Kelsey Berreth was born on September 15th, 1989. She grew up on her family farm in Moses Lake, Washington. After graduating high school, Kelsey enrolled in a flight instructor program at her local community college. In 2016, she met Patrick Frazee on a dating website. Patrick was a rancher who lived over a thousand miles away in Florissant, Colorado. He trained cattle dogs, shooed horses and groomed donkeys. Patrick was said to be laid back, quiet and dedicated to his work.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  He used to do things with donkeys.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  I didn't know that donkeys needed to be groomed all that much.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  You gotta keep them clean, man.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  I guess so.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Well, a thousand miles, that's a long distance relationship.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  That, that is. Kelsey told a friend that she liked the fact that Patrick was a cowboy. Hey, some girls like cowboys.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  You know, Rex is a cowboy. He's got his chaps, he's got his Stetson hat. You know?

• 4:55Speaker 00

  And he's well liked.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  And he's well.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Especially by a certain demographic.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  Kelsey moved to Colorado to be closer to Patrick. She lived in a town home in Woodland Park, just 20 minutes from the ranch and got a job as a flight instructor. According to Kelsey's friend, Ashley Cogburn, Patrick never came to visit Kelsey, but on her days off, she would spend time with him on the ranch. About two years after they started dating, Kelsey became pregnant with their daughter, Kaylee, who was born in October 2017. Kelsey was described as a doting mother. Kelsey and Patrick got engaged, but didn't immediately set wedding plans. They raised Kaylee together, but Kelsey continued living in her town home and Patrick stayed on the ranch.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Well, it's kind of hard to leave the ranch when you got to take care of all those animals and things like that.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  There is quite a bit to do on a working ranch.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Something I learned by watching The Ranch.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  On Netflix.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Well, it could be something that you actually did.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  You cannot get up early enough to do what needs to be done on the ranch.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  No, I would do it before I went to bed.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  If we're talking about like milking the cows or whatever. Kelsey's friends noted that she was struggling to balance taking care of the baby, her job, and her long commute. Her relationship with Patrick seemed strained.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Well, it's always going to be a struggle when you're taking care of the baby pretty much yourself. That's a lot.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it's hard enough when, you know, mom and dad are under the same roof. With a new baby, that's, that's a struggle.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  But, but if you're doing it on your own and he's only coming in every now and then, I could see how that relationship could get strained pretty quickly. Ashley Cogburn told 48 Hours that it appeared to her that Patrick was emotionally abusive and it seemed like he was just knocking her spirit down. Kelsey never said Patrick was physically abusive. She once mentioned to Ashley that Patrick had an ex who still wanted to be with him, but she didn't seem worried about it.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Well, you know, on the mentally abusive versus physically abusive.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  There's been several people that have told us that the mental abuse is worse than the physical abuse. They're both bad, but that mental abuse can really do some major damage.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I, I get it. Neither one is, is good and, and it shouldn't happen. Kelsey was last seen alive shopping at a Safeway grocery store in Woodland Park with her daughter at 12:27 PM on November 22nd, 2018, which was Thanksgiving Day. The Safeway security video was the last time Kelsey was seen in public. She grabbed a shopping cart, put her daughter into it and walked further into the store. She bought ingredients for a sweet potato casserole. I love a good sweet potato casserole.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  I make a killer sweet potato casserole.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  But yet you've never brought me any and I buy you dinner every single week.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  I had to bring you one. It's what I'm known for around the holidays.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  I don't know if I'd put that on my business card. Earlier in the day, Kelsey spoke to her mom about Thanksgiving. She later texted Patrick, I bought some sweet potatoes in case you wanted sweet potato casserole. Kelsey's mother, Cheryl, became worried when she couldn't get in contact with her for several days and reported her missing on December 2nd, 2018. That's quite a bit of time that's gone by, right? She is last seen on the 22nd of November. Cheryl, her mother, reports her missing on

• 8:55Speaker 00

  December 2nd. And I get it, they are probably a long ways of, from each other, distance wise. And maybe not every mom and daughter talks on the phone every day.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that is a, a good amount of time.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  It is.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  When the police spoke to Patrick, he claimed that Kelsey broke up with him the day before Thanksgiving because they just weren't meshing anymore. They agreed to split custody of Kaylee 50/50. They met on Thanksgiving Day to exchange their daughter. He returned some of Kelsey's belongings, including a purse, keys to the car, keys to the town home, and a gun Kelsey owned. Patrick had once taken the gun from Kelsey for her own protection. He said she struggled with depression, suggesting she might be suicidal. He said he then took Kaylee to his ranch for Thanksgiving. Without Kelsey, they had been communicating

• 9:56Speaker 00

  for several days after Thanksgiving via texts and calls. And you know, some of these things are interesting, right? Because some of this can be disproved if you're not being truthful.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  When you talk about texting, having phone calls with somebody, well, if you didn't after a certain date, the police are going to be able to figure that out.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Exactly. They're going to be able to pull that information up.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  Police searched Kelsey's town home, but found no signs of foul play. Her mother, Cheryl, and her son went to the house to take a look around. They saw that Kelsey's bathroom mat was missing, and her fridge had streaks, as if it had just been wiped down.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Well, that's observant.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  It is. I don't know that it's something I would notice. Maybe the bath mat, maybe not even that. I certainly wouldn't notice whether or not the fridge has been wiped down.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Because I know for sure I wouldn't have been the one to wipe it down. I just don't notice little things like that.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  So I think you're spot on in saying that's pretty observant for them to notice it. But Cheryl's son also noticed blood on the base of the toilet. So Cheryl alerted police, who returned to the house and used chemicals to find trace amounts of blood throughout the bathroom. And DNA testing confirmed it was Kelsey's blood.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  I mean, it's got to be somewhat alarming, right? If you have blood around the toilet, they come back, they confirm it's Kelsey's blood. You knew there was a bath mat there at one point that appears to be missing. So now your brain is in overdrive, right?

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, but how much can you make of it? And for me, I guess it boils down to what are you considering trace amounts of blood? Because, you know, she lived there.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  So is it unusual to find a trace amount of blood in someone's bathroom? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. That's where people shave. Cut themselves shaving, you step out of the bathtub. It's drips down near the toilet. You don't see it. You don't hit it when you're cleaning. But I think investigators suspected Kelsey had been harmed. They just needed more evidence. They started with reviewing her phone records. Early on, police thought Kelsey might have left town, but they questioned this when they saw that she bought ingredients to cook on Thanksgiving.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  They also questioned why she would offer to make food for Patrick if she broke up with him the day before.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Kelsey texts Patrick that day saying she had sweet potatoes and was going to make him some sweet potato casserole.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Which is weird if you broke up the day before.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, why would you want to cook for somebody if you broke up?

• 13:01Speaker 00

  But that's what I was talking about earlier, right? Be careful what you tell police because you could really paint yourself into a corner. Cheryl Berreth also told investigators that Kelsey sounded normal and happy during their phone call on Thanksgiving. And she didn't mention breaking up with Patrick. Cheryl also insisted Kelsey would not leave her daughter behind.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  I think those are two good points, especially that last one.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you would think, right? Daughter calls mom or talks to mom on the phone. She's probably going to mention the breakup.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  And like we talk about in a lot of cases, most moms are not going to just up and leave their daughter behind.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  But you know, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking when a couple like them break up with a child, it's going to be big news. Like she's going to like really talk to her mom about it. Like, we decided to break up. We're going to figure out what to do with the little one now, and how that's going to work out. And it's just not going to be something you're not going to mention.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, this isn't someone you've been dating for three weeks.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Images from a neighbor's security camera showed Patrick and Kelsey at her front door with a baby carrier around 1:30 PM on Thanksgiving, when Kelsey returned from the grocery store. At around 3:30 PM, Patrick was captured at the door alone. In total, the neighbor's camera captured Patrick 11 times at the townhome. Investigators weren't really sure whether he was leaving or entering at different points. Patrick told the police he took Kaylee to the ranch for Thanksgiving, and Kelsey wasn't with him. However, her phone was. Phone records showed

• 14:50Speaker 00

  that Kelsey and Patrick's phones traveled together on Thanksgiving Day. Investigators came to believe that Patrick faked 19 calls over Thanksgiving weekend, and was sending texts between himself and Kelsey, such as Kelsey saying, "I'm going running. I'll call you guys when I get home." Patrick saying, "Okay, be safe." Two days after Thanksgiving, there was this conversation. Patrick said, "Are you awake? Kelsey, sorry, I didn't hear my phone. Going to jump in the shower. I'll call you guys when I get out." Patrick said, "Okay." To keep up his ruse that Kelsey was the one who broke up with him, Patrick sent the following message. "If

• 15:35Speaker 00

  this is truly what you want, I'll respect your wishes and give you space." Three days after Thanksgiving, phone records showed that while Patrick's phone stayed near his ranch, Kelsey's phone moved out of Colorado. She sent a text to her supervisor saying, "I won't be..." At work, then her phone texted Patrick, do you even love me? This time, Kelsey's phone pinged off a tower 800 miles away, near Gooding, Idaho. Police announced that Kelsey's phone pinged in Idaho on December 11th, and that she had been sending text messages after she went missing. So, I mean, they're dealing with a lot of different variables here.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  The police are, we've got the blood. We've also got the, this phone that makes it seem, at least on the surface, as though she's still alive after the, the last known sighting of her. But then also, if it is her, why is she 800 miles away in Gooding, Idaho?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Is this where she's running off to?

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Well, I think police were considering all possibilities at that point, even though they were pretty suspicious of Patrick. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Authorities also said Patrick's home had not been searched and he was being cooperative. Woodland Park Police Chief Miles DeYoung told reporters, "We're treating Kelsey's disappearance as a missing persons case at the time. We have not identified anyone as a suspect and are asking the public for any information that might help us find her." A couple of days later, Patrick spoke out via his attorney about the speculation over his behavior. His attorney described him as cooperative, saying,

• 17:30Speaker 00

  "Mr. Frazee's cooperation includes interviews with law enforcement, voluntarily releasing his phone to be searched by law enforcement, buckle swabs, and photographs."

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Well, it doesn't seem like he's trying to hide anything based on that.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  No, I mean, the attorney's pointing it out to make it seem like, hey, look, this, my client's doing everything that the police want him to do. Speculation was fueled by Patrick's absence at the recent news conference where authorities said he was invited but chose not to attend. According to the attorney, much has been said over the news and social media about Mr. Frazee's absence at the local news conference. Patrick was first notified of the press conference approximately an hour prior to its commencement. Had he been given more advance notice, he would have participated. Mr. Frazee hopes and prays for Ms. Barris return.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Mr. Frazee will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and continue to parent the child he shares with Ms. Barrett. So I see the issue there. It doesn't look good when you don't show up to this news conference. And it sounds like the news jumped on it, social media jumped on it. Now, if he really was only given an hour's notice, okay, maybe you can't make it. But that also seems strange that if they wanted him to be there, they wouldn't tell him until an hour beforehand?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  I think they would have communicated that much earlier.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  Behind the scenes, investigators were still digging into Patrick's phone records. They discovered that at the time of Kelsey's disappearance, he was in contact with Crystal Lee Kenny, a nurse from Idaho. Crystal came from a prominent rodeo family. She was considered rodeo royalty, and in 2008, she was crowned queen of the Magic Valley Rodeo.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Magic Valley?

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. How about that?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  That's pretty popular.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Now, I don't know much about rodeo. Rodeo is not a huge thing here where we live, but I know in a lot of states, it's big, real big.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can get on top of a.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Bull. Okay.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Hold on, give it a ride.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  All right. Hey, I don't need to know what you can give a ride to or anything like that.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  I just gotta have my chaps on.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Crystal had been in an on again, off again relationship with Patrick since 2006. Crystal later testified that she met him at a county fair. She ended things before she married another man and had two children. They had some sporadic contact over the years and Patrick allegedly tried to thwart her marriage. He got close to her as her marriage began to fall apart.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  It was a thwarter.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  It was a thwarter and you know, the on again, off again relationship. It's always a phrase that I get a kick out of.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  I know it does happen.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  It does.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Sometimes people just hook up on a, you know, somewhat random basis. Other relationships, you know, they date for a while, they break up for a while, they date again for a while, they break up for a while.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  I mean, if you're on and off again, probably more than a couple of times, probably just good to be off and just never get back on.

• 21:06Speaker 00

  It's probably not going to work out long term.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  Would be my conclusion, but you know, getting back to the thwarting, as you called it. He obviously continued to hold a torch for this girl because if you're trying to thwart the marriage, what's the logical reason for that? It's most likely because you want to be with that person. And it sounds like they did become closer as the marriage began to fall apart. So maybe it worked. Crystal later testified that while still married, but contemplating divorce. She learned in March 2016, she was pregnant with Patrick's child.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  She thought he would be happy, but he allegedly urged her to get an abortion and allegedly said, I guess you're a baby killer or you're not. She went ahead with the procedure, but told him she had a miscarriage.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Well, that's a interesting statement to make.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  But Patrick met Kelsey just a couple of months prior to all of this happen. Authorities began to suspect that Crystal was impersonating Kelsey with her phone. When the FBI first contacted her, Crystal said she had no idea who Kelsey Berreth was, and she denied even knowing Patrick Frazee.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Oh, man, that's never good.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  I mean, okay, the, the total lie, yeah, that's not good. Cause how hard is it going to be for the FBI to figure out that, yeah, you do know Patrick Frazee? She then changed her story. She was asked when the last time she spoke to Patrick was. She said she didn't know and would have to check. She then claimed it was the month prior. The problem was they already had all the records and they knew that she was lying about everything.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  They're like, hey, queen in the magic valley. We know what's going on. Don't try to fool us.

• 23:13Speaker 00

  Crystal claimed she didn't have a personal relationship with Patrick and had gone to Colorado to look at a few of his horses, but that was it. That's it, Gibbs.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  That's all.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  We didn't have this on again, off again, relationship. I didn't become pregnant with his baby. I barely know the guy.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  I just want to see if he had a good horse, if that horse knew how to buck.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  The FBI received a tip that Crystal's best friend, Michelle Stein, had information. Crystal called and confided in her about a disturbing conversation with Patrick a month before Kelsey went missing. In this conversation, he asked her to, quote, "take care of his baby mama." Michelle was shocked. Crystal told her, "Yeah, he asked me if I would kill the mother of his baby."

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I really like you. I think we could be something together one day, but I need you to do me a favor. Can you take care of my? Baby mama.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  But just look at the way she's painted herself in a corner.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  She has, yeah.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  To the FBI no less, right? I don't know this guy, no relationship with this guy. I just went to look at a few of his horses to, not only were we together, but he asked me to kill the, the mother of his, his baby. Apparently Crystal was crying and upset as she told Michelle this. She asked Crystal why Patrick wanted to kill the mother of his child. Patrick reportedly told Crystal, it was because Kelsey wanted to take him back to court to get custody of the baby and he feared she would harm the baby. Here we go, right?

• 25:00Speaker 00

  How many times do we talk about divorce, custody? That prompts someone to make the decision that their best course of action is to kill the other person.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Why am I shocked by it?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, at this point, there's no reason for you to be shocked.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  Michelle didn't call the police immediately after hearing Crystal's confession. She later told 48 Hours, she didn't know Patrick or Kelsey's full names. So I wasn't supposed to call someone in Colorado and say, hey, there's some guy in Colorado that wants to kill some girl. I don't know their names and I don't know where they live, but you know, good luck finding them. I guess that's what people think I should have done, which I get.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  You know, it's, it's kind of hard to, to call the police and say, first of all, I heard this story about two people, but I don't know the people's names.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess you could say, who told you that story?

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. And have the police go talk to, to that person. Michelle said she pushed Crystal to call the police and trusted her to do the right thing. She told 48 Hours that she does have regrets about not calling authorities. Kelsey had been missing for almost a month before Michelle talked to the FBI. When the FBI contacted Crystal a second time, she was ready to talk. But first, she wanted the deal. She agreed to plead guilty to evidence tampering and faced a maximum of three years in prison. Hey, if you're gonna spill the beans and you're gonna roll on somebody else, uh, yeah, get the deal first, I guess.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  That's what we always say. Be the first one. Cause if you're not first,

• 26:53Speaker 00

  you're last. Now, I get it. She didn't really have anything to do with the murder itself, but you know, if you gotta spend three years in prison, that's no joke. For sending a few texts and making some calls, I'm not excusing her behavior in any way, because what she did was wrong. What I'm saying is, three years in prison is not a laughing matter.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  No. Prison changes you.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  It's changed you quite a bit. Crystal's interview lasted four and a half hours. She provided the background of their relationship. By 2018, the relationship between Patrick and Crystal had intensified once again. Crystal, who was now divorced, came to Colorado multiple times to see Patrick. She claimed she was unaware he was engaged and had a child until 2018. And she was shocked when she found out. I mean, this guy is really quite the player as far as stringing two different women along or at the same time, I guess.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  Kind of having your cake and eating it too. She said that after she found out the truth, Patrick alleged that Kelsey was an abusive mother. And he began trying to convince Crystal to kill her. He asked Crystal to kill Kelsey on three separate occasions. The first time, Patrick wanted her to poison Kelsey's favorite Starbucks drink and give it to her. As a nurse, Crystal had knowledge of medications. She suggested a combination of Ambien and Valium.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Well, I think a little more than 99, depending on how much of it. But here's the thing, right? She's not going to go along with killing Crystal. But to me, even telling Patrick what drugs you would use is, is, you know, you're really crossing the line even there, I think.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you cross that line if you went ahead and give the method of doing it.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  Then in September of 2018, Crystal drove 12 hours from Idaho to Colorado and brought the coffee to Kelsey's home. Kelsey opened the door. Crystal told her she was new to the neighborhood and that someone told her Kelsey helped get her dogs out of trouble. Kelsey said she didn't do this. She accepted the coffee and went back into her house. But Crystal didn't go through with poisoning the drink. Patrick was angry when she told him. Okay, I am totally confused. Why in the world would you drive the 12 hours then? To give somebody a coffee?

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't, don't you know, uh, there's a thing called DoorDash?

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Just have somebody put it on the steps?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that seems very strange.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Well, the only thing I can think of is that she must have chickened out after she got there, which I think is kind of an indictment in and of itself that you made the 12 hour trip with the intent.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  To poison, but you just didn't actually go through with it.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I mean, I'd want to know, did you have the Valium and the Ambien on you?

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Well, I think we can see why she was so adamant about wanting the plea deal, you know? Because maybe there were quite a few charges that, that she could have potentially gotten. So Patrick's angry. He came up with a new plan. He was going to leave a metal pipe outside his property that Crystal would pick up. She would wait for Kelsey inside her home and hit her on the back of the head.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Cause that's a much better plan.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  So Patrick is the planner. And for some reason, Crystal is supposed to be the, the doer, the, the person who carries it out. Crystal drove to the house with the metal pipe, but backed out of the plan and returned to Idaho.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  So again, she almost went through with something.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Well, she's, yeah, she's doing the beginning part. She just doesn't follow through. I mean, I, I have to think there's possibly some charge, right? That could come out of some of that. A week later, Patrick called with yet another plan. He told Crystal to bring a baseball bat and wait outside Kelsey's home to attack her. Crystal did so, but got scared when she saw a police car drive by and didn't go through with it.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Here's another path that she goes down.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  The third one.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  Now luckily she doesn't follow through with, with any of them, but I think it does show you or, or tell you something that she took a step forward three different times in a plan to murder this woman.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  And if the police didn't spook her off this last one, would she have?

• 32:03Speaker 00

  Maybe. We don't know. But Patrick was frustrated and decided to take matters into his own hands. Phone records showed that Patrick called Crystal in Idaho at 4:30 PM on Thanksgiving. According to Crystal, he told her, you need to get out here now. You got a mess to clean up. Crystal came out two days later with cleaning supplies. She picked up Kelsey's keys at Patrick's ranch and then drove to Kelsey's home. There was blood all over the inside of the town home, but Kelsey's body wasn't there.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  I'm just thinking about Patrick calling her and saying, hey, you need to get here. You have a heck of a mess to clean up.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, I don't know. It seems like he's really got a hold over her or something. Because she's willing to really do a lot for this guy, almost murder.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  And now she's in the process of cleaning up what she had to think was a murder. Crystal spent a few hours cleaning and threw out certain items she couldn't get clean. She put those items in trash bags and put them in her car. Patrick was at his ranch during the cleanup. When she met him there, he described how he lured Kelsey to her death. He asked her to play a game where she was blindfolded and would have to guess the scent of different candles. He then beat her to death with a baseball bat while their daughter was in another room.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Wow, man.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  That's horrific.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  He put Kelsey's body inside a black plastic tote and brought it to the ranch. Crystal confessed that they burned the tote and other pieces of evidence at the ranch. She returned to Idaho with Kelsey's phone and texted both Patrick and Kelsey's employer to make it seem like she was still alive. Crystal also admitted to getting rid of the gun, throwing Kelsey's keys into a canyon and destroying her phone.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  And she was really involved.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  She was, much more so than you would kind of think at the beginning, right? I even said it. It sounded to me like, you know, she had made a few calls.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Sent a few texts, but then you find out she was way more involved.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  I'm sitting here thinking three years is not even enough.

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Though, doesn't seem like much at all for the role she played, but that's the nature of a plea deal, right? If the authorities need her to testify against Patrick, and I'm sure they did, in order to ensure a conviction, well, he's the one who actually committed the murder. They definitely want him, so she's gonna get a bit of a deal. But you could make the argument that she definitely deserved to spend much more time in prison than just a maximum of three years.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Because let's face it, she wouldn't even do three years, right? On that type of sentence. The police took Crystal back to the crime scene. She described how the home was covered in blood when she arrived. And she found a tooth. She claimed she intentionally left blood behind at the fireplace for authorities to find. Okay. I think when somebody says, hey, you got a mess to clean up. You walk into a place and it's, the whole place is covered in blood. You know, things are bad. And then when you find a tooth, you know, things are really bad.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:48Speaker 00

  Something really bad happened here.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  I don't know if she really did leave blood behind for the authorities to find.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Or that just came out later and she seized on it and thought, well, it's, it's a way to my, make myself look a little bit better.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Like I'm leaving breadcrumbs, right? To try to help the authorities. Patrick Frazee was arrested on December 21st, 2018. He was charged with first degree murder. Patrick also faced three counts of solicitation to commit murder. And another count of murder due to theories about how the murder may have taken place. Either Patrick killed Kelsey by himself, or he and someone else tried to rob her before she was killed. Woodland Park Police Chief Miles DeYoung told reporters, as you can tell from the arrest. Sadly, we do not believe Kelsey is still alive.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Kelsey's daughter, Kaylee, is in protective custody and will be reunited with Kelsey's family. So they're not taking any chances, right? Not only are they charging him with murder, they're also charging him with three counts of solicitation for the three different times that he tried to get Crystal to murder Kelsey.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Good.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  In January 2019, Kelsey's parents filed a wrongful death suit against Patrick alleging that he killed Kelsey over a child custody dispute.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  On February 4th, 2019, a felony tampering charge was filed against Crystal Kenny. On February 8th of that year, Crystal appeared in court in Colorado for an advisement hearing. She admitted she knew that Patrick committed homicide and pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence. She agreed to testify against Patrick at his trial. And you know, that's gotta be a part of the plea deal, right? The biggest part. First of all, be honest, tell us everything you know. But secondly, and more importantly, you're going to have to testify against Patrick.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Going to be key.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  Patrick Frazee's murder trial started on October 28th, 2019. But prosecutors had a pretty difficult case ahead of them. It didn't have a body. It didn't have a murder weapon. And they really didn't have a definite motive. I mean, it was believed, right? That Patrick's motive was getting custody of his daughter. But how do you prove that? How do you, you know, how do you tell that for sure?

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  The defense argued there was no evidence to show Patrick was involved in the murder. And Crystal Kenny was an unreliable witness because she had previously lied to law enforcement. And let's face it, you know, her credibility is not great.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  I think first of all, she did lie numerous times. And then secondly, she got a sweetheart deal, I think. So, you know, do you have to take that into account as to how truthful she is on the stand? The jury heard that Kelsey, Patrick and Kaylee were captured by a neighbor's camera entering Kelsey's home around 1:30 PM on November 22nd. The surveillance camera captured 11 images of Patrick that day. Three hours later, Patrick was captured leaving without his daughter and Kelsey never came out of the house. Okay, I don't know that it's definitive, but it definitely doesn't make him look good.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  It's not helping.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  No, gonna need more than that, but that's a building block. Patrick's friend Joseph Moore testified that several months before Kelsey went missing, Patrick said the phrase, "Nobody, no crime." Moore told him, "Patrick, get that out of your head."

• 39:49Speaker 01

  It's an interesting phrase to say.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  It is even more interesting when Kelsey later goes missing and her body is not found. About a month after Kelsey went missing, Patrick expressed shock over the national media coverage her case was getting. According to Moore, he's like, "Man, if I had known it was going to blow up this big, I never would have..." And then he stopped. He did not finish that sentence. Moore said, "He never asked Patrick if he killed Kelsey." And I feel like that's a question I would have to ask.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  Gotta be honest with you.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  I would want to know.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  You start, yeah, I would ask you for sure. If you were saying all of these really suspicious, red flag type of things, I would have to ask the question.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  Patrick's brother Sean testified that he showed up two hours after the family ate Thanksgiving dinner. But it was really Crystal Kenny, right? Who was the prosecution star witness. She described Patrick's multiple plans to kill Kelsey. She agreed to participate because he alleged that Kelsey was abusing his child. She said, as quoted by people, "He went from being someone who I loved and cared for and one of my best friends." And he said his little girl was being abused. "I know it was wrong, but I didn't know what to do and I didn't make the right decisions." That is the understatement of the century.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Uh, thanks for sharing that with us.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  I did not make the right decisions. That's, that's when you, you order from the wrong restaurant on DoorDash.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  This is, it's not when you decide to participate in a murder.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  Crystal testified that Patrick called her on November 4th, 2018 to say he was going to act on his own. Then he called her on the 22nd, telling her that she needed to come clean up the mess. I'd be like, what, why do I have to come clean this up?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, why do I have to make that long drive to do this for a mess that you made?

• 42:00Speaker 00

  This is like John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, the cleaner.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  That, when they're, you know, Jackson is in the, the backseat. He's like, why am I the one cleaning all this up? When you shot him, you get back here and clean this up.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  A good point. Was that, was that guy named the Wolf?

• 42:18Speaker 00

  The Wolf, yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Or the, as you would like to say, the Wolf. But you actually, I think, said it pretty correctly that time. You did.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  After cleaning, Patrick asked her, did you get it done? She replied, I did the best I could do. And I don't know if anyone listening has ever cleaned up a home full of blood. I, I'm hoping not because that means you were either involved in something nefarious or a very tragic accident happened and you were, you know, forced to, to clean it up afterwards. But we know from all the cases that we've done, yeah, you can clean blood up, but it is hard to get everything.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  I've had like major nosebleeds and I've had, seems like certain people come over my place. They get nosebleeds, so that's why their blood's there if it's ever questioned.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  You know?

• 43:15Speaker 00

  Way to walk that back.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's hard to get it all up, you know, cause it likes to smear and this.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  What kind of nosebleeds are you having? Where you, like the whole floor is covered.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  It's just, uh, yeah, it's a gusher.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  Patrick said, "You better hope you did because our lives depend on it." Crystal said she drove from Idaho to Colorado to clean up because she feared for her life. Patrick told her how he killed Kelsey and that his daughter was in the home during the murder. He said Kelsey's last words were, "Please stop." That's heartbreaking.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 43:52Speaker 00

  On so many different levels to think about, you know, this poor woman being blindfolded to think that she's going to be smelling some candles and then being beat to death with a baseball bat while their daughter is in the next room.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  I mean, how much did you have to hate this woman to do that?

• 44:15Speaker 00

  Crystal testified that she was present when Patrick started the fire. He put the black tote, which he said contained the body in the bat, into a dry water trough and lit it on fire. They also burned items such as a stuffed animal, building blocks, and a Bible. The prosecution backed Crystal's testimony with surveillance videos and photos. For example, Patrick was captured by a drive-through ATM camera with a black plastic tote in the bed of his truck on Thanksgiving. On November 24th, Patrick was captured at a gas station, filling up a gas can, which prosecutors said was used to burn Kelsey's body.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Prosecutors also played the video of Crystal inside Kelsey's home, showing how she cleaned up the crime scene. They noted that investigators pulled up floorboards and found more blood. And that's kind of what I was, you know, getting at, right? You can look at something and say, "Oh, yeah, I got it clean."

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  But where does that blood seep to? To areas that you can't see.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gonna be unlikely you're ever gonna get it all cleaned up the right way.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Additionally, a cadaver dog alerted to Patrick's hay barn on his ranch, where Crystal said he hid the body inside the tote. Experts testified that a human female tooth fragment was recovered from Patrick's ranch near the burn site, but there wasn't enough DNA to identify. So you got a couple of things there, right? The dog's alerting. Okay, it's not definitive, but again, like we keep saying, doesn't make him look good. I think when, when you find a verifiable part of a human female tooth. All right. Does it prove that it was her?

• 46:15Speaker 00

  No, but then you have to ask the question. Well, then if not her, who's, who's is it?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  And why is there a fragment of a, a, a human female tooth on your ranch?

• 46:27Speaker 01

  By this burn pile.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. Prosecutors then presented a surprise witness, an inmate at the jail where Patrick was being held. The inmate asked not to be named for safety reasons. He said he was housed next to Patrick for several weeks. According to CBS, the inmate called the prosecutor's office during the trial. He watched a 48 Hours episode on Kelsey's murder and claimed Patrick gave him a hit list. He wanted the inmate to use his gang connections to have certain witnesses killed. Some of the names were written on paper towels. He was told to flush. In total, Gibbs, there were 16 notes. One of those names was Crystal Kenny.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  Patrick provided graphic descriptions of what he wanted to happen to her, such as putting a bullet in her head. Crystal's best friend, Michelle Stein, and Kelsey's mom, Cheryl Barrett, were also on the hit list. Whew, okay.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  So definitely a surprise witness. Now, we talk a lot about, you know, inmates, can they make stuff up? Yeah, they, they can and have, it's been proven. I think this information, if true, though, it really says a lot because why does Patrick need someone to take all these people out if he didn't murder Kelsey?

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, it's a good point.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  The defense called no witnesses and Patrick chose not to testify. And it's an interesting tactic. I think a lot of times the defense does that when they just believe that, you know, the state has not proven their case.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  Not, not the, having their client testify, but the calling no witnesses. Also, I don't know who you're gonna call that, that has any knowledge about what happened. I don't think there was anybody to provide an alibi. That would be one type of witness. Other than that, I don't know who you're calling.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they're kind of out of luck on that.

• 48:33Speaker 00

  I think at that point, you just have to hope is the defense that although there's been a lot of evidence, it's not seen as beyond a reasonable doubt, right? That their client committed the murder. On November 18th, 2019, Patrick Frazee was found guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life without parole, plus 156 years.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  He's going to zero places.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  Outside of the prison.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  For sure. On January 28th, 2020, Crystal Kenny was sentenced to three years in prison and a year of parole. She said at her sentencing hearing, I know saying I'm sorry is not good enough. I don't even know what the right word would be to describe the remorse that I feel. I'm sorry Kaylee will not have her biological mother, and I'm sorry to everyone who's been affected by this horrible tragedy. I am sorry that I could not save Kelsey. DA Dan May told reporters per CBS, we did a deal with the devil. There's no if, ands, or buts about that. And I'm not proud of that, but there's no question that Kelsey wouldn't have had

• 49:45Speaker 00

  the sure justice today without making that deal with the devil. And I think a lot of prosecutors look at those deals like that.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  They're making a deal with the devil.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  I mean, it has to happen. We don't like it, but they had the end game that they had here. They had to do it.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Giving her a deal is a lot better than taking the chance that Patrick goes free.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  In March 2020, Crystal requested to move to a halfway house, but that request was denied in June of 2020. In March 2021, an appeals court ruled that Crystal's three-year sentence was unconstitutional because the judge exceeded the maximum sentencing guidelines for her specific charge. According to the decision, the district court had erroneously sentenced Kenny outside the presumptive maximum term because aggravated circumstances could not be applied. The maximum presumptive sentence was 18 months. And at the time of her plea agreement, Crystal acknowledged that the potential sentence would be in the range

• 50:56Speaker 00

  of one year to 18 months. So she was resentenced to 18 months in prison and was released on March 23, 2021.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  There you go, man. Didn't have to put that much time in after all.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  But I think if you're the prosecution, you're even more upset, right? You already think you did a deal with the devil.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:17Speaker 00

  And now that deal is even less than than what it was. It's half.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  She'll have to live with what she did.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true. Patrick Frazee is still incarcerated in Colorado. In February 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld Patrick's conviction. As of 2026, Kelsey Barris' remains and the murder weapon have never been found.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Well, we kind of know why the remains haven't been found.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me if, if neither are ever found, or you know, especially her remains, most likely they were burned up in that trough. So as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, it's not an unheard of motive. Unfortunately, we cover a lot of cases where the motive is either divorce related, custody related. I think what is so strange to me about this one is the attempts by Patrick to try to get his on again, off again, relationship slash girlfriend to try to murder Kelsey.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:34Speaker 00

  And then even stranger still is the fact that she kind of went part way with the plan three different times.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, clearly she was in love.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  Now she claimed she was fearful of him. And could you be fearful of someone who's 800 miles away? Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:54Speaker 00

  You could be. I don't know if I'm buying that one as much as I sometimes do.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  I think she really wanted to have a life with him and she thought she was willing to do anything to make that happen.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm kind of leaning towards that as well. But let's face it, the guy was capable of it.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  No doubt about that because he ultimately killed Kelsey.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Sure did.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  You feel for her family, you feel for her daughter.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yep. As her daughter gets older and hears about this.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  To find out that, or to really, you know, for it to sink in that your dad killed your mom. I don't know what that does to a person's psyche.

• 53:39Speaker 00

  It can't be good though, right?

• 53:40Speaker 01

  It's going to be a lot of therapy.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. But that's it for our episode on Kelsey Berreth. We got a voicemail, you want to check that out?

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Let's hear it.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Hi guys, this is Laura from Nebraska. You guys are just fantastic and such a big part of my day. I got all the way through TCAT and I'm working my way through unsolved. Just finished the West Memphis Three and you guys did such a fantastic job on that. It was amazing. I'm kind of on the Gibby side because I love you both because you know, you can't be one without, can't be podcast host without the both of you, but I can't obviously talk very well or come up with my words just like Gibby. We're both lefties. But yeah, I just can never come up with my words. But I've been wanting to call for a while and thank you guys for all you do. Keep your own time ticking. Bye.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  I thought that voicemail was very coherent.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  I don't understand what she mean. I mean, we're both are lefties. I get that. Yeah.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  When she says I can't come up with my words very well.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Does that mean? I don't know.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  I don't talk no good.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  I don't talk no good. No, she's awesome.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, I get it. A lot of people, you know, they can relate to you. You're the every man, the every person. You're just so relatable.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  I'm universal.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  You're like a universal remote.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Just.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  You just work on everything.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  I don't know where that was going.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 55:11Speaker 00

  Sometimes I can't come up with my words so, so good.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, clearly.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.