One of the more disturbing episodes of the longstanding CBS show 48 Hours highlights the troubling story of 29-year-old mother Kelsey Berreth, who disappeared after a trip to the grocery store with her infant daughter around Thanksgiving in 2018.
Berreth was last seen with her then fiancé, Patrick Frazee outside her home in Woodland Park, Colorado on Nov. 22. On Dec. 2, her mother reported her missing after days of stressful worrying. While her body was never found, Frazee was eventually arrested and convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 156 years.
The details of the murder, brought to life by Frazee’s sidepiece Krystal Lee, are disturbing, violent and hard to get out of your head once you hear them. So what happened? Let’s start from the beginning.
Who is Kelsey Berreth, and what happened to her?
Kelsey Berreth grew up on a farm in Washington and dreamed of being a commercial pilot one day. She had a fairly quiet, isolated childhood, according to her mother. She was determined though, and eventually went to pilot school in Washington.
She met her fiancé and eventually killer, Patrick Frazee, online and moved to Colorado to be closer to him. She worked as a flight instructor at an Air Force base in Grand Junction, and then took a job at Doss Aviation, where her boss Raymond Siebring sang her praises.
“She was incredibly diligent in taking her time in making sure that what is a thorough process was completed correct. I’m referring to grade sheet requirements, flight requirements, and it seemed like it was something as stressful as it was — and it’s meant to be stressful — that it was handled well.”
Berreth and Frazee eventually had a daughter together, and Kaylee became the “light” of Berreth’s life. She kept a photo of her daughter on her desk at all times, along with bible verses that demonstrated her faith to her God.
One thing missing from the whole unfortunate incident is the “why.” Why did Frazee brutally murder the mother of his child in cold blood? Why did he risk it? One possible motive comes from a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Berreth’s parents in 2019. Per the civil complaint:
“Upon information and belief, Frazee had motive to kill Kelsey in that he wanted full custody of [Kaylee Berreth] and/or Kelsey to leave [Kaylee Berreth] with him and Kelsey would not agree.” Regardless, the case is pretty horrific.
The best we can do is extrapolate that Frazee wanted to move on with his secret mistress and keep his child. When this didn’t seem possible, he murdered Berreth.
The last time Berreth was seen in public was at a Safeway grocery store in Woodland Park. Before she left, Berreth asked her mother for a recipe for bread dip. She also purchased a poinsettia.
What happened next is gruesome. Berreth went to Frazee’s residence ostensibly to drop off Kaylee, and once inside, he asked her to put on a blindfold so she could “guess different candle” scents, according to the arrest affidavit.
He then batterted her to death with a baseball bat while Kaylee was in a playpen in the other room. The police investigation began on Dec. 2 when Berreth’s mom called police. After doing a welfare check on the house, the investigation quickly turned from a missing persons one to a murder one.
When they contacted Frazee, he said he “exchanged custody” of Kaylee in an alley behind her house, making him the last person to see her alive.
After the murder, Frazee contracted his mistress Krystal Lee and told her he needed her to “clean up a mess.” She would later testify that at first she didn’t know Frazee had a fiancé, much less a daughter. Almost all of the detail about the murder itself came from Lee, who cooperated with police and was given leeway in her sentencing.
Lee told investigators that Frazee told her he had been thinking about murdering Berreth “for months.” She said that he claimed Berreth was an “abusive mother who physically abused their daughter on multiple instances, including with an iron.” There are no records of such abuse.
Lee said Frazee even asked her to murder Berreth herself, and even gave her a metal pipe to hit her with and kill her. Lee didn’t end up going through with it but didn’t dismiss the idea, even going so as far as considering poisoning Berreth’s coffee.
Lee said Frazee called her on the 22nd to come help with cleanup, but she couldn’t make it up until the 24th. In the meantime, he disposed of the body. Lee brought bleach, gloves, a hairnet, shoe covers and other miscellaneous murder hiding material with her.
During the cleaning, Frazee told Lee he was worried he left a tooth at the house because “when he hit her in the face with the bat … it caused several of her teeth to become dislodged.” Lee found that tooth and got rid of it, per the affidavit.
She described a harrowing scene: There was blood everywhere; on the curtains, pillows, baby toys, bools, oven mitts and Berreth’s purse, among splatter all over the walls and floor. Lee grabbed a lot of the blood soaked items and took them to Frazee’s residence in Florissant. She said she spent hours cleaning up the house, using bleach and windex to remove stains.
She wore a white suit while she cleaned, with the gloves, hairnet and booties on her feet. She also said she left some blood on the rock face of the fireplace in hopes that investigators would find it.
While all this was going on, Frazee was getting rid of the body. He stored it in a black plastic tote and took it to a farm, and then to his land in Florissant. Along with Lee, he put the body in a trough with the murder weapon, and poured gasoline and motor oil on it.
At one point, the tote melted and Lee saw what looked like a body in the flames, she told investigators. In further attempts to cover up the crime, Frazee told Lee to dispose of Berreth’s gun so it would look like a suicide, and then take Berreth’s phone to as far as Utah and use it to throw police off the trail.
Frazee was arrested on December 20th, less than a month after the murder. Because of her cooperation, Lee was sentenced to three years in prison, which was later reduced to 18 months.
In court, Lee testified that Berreth’s last words were directed to her fiancé: “Please stop,” she pleaded.