TELLER COUNTY, Colo. – The case of Kelsey Berreth, the missing 29-year-old mother from Woodland Park, Colorado, has stirred the state of Colorado and much of the country since she disappeared on Thanksgiving Day 2018.
Twists and turns in the case led to an Idaho woman pleading guilty to tampering with evidence for disposing of Berreth’s cell phone. She is cooperating with prosecutors in the case against Berreth’s fiancée, Patrick Frazee, who is accused of killing Berreth and enlisting others to try to cover up the murder, though Berreth’s body still has not been found.
Read below for a detailed timeline of what investigators have uncovered in the case so far and what is coming next. Click here to read the full affidavit in the case.
2016-17
Krystal Lee Kenney and Patrick Frazee were involved in a sexual relationship “during at least 2016, and possibly into 2017,” according to Frazee’s arrest affidavit. Lee’s ex-husband told investigators about the relationship. The two had allegedly known each other for more than a decade.
September 2018
Kenney told investigators that Frazee started thinking about killing Berreth “as early as September of 2018,” according to Frazee’s affidavit. It says that Frazee solicited Kenney at least three times to kill Berreth between Sept. 1 and Nov. 22, 2018. Those attempts included Frazee telling Kenney to drug Berreth’s coffee and twice telling her to beat Berreth with a metal pipe, according to the affidavit.
October 2018
A longtime friend and co-worker of Kenney’s who spoke to investigators told them that she knew of Frazee’s solicitation of Kenney for help in killing Berreth in October 2018, which investigators wrote in Frazee’s affidavit shows that Frazee thought about and planned to kill Berreth for months before he actually allegedly did so.
Oct. 22, 2018
The same longtime friend of Kenney’s told investigators that Kenney told her on Oct. 22 that Frazee had asked for her help in killing Berreth. Kenney said that information was corroborated by statements made by Kenney.
Additionally, a paralegal who was a friend of Kenney’s told investigators that Kenney told her on Oct. 22 that Frazee had asked for help in killing Berreth. The woman said she told Kenney to tell police about the request but that she didn’t believe Kenney ever did so. Investigators found through phone records that the paralegal and Kenney had indeed spoken that day, and investigators said the paralegal’s information was reliable.
Nov. 22, 2018
1 – 4 a.m.: Investigators found that there were at least seven contacts made between Frazee and Berreth’s cell phones between these hours, including a four-minute phone call that happened around 1:42 a.m.
9 – 10 a.m.: Cell phone records show Berreth text messaged Frazee at 9:37 a.m. and that the two spoke on the phone for about 3 ½ minutes around 9:40 a.m.
12:27 p.m.: Berreth and her daughter are captured on a surveillance camera at the Safeway in Woodland Park leaving the store. Receipts from the store and her home corroborated she was there at that time.
12:31 and 12:33 p.m.: Frazee calls Berreth's cell phone in a 35-second call, and there is an incoming call from Berreth to Frazee listed as 8 seconds in length in the affidavit. The affidavit says that both of their cell phones connected to the same cell tower in Woodland Park
12:41 p.m.: A text message was exchanged between Berreth and Frazee.
12:54 – 1:17 p.m.: Frazee was captured on surveillance video at the Walmart in Woodland Park carrying a baby carrier with a blanket similar to the one seen in the Safeway footage. Investigators wrote in the affidavit that they believe their 1-year-old daughter was in the carrier at the time.
Frazee said he met with Berreth in an alleyway outside her home in Woodland Park to exchange the child just beforehand, which investigators said they believe did occur. This is the last time that Frazee reportedly saw Berreth alive, and he told investigators that while they exchanged their daughter, he returned some of her belongings, including a handgun, keys and other items – which have so far not been recovered.
1:24 p.m.: A person matching Frazee’s description is captured entering the front door of Berreth’s apartment on a neighbor’s surveillance camera – which investigators said contradicted what Frazee had told them about a timeline on that day.
Afternoon: Investigators believe this is when Frazee allegedly killed Berreth inside her apartment, then took her cell phone when he left. Investigators allege that he blindfolded Berreth and asked her to smell a scented candle, then beat her to death with a baseball bat. They say that Kenney was aware because Frazee told her about it.
Cell tower records show that Frazee’s phone was connected to the tower serving Berreth’s apartment from approximately 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. that day.
3:36 p.m.: That same neighbor’s surveillance camera again captures images of a person that matches Frazee’s description at Berreth’s home. Frazee called his mother, Sheila, and Kenney at this time, according to his phone records. This is the beginning of when Frazee allegedly started carrying out his “scheme,” as the affidavit calls it, of using his and Berreth’s phones to try and “distract law enforcement, distort the actual date of [Berreth’s] appearance, and separate himself as a suspect in a murder investigation.”
Kenney told investigators that Frazee called her and told her to come to Colorado because she “had a mess to clean up.” She told investigators that she understood that meant that Berreth had been killed.
Evening hours: Both Frazee’s and Berreth’s cell phones were connected with cell towers near Cripple Creek, traveling in the same direction and similar distances from the towers. “This would indicate the phones were likely traveling together,” Frazee’s affidavit says. The affidavit says the two cell phones stayed together for the entirety of Nov. 22-24.
Investigators allege that Frazee removed Berreth’s body from her apartment that day and stored it in a black plastic tote at the Nash Ranch atop a haystack.
Nov. 23, 2018
Both Frazee’s and Berreth’s phones pinged the same cell tower in Florissant as they exchanged a combined eight text messages and phone calls throughout the day on Nov. 23. Later in the day, they likely traveled together from Frazee’s home to an area in Cripple Creek to which they had traveled the evening before, then returned back in the direction of Frazee’s home, according to the affidavit for his arrest.
The friend and co-worker of Kenney’s asked if she could switch vehicles with her so she could use Kenney’s truck to move. Investigators said that she knew that Kenney was planning to drive to Colorado in her vehicle.
Nov. 24, 2018
Berreth’s and Frazee’s phones exchange one text message around 7:45 a.m. and a phone call just before 4 p.m. They both use the same tower in Florissant near Frazee’s home in the morning and eventually again went to the same area west of Cripple Creek they had gone the prior two days.
At some point in the morning hours, Kenney arrives at Frazee’s home. There are call records between the two on that day at 7:23 a.m., 10:47 a.m., 11:39 a.m., 1:06 p.m. and 5:21 p.m. – though Kenney originally told investigators that she was at his home from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. that day inquiring about a horse. However, investigators said that the two would not have been talking on the phone if they had actually been together at Frazee’s home that day.
Rather, investigators found that Kenney’s cell phone connected to the tower serving Berreth’s apartment on that morning.
Kenney had sent a text message to her friend and coworker that afternoon asking to stay the night at her house, which her friend told investigators was an effort to establish an alibi because the friend knew Kenney had taken her car to Colorado. She had also told her ex-husband, whom she still lived with, that she would be at a friend’s birthday party that day and was helping her friend and coworker move.
But investigators say Kenney had brought bleach, gloves, a hair net, shoe covers and other cleaning supplies from Idaho to Colorado to clean up what Frazee described as a “mess” at Berreth’s home.
Kenney described “a horrific scene” at Berreth’s apartment, according to Frazee’s affidavit. She said there was blood “all over the residence” and that she found a tooth of Berreth’s that had been knocked out when Frazee allegedly killed her. Kenney told investigators it took her hours to clean the apartment as she wore a full-body suit, gloves, booties and a hairnet. She told investigators that she believed Frazee and Berreth’s daughter was in the apartment when Berreth was killed because many of the child’s items were there and had blood on them.
She also told investigators that she left some blood on a fireplace and on a baby gate “because she was hoping investigators would find it.”
After cleaning, Kenney and Frazee went to Nash Ranch to retrieve Berreth’s body. Cell towers pinged all three of their phones near Cripple Creek between 5 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. The affidavit says that they drove the tote carrying Berreth’s body from Nash Ranch back to Frazee’s home in Florissant.
They then put the tote in a 100-gallon trough, along with the bat used to kill Berreth and some of her other items, using motor oil, five gallons of gasoline and wood, according to Frazee’s affidavit. But they did not burn Berreth’s cell phone.
The affidavit says that Frazee wanted Kenney to take Berreth’s body back to Idaho but she refused. She told investigators that she never saw Berreth’s body but Frazee said it was in the tote. Kenney said she believed she might have seen a human body in the fire after the tote melted.
Frazee gave Kenney Berreth’s handgun late that evening. The affidavit says that he “wanted Berreth’s firearm to appear to be missing in an attempt to lead investigators to believe that Berreth might have committed suicide.” Frazee told investigators that Frazee told her she had to dispose of the gun if she wouldn’t take Berreth’s body.
He also gave Kenney Berreth’s cell phone, which Kenney told investigators she used in Woodland Park, Grand Junction, Utah and in Idaho as she traveled back home, which lined up with cell tower records from the night of the 24th and the morning of the 25th. She said she sent text messages to Frazee from Berreth’s phone as well as text messages to Berreth’s employer and mother.
Nov. 25, 2018
Cell tower records show Kenney’s phone and Berreth’s phone connected to the same cell tower in a remote area near the Colorado-Utah border in the early morning hours of Nov. 25, leading investigators to surmise that the two phones were together at the time -- something Kenney later corroborated.
Text messages and calls were exchanged between Berreth’s and Frazee’s cellphones on the morning and afternoon of the 25th, cell phone records showed.
Kenney and her friend and coworker met up around 4 p.m. to swap their vehicles back at the Walmart in Jerome, Idaho -- approximately 20 miles from where Berreth’s cell phone would last ping, which happened at 5:13 p.m. on Nov. 25 about 6 miles southwest of a tower in Gooding, Idaho -- near Malad Gorge State Park.
Dec. 2, 2018
Berreth’s mother, Cheryl Berreth, reports to Woodland Park police that she had not spoken with her daughter in more than a week and asks them to conduct a welfare check. Police did not find her at her apartment, and Berreth’s family said that would be “highly unusual” for her to disappear without telling any friends or family. Police start their missing persons investigation.
Dec. 4, 2018
Investigators seize Frazee’s cell phone as the investigation into Berreth’s disappearance continues. Kenney obtains a new cell phone after telling her ex-husband she could not find hers. “The timing of her new phone acquisition in Idaho is approximately the same as when Patrick’s phone was taken by law enforcement in Colorado,” Frazee’s affidavit states.
Dec. 10, 2018
Woodland Park police say publicly for the first time at a news conference that they are looking for Berreth and that she hadn’t been seen since Nov. 22. Her mother says that her disappearance is “completely out of character.”
Dec. 11, 2018
Woodland Park police release the surveillance video showing Berreth and her daughter at the Safeway on the day she disappeared -- the last time Berreth was seen in public. Police Chief Miles De Young said that Berreth’s phone had sent a text to her work saying she wouldn’t be in for the following week.
Dec. 12, 2018
Frazee signs a document dated Dec. 12 that lists five people who could provide medical care for his and Berreth’s 1-year-old daughter in the event that Berreth was not around. “Of particular interest, Kelsey Berreth’s name is not on the list, presumably because she is deceased,” police wrote in Frazee’s affidavit.
Frazee’s lawyer tells Colorado media that Frazee is cooperating with law enforcement.
Dec. 13, 2018
Investigators apply for and are granted a warrant to search Frazee’s home in connection to Berreth’s disappearance. Dozens of people got together in Woodland Park for a prayer vigil for Berreth.
Dec. 14, 2018
The warrant is executed at Frazee’s home in Florissant, after which authorities say they are not ruling Frazee out as a suspect in Berreth’s disappearance.
Though at the time they did not say what they recovered from the home, they said for the first time that Berreth’s disappearance was more suspicious than originally thought. Frazee’s affidavit says that they recovered a bottle of bleach and a mop that tested positive for the presence of blood upon a second search of the residence.
Also on Dec. 14, FBI agents conducted a phone interview with Kenney in which she “provided materially false and misleading information,” according to Frazee’s affidavit. She told investigators she was unsure of the last time she talked with Frazee and when pressed said it had been within a month or month and a half. She then said that she was at Frazee’s home on Nov. 24 “to look at a horse” and said she arrived back home on the night of Nov. 25.
“Ultimately, investigators learned that Frazee made up the story and told Lee what to tell the FBI if they called her,” the affidavit states. They afterward applied for warrants to get details from her cell phone and were able to figure out she was lying.
After the FBI spoke to Kenney, her ex-husband said that she told him she was “very nervous” when she told him about the call with the FBI. She then told him the fabricated horse story she told investigators and that she believed someone “set her up.” This conversation led investigators to believe that Kenney was not being truthful with them because she lied to both her ex-husband and the FBI.
Dec. 15, 2018
Investigators searched Frazee’s property for a second day and said that a $25,000 reward was being offered in Berreth’s disappearance.
Dec. 16, 2018
Investigators announce the completion of the search at Frazee’s property and Woodland Park police say they still have not found Berreth.
Dec. 17, 2018
Kenney is interviewed by agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI at her home in Idaho. She says she wants to speak with her attorney before continuing to talk to investigators and indicates she would cooperate with them.
Dec. 20, 2018
Kenney obtains an attorney and agrees to fully cooperate with the investigation. Agents conduct an audio and video recording with her in which she admits to many of the aforementioned details about the months of planning that went into Berreth’s murder, how Frazee allegedly killed her, and her involvement in allegedly trying to cover up the murder and disposal of Berreth’s body and items.
Berreth’s apartment was searched again just before 7 p.m. and investigators were seen removing large pieces of evidence from her home.
Before the end of the day Woodland Park Police Commander Chris Adams had put the affidavit and application for Frazee’s arrest warrant together and had it signed-off on by a Teller County judge. The warrant carried arrest charges of first-degree murder and solicitation to commit first-degree murder and carried a no-bond hold.
Dec. 21, 2018
Frazee is arrested at his home in Teller County just after 7 a.m. for investigation on first-degree murder and solicitation of first-degree murder charges. Police say for the first time they believe that Berreth is no longer alive. Frazee also makes his first court appearance.
Dec. 22, 2018
Police in Twin Falls, Idaho announce they have been working with the local sheriff’s office, CBI and FBI to execute search warrants in the area and that they have collected evidence related to Berreth’s disappearance.
Dec. 27, 2018
A judge ruled that Berreth and Frazee’s 1-year-old daughter, Kaylee, would remain in the custody of Berreth’s parents. Frazee’s mother filed a motion to intervene in the custody case.
Dec. 31, 2018
Frazee is formally charged with two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of solicitation of first-degree murder in Berreth’s disappearance.
Jan. 2, 2019
ABC News is the first to report that an Idaho woman, later identified as Kenney, is under investigation for disposing of Berreth’s cell phone.
Jan. 4, 2019
The judge in Frazee’s case rules that the affidavit for Frazee’s arrest will remain sealed pending his preliminary hearing. Several media outlets had requested the judge publicly release the affidavit but prosecutors had argued it should not be released at the time because the investigation was still active.
Berreth’s parents, Darrell and Cheryl Berreth, also file a federal wrongful death lawsuit against Frazee in U.S. District Court of Colorado, arguing that “Frazee enacted physical, mental, and emotional acts of violence upon Kelsey Berreth prior to her death, Frazee breached the duty of care with which a reasonable person should conduct himself toward another human being.”
Jan. 16, 2019
The search for Berreth’s body expands to include a landfill in Fountain, Colo., a spokesperson for the landfill confirmed. The CBI contacted management for a potential search at Midway Landfill, though Berreth’s body was not recovered.
Jan. 28, 2019
Frazee’s attorney files a motion arguing the wrongful death lawsuit against him filed by Berreth’s parents should be dismissed because the parents don’t have legal grounds to sue. The attorney argues that because 1-year-old Kaylee is still alive that the parents don’t have grounds to bring the suit.
Feb. 5, 2019
Prosecutors formally charge Kenney with one felony count of tampering with physical evidence in the case and issue a summons for her to appear in court on Feb. 8. She is publicly identified by prosecutors for the first time.
Feb. 7, 2019
A judge rules once again that Kaylee will remain in the custody of Berreth’s parents pending another custody hearing set for April 4.
Feb. 8, 2019
Kenney pleads guilty in Teller County to the single count of tampering with physical evidence in the case. As part of her plea deal, she agrees to testify in Frazee’s pending trial and to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation. “I learned Patrick Frazee had committed a homicide on approximately Nov. 22, 2018 in Teller County,” she tells the court.
Feb. 15, 2019
As part of the wrongful death lawsuit against Frazee, a possible motive for Berreth’s murder was unveiled for the first time . An amended complaint filed by Berreth’s parents’ attorney claimed that Frazee killed Berreth because he wanted full custody of their daughter.
Feb. 19, 2019
A preliminary hearing is held in Cripple Creek to determine if prosecutors have presented enough evidence to bind over the felony charges against him to a trial. Hours of testimony from investigators read to the court unveil many new details of the case and Kenney’s involvement in the alleged murder of Berreth. The judge determines there is enough evidence and schedules a motions hearing in the case for March 4 and an arraignment in the case for April 8.
Read the full affidavit here and the charging document here.
Feb. 20, 2019
The arrest affidavit for Frazee is publicly released. It contains many of the details about how Kenney worked with Frazee to dispose of Berreth and her belongings after Frazee allegedly killed her. It also details the months of requests Frazee allegedly made to Kenney to try and get her to kill Berreth.
