A Crime Hidden in Plain Sight, A Shocking True Crime Story

On Thanksgiving Day in 2018, 29-year-old Kelsey Berreth went grocery shopping in Woodland Park, Colorado. Surveillance cameras captured her pushing a cart through the aisles of a local Safeway store, chatting on the phone and picking up food for the holiday.

It would be the last time anyone outside her family would see her alive.

Kelsey was a flight instructor and a young mother raising her one-year-old daughter. By all accounts, she lived a quiet life centered around work, family, and caring for her child. When she suddenly disappeared after Thanksgiving, the case quickly captured national attention.

At first, investigators had very little to go on.

But as the days passed, a disturbing picture began to emerge—one involving deception, manipulation, and a murder carried out by someone who knew Kelsey very well.

A Sudden Disappearance

After finishing her shopping that Thanksgiving morning, Kelsey returned home to her townhouse in Woodland Park. Later that day, she sent a text message to her employer saying she would be taking a week off work.

Then she seemed to vanish.

Her phone went silent. Friends couldn’t reach her. Coworkers grew concerned when she didn’t return to work. The silence was especially troubling because Kelsey had never simply dropped out of contact before.

Her family soon reported her missing.

At the center of the early investigation was Kelsey’s fiancé, Patrick Frazee, a cattle rancher who lived about 25 miles away in Florissant, Colorado. The two shared a young daughter but did not live together.

Frazee told investigators that he had seen Kelsey briefly on Thanksgiving Day when he picked up their child.

According to him, everything seemed normal.

But detectives soon began noticing troubling inconsistencies.

Suspicion Begins to Build

One of the most puzzling aspects of the case involved Kelsey’s phone.

After Thanksgiving Day, text messages continued to be sent from her phone. Some went to friends. Others went to coworkers and family members. The messages suggested she had suddenly decided to leave town and needed time alone.

At first glance, the texts seemed to indicate that Kelsey was voluntarily stepping away from her life.

But investigators weren’t convinced.

The messages felt strange—short, vague, and unlike the way Kelsey normally communicated. And there was another problem: despite the texts, no one had actually seen her.

As the investigation deepened, detectives focused more closely on Patrick Frazee.

Eventually, the case would hinge on a witness who had been keeping a secret for weeks.

The Woman Who Knew the Truth

Her name was Krystal Lee Kenney.

Kenney was a nurse from Idaho who had been involved in a secret relationship with Patrick Frazee. At first, she denied knowing anything about Kelsey’s disappearance.

But as investigators gathered evidence, Kenney eventually agreed to cooperate.

What she told detectives changed the entire case.

According to Kenney, Frazee had been planning Kelsey Berreth’s murder for months.

Kenney told investigators that Frazee had asked her multiple times to kill Kelsey. In one alleged plan, she was supposed to poison Kelsey’s coffee. In another, she was supposed to attack her during a visit to Colorado.

Kenney said she refused each time.

But Frazee eventually carried out the murder himself.

Thanksgiving Day Violence

Prosecutors later told the jury that Frazee arrived at Kelsey’s townhouse on Thanksgiving Day under the pretense of picking up their daughter.

Inside the home, he handed Kelsey a baseball bat.

He told her to close her eyes and try to guess the scent of a candle.

When she did, Frazee attacked.

Investigators believe Kelsey was struck multiple times with the bat and killed inside her home.

After the murder, Frazee cleaned the crime scene and removed Kelsey’s body. Prosecutors later said he burned the remains at his ranch.

Meanwhile, the messages from Kelsey’s phone continued.

They weren’t coming from her.

Frazee had persuaded Kenney to send the texts in an effort to make it appear that Kelsey had voluntarily disappeared.

The Investigation Unfolds

As detectives pieced together the timeline, the evidence against Frazee grew stronger.

Cell phone data, surveillance footage, and Kenney’s testimony helped investigators reconstruct what had happened in the days following Kelsey’s disappearance.

Frazee had attempted to destroy evidence, clean the crime scene, and mislead investigators.

But the truth was beginning to close in.

In December 2018, authorities arrested Patrick Frazee for the murder of Kelsey Berreth.

Despite extensive searches, Kelsey’s body has never been found.

A Trial That Revealed the Truth

During Frazee’s 2019 trial, prosecutors laid out the chilling sequence of events that led to Kelsey’s death.

Kenney testified against Frazee, describing the murder plans he had proposed and the steps she took afterward to help conceal the crime. In exchange for her cooperation, she accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to prison for tampering with evidence.

The jury heard about the deception, the text messages, and the elaborate efforts to make Kelsey appear alive after her death.

After deliberating for only a few hours, the verdict was delivered.

Patrick Frazee was found guilty of first-degree murder.

He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus additional years for related crimes.

A Life Cut Short

Kelsey Berreth was remembered by friends and family as a devoted mother, a hardworking pilot, and a woman who had built a life centered on her daughter.

Her disappearance and murder shocked the quiet mountain community where she lived.

For many people who followed the case, one of the most haunting aspects was how ordinary the crime appeared at first.

A young woman went grocery shopping on Thanksgiving morning.

Hours later, she was dead.

And for weeks afterward, the person responsible helped create the illusion that she was still alive.

Learn More About the Case

The full story behind this disturbing case—including the investigation, the trial, and the events leading up to Kelsey Berreth’s murder—is explored in my book The Murder of Kelsey Berreth: A Shocking True Crime Story.