Mistress of Colo. Man Accused of Killing Fiancée Was Once Pregnant With His Child, She Testifies
The mistress of Patrick Frazee became pregnant and then aborted his child more than two years before he pressured her to clean up a bloody scene where he allegedly used a baseball bat to bludgeon to death his still-missing fiancée Kelsey Berreth, the woman testified Wednesday.
Berreth’s last words, as allegedly relayed by Frazee to the mistress, Krystal Jean Lee Kenney: “She said, ‘please stop,” Kenney tearfully testified.
Kenney emerged as a key witness in Frazee’s trial on murder charges in the death of the 29-year-old Berreth, describing for jurors the 13-year-relationship Kenney had with the accused killer leading up to and after the Thanksgiving Day 2018 disappearance of Berreth, a Colorado flight instructor with whom Frazee has a young daughter, according to The Denver Post and TV stations KMGH and KUSA.
Kenney, who already has pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in the case, alleged in testimony that Frazee told her Berreth was abusing the child, and that he wanted Kenney to help him kill Berreth.
RELATED: 5 Shocking Things About the Kelsey Berreth Case After Missing Mom’s Fiancé is Charged
“He went from being someone who I loved and cared for and is one of my best friends,” she said in court in Teller County, Colorado. “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.”
Frazee, 33, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and three counts of solicitation to commit murder in the presumed death of Berreth.
Kenney, a nurse living in Idaho, described meeting Frazee in 2006 at a county fair, then entering into a relationship with him that she cut off before marrying another man and giving birth to her own two children. But she said she and Frazee kept up sporadic contact, with Frazee allegedly trying to thwart her marriage and then pulling Kenney closer as her marriage crumbled.
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While still married but contemplating divorce from the other man, Kenney testified she learned in March 2016 that she was pregnant with Frazee’s child.
She thought he would be happy, she said, but instead Frazee allegedly urged her toward an abortion, she testified. “He said, ‘I guess you’re a baby killer or you’re not,’ ” Kenney said on the stand.
She went ahead with the procedure but told him she had a miscarriage, she said.
Two months earlier, according to testimony from Berreth’s mother, Berreth and Frazee had met on a dating website. Much later Kenney said she learned through a third party that Frazee and Berreth were dating and had a daughter together.
“My jaw just about hit the floor,” Kenney testified.
Alleged Plots to Kill Berreth With Sedatives, Pipe, Baseball Bat
In September 2018, after acknowledging his daughter, Frazee alleged to Kenney that Berreth was abusing the child, a claim that prosecutors said they’ve been unable to verify. “He wanted [Berreth] to not be a problem anymore,” Kenny testified, alleging that Frazee asked her what combination of drugs might be used to kill someone.
That conversation allegedly led to a ruse in which Kenney knocked on Berreth’s door and tried to hand Berreth a cup of coffee, which Kenney alleged Frazee had told her to lace with sedatives. “I didn’t want to harm Kelsey,” said Kenney, who delivered the coffee without the sedatives. “I wanted to form an opinion [about her].”
The following day, Frazee allegedly called Kenney to ask why Berreth was still alive, she testified. Weeks later, she alleges Frazee gave her a metal pipe and told her to use it to hit Berreth on the head. Kenney said she drove to Berreth’s residence in Woodland Park, but then returned to Frazee’s home and left the pipe in his driveway.
Frazee again called her in anger. He subsequently told Kenney that she should wait outside Berreth’s condo with a baseball bat and “swing away,” which Kenney refused to do, she alleged.
“He told me that he was going to hold my feet to the fire,” she said. “That if something happened to [his daughter], it was on me, it was my fault.”
But she didn’t alert police. “I didn’t want him in trouble, he was a good parent, I was hoping it would just go away,” Kenney testified. She also feared for her own safety, she said.
‘A Mess to Clean Up’
On Nov. 4, 2018, Frazee allegedly called her to say he was going to act on his own — and on Nov. 22, Thanksgiving Day, when Berreth was last seen on store surveillance video shopping with the couple’s daughter, he called again and “told me ‘I had a mess to clean up,’” Kenney alleged.
Two days later Kenney said she picked up the keys to Berreth’s condo from Frazee’s Florissant ranch and went to Berreth’s home to find the bloody scene. She said that while cleaning, she intentionally left behind some specks hoping that investigators might find them. Meeting up with Frazee afterward, she alleged he asked her, “Did you get it done?”
“I did the best I could do,” she said she replied.
“You better hope you did,” she alleged Frazee said, “because our lives depend on it.”
Kenney previously alleged to police that Frazee beat Berreth to death on the day she vanished after he convinced Berreth to don a blindfold for a candle smell test. Kenney and Frazee both were present two days later as Frazee burned the victim’s remains along with the baseball bat on Frazee’s ranch, prosecutors have alleged.
Investigators alleged that Frazee and Kenney further conspired to move Berreth’s cell phone in the aftermath of her killing, to further delay and confound a search for her after Berreth’s mother reported her daughter missing on Dec. 2 after not being able to reach her.
Kenney pleaded guilty in February to tampering with evidence in the case, admitting that she helped dispose of Berreth’s phone for Frazee, and she agreed as part of her plea to testify against him. She will not be sentenced until after the conclusion of the current trial, and faces up to two years in prison.
Frazee faces life imprisonment if found guilty.
